Category Archives: Honest Mothering

The last few weeks have been a bit of a whirlwind at our house as my two year old approaches the two and a half mark. Just as I was starting to relax because she’s not so tippy when climbing and she plays so well with her sister so I can get something done, she changes it all up on me! The last few days, I’ve been spending all my time chasing that kid around and creating new resolutions for how to keep her safe. I figured I should capture some of her adventures here before I forget them!

Since I don’t post pics of my kids on the blog, you’ll just have to imagine the personality of this little woman. Her darling chubby cheeks, expressive eyes, astounding vocabulary and self-possessed manner remind me very much of Shirley Temple. On the other hand, her determination, reckless risk taking and wacky sense of humor remind me of Margaret O’brien’s character, Tootie, in Meet Me In St Louis. Remember her? She’s kind of like a charming Tazmanian Devil. But her nickname (besides Destructo Girl – which my father-in-law protests) is Monkey.  Here’s a small window into what part of a day with her is like.

Monkey climbs into my bed around 4:30 am and we snuggle and sleep till she wakes around 7:30. She opens her eyes, makes several silly faces at me and says, “It’s morning time, Mommy!!” Me “Don’t you want to snuggle a little longer?” Monkey “Nope, Mama. Let’s have breakfast! How about porridge?”

Waiting for breakfast only results in crazed, wild Monkey so we head downstairs to breakfast. As I prep the food, I find myself hollaring, “Monkey, get off the table!” “Monkey, stop playing with my candle.”  “Monkey, QUIT hitting your sister!!!” By the time she reaches the breakfast table, she’s worked up a healthy appetite. She eats porridge, toast, an egg and some fruit. She wants yogurt too but I tell her to take a break. After eating she plays with big sis (the Princess) while I clean up the kitchen.

In the midst of playtime/cleanup, I see the girls coming down the hall together, giggling hysterically. In a seemingly impossible lack of acrobatic skill, Monkey slips and knocks her back against the corner of the wall. Big sister Princess looks at me, horrified. I reassure her the accident isn’t her fault and check out Monkey’s back. Great. A giant welt has instantly appeared. I apply arnica cream and we get dressed to leave the house.

In the car, we turn on the radio and Monkey asks, “Oh, is that Baby Gaga?” I laugh and answer, “Sort of.” Non-plussed, she remarks, “I like her. She has a good singing voice.” My oldest and I exchange amused smiles in the rear view mirror. We pass a Starbucks and Monkey says, “Oooo, Starbucks! How about a Whoopie Pie, Mom? Those are my favorite!!” I don’t know where she gets these ideas. Of course, I’ve NEVER given her Whoopie Pie. Well, maybe once. Or twice. Look, I’m desperate for distractions sometimes, people! But we don’t buy one today.

We visit Grandma’s house to tend our little garden and Monkey vaults out of her carseat. She races through the house looking for Gram (who isn’t home yet) and settles for the toybox. Since the house isn’t too large and fairly open, I take a moment to talk to my husband’s Aunt in the kitchen, keeping Monkey in the corner of my vision. Suddenly, I can’t see her so I run to the den where the other toys are stored. No Monkey. I run through the house calling her.

Then, I notice the front door isn’t fully latched. My heart lurches into my throat and I quickly call to my Aunt for help then race out front, calling Monkey. Within a minute, my aunt calls me. Monkey has been found, playing in Gram’s bathroom. It takes an hour for my heart rate to return to normal and about one second to make a new resolution. All outer doors must be latched at the top from this moment.

Later in the day, Grandpa takes “Monkey duty” and they play with the toys in the den while Gram and I chat in the living room. Within about 8 minutes I realize, it’s quiet. Too quiet. I call to my father-in-law who says Monkey is MIA.

???!!!

I go straight to the bathroom this time. Laughter and horror fill me at the sight that greets my eyes. Monkey is sitting on top of the bathroom counter (ah!) with her feet and part of her bootie in a full sink of water. Her diaper (not a swimmie) is about to burst and all gram’s special beauty creams are floating in the sink too. Thankfully, most are closed. As I step into the bathroom, I hear a squish and my feet are wet.

