The Un-Martha Me
I woke up this morning and remembered what it is like when it is cold outside and the windows providing the barrier between myself and the chilly breeze are simply a single piece of 75 year old glass with barely any insulation value at all. NOT complaining...just chuckling to myself at where we've been and where we're at! :)
I later called a girlfriend to ask a question and we started chatting and laughing about the craziness in our lives brought on by having a small army of littles to care for...things like how a basket of clothes can sit untouched in the corner of a room for months because it begins to blend in or the chair in the corner of the living room that will have the same paint tarp on it 6 months from now because it is what is eventually going to become a slip cover for said chair!
I confidently stated that if a bunch of us real moms got together and wrote a book, it would certainly become a best seller, to which she told me about a book called "Sh*tty Mom: The Parenting Guide for the Rest of Us". When I looked it up, I laughed just imagining the content inside each chapter! Sigh...someone has already beaten me to the punch! I'm sure I can relate to oh...99% of the stories the book contains! Maybe not that many, but lots, I'm sure. Maybe if it is at the library sometime soon, I'll check it out.
We concluded our conversation justifying our unruly homes, sweatpants, and lost library books, despite the desire to appear that Martha has nothing on us! Our priorities are just in a different place. My dining table still has remnants of breakfast on it, because of other things that needed my attention more:
The leaves are falling now, and they needed to be raked into a pile. This couldn't wait, and Joe was concerned that we only had enough leaves to make the "smallest pile in the universe". Everything else was put on hold until leaves could be raked...
after all, we couldn't let the day get away without making a perfectly good leaf pile to jump in!
It may take some time, and even daily reminders that the memory of mom raking a big pile of leaves specifically to jump into will be much warmer and welcome than the one of the alphabetized pantry shelves or the picture perfect linen closet...evenif when the leaves are tracked into the house later! :)
I later called a girlfriend to ask a question and we started chatting and laughing about the craziness in our lives brought on by having a small army of littles to care for...things like how a basket of clothes can sit untouched in the corner of a room for months because it begins to blend in or the chair in the corner of the living room that will have the same paint tarp on it 6 months from now because it is what is eventually going to become a slip cover for said chair!
I confidently stated that if a bunch of us real moms got together and wrote a book, it would certainly become a best seller, to which she told me about a book called "Sh*tty Mom: The Parenting Guide for the Rest of Us". When I looked it up, I laughed just imagining the content inside each chapter! Sigh...someone has already beaten me to the punch! I'm sure I can relate to oh...99% of the stories the book contains! Maybe not that many, but lots, I'm sure. Maybe if it is at the library sometime soon, I'll check it out.
We concluded our conversation justifying our unruly homes, sweatpants, and lost library books, despite the desire to appear that Martha has nothing on us! Our priorities are just in a different place. My dining table still has remnants of breakfast on it, because of other things that needed my attention more:
The leaves are falling now, and they needed to be raked into a pile. This couldn't wait, and Joe was concerned that we only had enough leaves to make the "smallest pile in the universe". Everything else was put on hold until leaves could be raked...
after all, we couldn't let the day get away without making a perfectly good leaf pile to jump in!
It may take some time, and even daily reminders that the memory of mom raking a big pile of leaves specifically to jump into will be much warmer and welcome than the one of the alphabetized pantry shelves or the picture perfect linen closet...even
