My friend Janice and my sister sent me a link to this blog on the same day. This post in particular was touted as "the greatest blog post ever written". And I have to agree.
I'm done lying; being a mom is just plain grunt work 23 out of 24 hours a day. It's hard, hard work. It's the hardest thing I have ever done. Sometimes it takes superhuman strength to keep standing and peeling the kiwis and steaming the broccoli and putting plate after plate of nutritious food in front of three crying individuals who are complaining that they are too tired to eat or want a piece of bread with butter or they don't like chocolate milk even though I'm the only mom around who doesn't make them just suck it up and drink white. There are large parts of me that want to yell "Just forget it! Feed yourself! Forage around for butterscotch chips and help yourself to the Diet Mountain Dew. I don't care. And while you're at it, don't take a nap if you don't want to. I want to bludgeon someone at the end of it anyway because all you did was thrash around and moan about wanting Daddy and you woke the baby up with your shrieking." But the point is that I don't. I pick myself up, forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on to shape these eternal creatures placed in my care. And meanwhile, it's shaping me.
3 comments:
Amen, sister. I've been feeling much better about my days after reading that post. And much less guilty about the fact that mothering is in general incredibly frustrating.
I have great kids, so does that mean I'm doing something right? Or does it just mean that their natural good-naturedness hasn't bee squashed by their cow of a mother yet? Not sure. Not sure.
Am I being shaped? I sure hope so.
But thank you for posting this. Especially as I'm gearing up to fight the daily breakfast battle.
I loved this post too. Her writing reminds me a lot of yours.
Oh, and ditto on the chocolate milk thing. It's practically dessert. Drink it.
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