“Oh no! Monkey!!” I start throwing towels on the floor as fast as I can while my baby proudly says, “Hi Mama. Look what I did!” I wrap her in a towel and chastise her while cleaning up as fast as possible. Gram comes in about that time and helps me clean up the mess. I’m happy to say my inlaws have a sense of humor and most thankfully – that they don’t have a tub in their bathroom. We finish cleaning up before Grandpa sees the worst of it but his reaction is classic. “Ok. Monkey needs to be watched every moment from now on.”

Um, ok. Good idea.

Wait – who had her last???

The rest of the day isn’t much different minus any more missing incidents since we return to our much smaller (thank God!) townhouse. When I finally get my girls ready for bed a few hours later, my oldest asks. “Mom, are you going to go to bed at the same time as us tonight or later? I weigh the likelihood of getting a lot done without Monkey around to distract me (HIGH) against the realization that if tomorrow is anything like today, I’m going to need as much rest as possible (also HIGH).

Monkey says, “I want to sleep with you Mama.”

She looks at me sweetly out of the corner of her eye and gives me a guileless smile. The list of chores seems rather less important suddenly.

Then, I say, “I think I’ll go to bed now.” And I lie down, wrap my arms around a Monkey and a Princess and fall fast asleep.

This year, like every year, I think a lot about motherhood with regard to my mom and the kind of mom I want to be. So many of my ideas of motherhood and being a woman come from the woman who gave birth to me and spent her life loving me and doing her best to raise me according to her conscience.

But, let me tell you, my mom was so not the perfect mother. As I was growing up, she was often bossy and temperamental. It was her way or the highway and frequently she was unable to see life from the other person’s point of view. She also tended to call me at the most ridiculous hours of the morning – before my alarm clock rang. Grrrrr…!! Talk about annoying! Then, there were the times she really let me down when I thought I needed her most.

In short, my mom was not perfect! ‘Cause, you know, no mother is. There is no “Complete Guide to Perfect Mothering” that we can follow. Not only do I make many of the same mistakes my mom made, I have a whole set of my own that I’m sure my girls will call up someday when they’re sitting in their therapist’s office, wondering at the miracle that they made it through childhood with me as a mother. I definitely find myself losing my cool much too frequently – but it’s hard not to when you find that your two year old has taken off her poopy diaper (AGAIN!) and is running around without one. Ugh. Sorry for the visual but it’s just where I am right now.

On the flip side, my mom also spent her whole life learning how to love me and my sisters and really, everyone who crossed her path.

She became an expert on me and every one of my four sisters. And, like it or not, she was right a majority of the time. No wonder she felt she could give us unsolicited advice 24 hours a day! She constantly told my sisters and I that she loved us completely and that we could do anything we determined to do. She and my dad loved each other and stayed together for over thirty years. Mom was a true friend – the kind you can call in the middle of the night and know she’d answer and come.

To contribute to the household income, mom worked more than full time as a music teacher. Teaching wasn’t just her job, it was her passion. She loved her students and as she did with us, strove to teach them character and commitment along with musicality. When she did anything, she threw herself into it completely. She believed that a life of service to others was a life well-lived.

Her life was definitely well lived. Mistakes and all, she was a person of good intentions and she exceeded the mark more often than not. Her life often gives me food for thought as I travel my own path through life. And, as an adult and a mom myself, I love and appreciate her more and more each day.

Unfortunately, I won’t be able to tell my mom “Happy Mother’s Day!” face to face this year because she died of cancer 5 years ago. While I believe we don’t just end after death and that she can still see and hear me, there are really no words to describe the ache that her physical absence creates in my heart. I thought my mom would be around a lot longer, both to love me and to drive me crazy when she became an old lady.

But this post isn’t something I’m writing so you’ll feel sorry for me. Nope. So – don’t. I had a full life of memories with my mom. But, I do wish that I had appreciated her more when she was still here. I wish I’d made more time for her. I wish I’d been more understanding about what she’d sacrificed for us and how she loved us. She was just like me – doing her best to love and care for her family and live a meaningful life of service.

This weekend I hope, if you haven’t already, you’ll see your mom with new eyes. Because while some have mothers who don’t deserve respect or honor, most moms are just human and need our love and friendship. This weekend, put yourself in your mom’s shoes. Don’t just see her as your mom. See her as a woman, a young lover, a young mom trying to figure out how to balance life and parenthood. See her in her career and as a friend.

