For my Posterity

In a recent conversation, my sister-in-law was commenting on how she hates blogs. According to her, all of her friends' blogs give the impression that their lives are perfect. Perfect houses, perfect kids, perfect husbands. I've been thinking about that. I 've also been thinking about another conversation I just had with my sister who was lamenting in the midst of a bad "mothering" day that she wished our moms would sometimes tell us all of the gritty details of their own mothering days. . .just to help us feel better and realize it's more normal.
Lately several people have commented to me about how happy I always am- how they don't know how I can be so happy and get so much done. This makes me laugh- and shudder. I hate to think I've mistakenly given anyone this impression. In light of all this, and because I am publishing my blog for my posterity, I want to alleviate any misconceptions.

This is me today. I am not always grouchy, but today I am. I am feeling mean and tired. My house is a horrible mess. I have no desire to clean it. This may be because 24 hours ago it was somewhat clean. (I say "somewhat" with liberty.) Somehow, our house undergoes a spontaneous deconstruction every few hours. Amazingly enough, no one knows how this happens. The shoes, bags, food, wrappers? "I didn't do it". Me either. Some days, I just get tired of cleaning it up again.

The laundry piles are mounting. Funny, because I had it all done just a day ago. Oh, except the baskets were already half full again by the time I put the "last load" in.

I have a church meeting tonight that I don't want to go to. This is silly, because I know I will be so glad that I went. But I still don't want to go.

The girls just spilled applesauce all over the floor. I should have said, "No big deal". But I didn't. I wasn't very nice. I spoke louder than I needed to. I made them clean it up while I gave a mini-lecture on not walking around with food.

As you can see, my attitude is not always positive.

The following pictures are documenting my house today. (I am showing these with the understanding that no one calls DCFS.)

My bedroom. Notice the unmade bed and the dust on the cedar chest that my little darlings have drawn pictures in. Also take note of the bags of clothes on my bed that I bought because I don't have any in my closet that will button up.

This would be the dirt that mysteriously appeared on the window sill. What's the good of a bit of dirt if you can't write in it?

Another clean bedroom. . .Oh yeah, guess I didn't get those sheets washed.

Could this actually be a bedroom?

All the while I am feeling this way, I also realize how blessed I am. In fact, I should feel horrible for even daring to feel grouchy. I realize I have great kids, a beautiful, sweet new baby, a great husband, a nice home, and a terrific life in general. Just not a perfect one. And the older I get, the better I understand that it's okay to not be perfect. It's even okay for me to be grouchy and tired and overweight, and not feel guilty about it all.

Hopefully this will dispel any myths in my posterity that I always had a good attitude, that I was always happy, and that I always got everything done. Who actually does this anyway? I'm not sure of the last time all of those things occurred at the same time. Sometimes I wish that another mom would show up on my doorstep (but just not look inside), and tell me all this is normal. It may be a little sick, but for some reason, it always makes me feel better to hear about another mother's failures.

So, someday when my girls are up to their eyeballs with their own family in diapers, laundry, and hormones, I hope they will read this. I hope they will laugh a little and realize their life isn't quite so out of control after all. Then, hopefully they'll look around like I'm doing now, smile a bit, and realize that the fact that they have so many messes to clean up means they also have a lot of people to love, and who love them back. And then they'll go to that meeting.