You Are Not A Bad Mom

As far as being a mama goes, I'm fairly new to this gig, being only 2.8 years into it. But, despite being something of a rookie, I've become really good at one of the seemingly key maternal skills in my short tenure as a mother: I'm really good at feeling guilt and really bad at believing that I'm doing a good job loving my babe. Case in point, I'm currently feeling guilty about the following things (specifically regarding motherhood, which means I won't be mentioning how much chocolate chip banana bread I just ate):

1. It's raining here and I didn't send Sam to preschool with a raincoat. #badmom
2. I haven't finished Sam's baby book yet. #scrapbookfail
3. I let Sam watch cartoons while I took a shower and blowdried my hair this morning. #negligentparent
4. Sam didn't eat enough for breakfast and now I'm worried that he's hungry at school, which is obviously my fault because I didn't give him something that he wanted to eat for breakfast (i.e. cookies, rice krispie treats, goldfish). #mychildisprobablymalnourishednow
5.  Sam is almost three and not yet potty-trained. #worstmomever

Ridiculous, right? And that's just a sampling of all the things I will feel guilty about today and then subsequently hear the tape-recorder in my brain click on, repeating this same phrase over and over: You Are A Bad Mom.

But, you know what? I'm starting to realize that that is just a big, fat lie that I'm letting be the backdrop of my parenting experience. Somehow, I've let the Today Show, Parents magazine, mommy-blogs, Facebook, well-meaning friends, random people in the grocery store, and a plethora of other various entities control how I see myself as a mom. And, in the midst of all those voices telling me that I'm failing, I forget to hear from the Lord, who determined that I should be a mom in the first place.

I have this feeling that I might not be alone in this cycle of guilt and insecurity and general feelings of maternal failure. (Can I get a witness?) If you're like me, maybe you've been letting other folks determine your perception of what kind of mama you are. Maybe you've been forgetting what's true, like I have.

Remember that scene in Good Will Hunting where Robin Williams' character keeps telling Matt Damon's character, "It's not your fault, It's not your fault, It's not your fault..." until that truth finally sinks into Matt's heart and he breaks into a million pieces and weeps uncontrollably on Robin Williams' shoulder? Well, that's kind of what I'm trying to do right now (minus the breakdown/tears), so let this sink in.

You are not a bad mom. 

You are not a bad mom.

You are not a bad mom.

You might be a tired mom, a sick mom, an overwhelmed mom, a sad mom right now and maybe one of these factors means your child eats PB&J three meals in a row today, or watches Cars 2 on repeat for a while, or has a breakdown at the restaurant over a toy you forgot to bring. None of the above makes you a bad mom.

Do you love your babies? Do you believe that God gave them to you specifically? Would you do anything physically possible to make sure that they are safe, cared for, protected, loved on? Then, feel some freedom, sister, and stop believing the Enemy's lie that you are not enough. He's not the boss of you.
 
So, ease up on yourself. Ease up on the other moms you know. God gave you the babies He gave you on purpose and you are exactly the right mom for them. God gave them to you, but He also gave you to them.

     And here's a gratuitous picture of this mama and her babe. And, yes, that is an

     "I Heart Great Clips" sticker. Explanation can be found here.

The Edge of Crazy

Have I mentioned that I have a seventeen month old boy? My sweet little bundle of baby turned into a two foot whirlwind who has very nearly pushed me to the edge of crazy town. It's hard to explain this sort of crazy if you don't have a toddler of the male persuasion. I find that I can barely put into words the mind-numbing tiredness, the loss of memory, the inability to put more than three words into a sentence that I'm experiencing these days. Basically, my whole day is spent trying to keep this little person alive, which means saving him from self-destruction and death-defying acts about once every twelve minutes. I am severely underpaid.

Lately, Sam has learned some new things. Things like climbing up onto the sofa, climbing up into a chair, how to stand on unstable things like small coolers and plastic firetrucks, and how to open and shut heavy sliding doors. Grandparents have declared all of these things, among others, to be evidence of an obvious budding genius. I have other ideas about this, some might even call them concerns. Like, how long will it take for my son to figure out how to climb onto the roof? start the car? open an email account? thumb a ride? I can't help but worry that while my brain seems to be slowing down, his is developing at such a rate that by next month, he may be writing this blog for me or possibly building a bomb.

No one told me that having a seventeen month old could actually cause me to lose my mind. I understand a little better that old saying about people in difficult circumstances (i.e. banished to Siberia, kidnapped by pygmies, living undercover in the witness protection program, etc.) being "driven to drink." I've been driven to a bag of chocolate chips more times than I care to confess. (On Saturday I bought two more bags just for emergencies. It's Monday and I have one bag left.)

Some symptoms of my very possible loss of sanity: I frequently find myself to be on the edge of tears and laughter at the same time. I imagine going on vacation all by myself. I daydream about how much free time I'll have when I'm in my sixties. I constantly make the same to-do lists over and over and then subsequently lose those lists. I enjoy staring into space. ETC.

I do find a small measure of comfort in knowing that seventeen month olds become eighteen month olds and those eventually become two year olds and they go to school at some point and they all graduate one day and move out and start their own little families. I don't want to wish these days away but I am more than a little relieved that I won't always have a seventeen month old. In fact, my sanity depends on it.

This past weekend, just in time for Mothers' Day, I saw a card with J.D. Salinger's quote "Mothers are all slightly insane." I enjoyed the cleverness of his pithy little saying that was so obviously just J.D. being silly. And, then, after half a bag of chocolate chips and some serious wall-staring, I decided that J.D. was right. Only now I'm wondering if "slightly" really covers it.