Start to realize your mom is pretty stinkin’ awesome. Then, remind yourself that with everything else she does, she’s your mom. Love her for it and learn to be her friend. Don’t just celebrate her on Sunday but cherish every moment you have with her. Realizing she won’t always be there might just give you a new ability to love her just as she is.

By the way, I won’t be alone this weekend. Along with my sweet little girls and handsome love, I’ll be celebrating the good friend and amazing grandparent I am blessed to have in my mother-in-law. There will be a lot of laughter and fun as all the kids race around screaming joyfully. And somewhere in the chaos, I’ll find a quiet moment to whisper a Happy Mother’s Day to someone who I know is still listening.

One of the reasons I started this blog is because of all the random women I meet on a regular basis who confess they feel alone and overwhelmed as they face the challenges of motherhood. This has often been my own story as well. Of course, there are thousands of blogs about mothering. Still, I know there is a place for the Organic Mama Cafe in the blogosphere. It’s a place for us to share honest accounts of mothering in a safe space – read: without criticism – and discover others really do feel the same. And while this post is directed primarily at moms, who have their own special kind of guilt, it applies to all of us lucky enough to be breathing at this moment.

It’s not that we don’t adore our kids and love our families. We do. This is not a rant about how terribly hard motherhood is. But, it does bring major change to a woman’s life! Where before children we spent our time earning degrees or managing jobs where we met deadlines and finished projects with definable results, we now spend our time doing the same chores every day (laundry, dishes, wiping bums, wiping snot – there’s a lot of wiping!) with only momentarily discernible progress. Those noses inevitably start running again and those bums just won’t stop! No matter how much we love our families, the feeling that life will go on like this forever – exhausting, monotonous and unfinished – can be downright depressing if we let it.

So many times as women, we put on a good show. We get dressed for whatever occasion we’re attending, fix our hair, put on our makeup – and our game face. We hustle our kids out the door – stressed and sometimes angry – because we don’t want to be “the mom who’s always late”. We don’t want to admit that maintaining a clean home, raising our kids, being available to our husbands and friends and volunteering at church or in the community while remaining relatively sane is anything but a walk in the park. After all, that mom across the parking lot at school, or church or wherever, seems to be so much more organized and her kids never act up!!  

The isolated nature of mothering in our culture has really been on my heart lately. Because of our fast-paced, technology filled, busy schedules, many of us feel alone in our journey. We don’t always have support systems like extended family or social groups like churches. And, the truth is, we all have days when we feel discouraged, when our kids throw tantrums and when we just want Calgon to take us away (or some organic, natural version of it – Haha!). For some reason, maybe it’s my upbringing, those days often leave me feeling guilty, as though I am failing in my current career choice of homemaking and child-raising. Friends who work outside the home feel the same guilt for leaving every day. And, we’ve all made or heard others make less-than-complimentary remarks about moms who are doing the opposite of what we’ve chosen.

Embarrassed by our supposed ineptitude, we often try to hide it or just maintain an unhealthy isolation until our houses, our kids, our lives are “together” enough to allow someone else into the inner sanctum. But, my friends, appearances are deceiving. There is no perfect mom who has it all together. In my experience, those who seem to be “that mom” have their own set of challenges and perceived failures.

The truth is, our fear of failing and being judged as women keeps us from the relationships that might allow us to be stronger, better at our career of choice and more content with who we are as women. In order to be the best versions of ourselves, we need each other. If we wait till we have all that stuff together, we’ll never, ever invite anyone in!

What would happen if instead of judging ourselves and each other, we just accepted life as it is and put on a smile anyway, called that friend anyway and gave our tantrum-crazed kid a hug instead of a growl? What kind of incredible, empowered, joyful lives would we find ourselves enjoying?

I believe that this is the kind of life we are supposed to be living.

So, I’m going to keep writing – to let you know you are not alone and, most of all, to remind you of the life you are capable of living!

Thank you for sharing your lives with me. Please keep the emails and comments coming – so other moms can see they are in good company.

Blessings,
OM

Organic Mama needs to take a break this week.

In the meantime, here’s one from the archives. It describes where I am right now…

I’ll see you next week…