Keepin' It Rrrrrrrreal.

Dear Kate, Lauren, and Jack's wife,

Women.

Moms.

The Guilty.

We are so good at feeling bad about ourselves.

Do a pinterest Valentine, think it cute and healthy, get to school and find only one other mom even sent Valentines and they are not homemade (but completely sweet and acceptable)....GUILT.

Be the mom who sent the off-the-rack Valentine...GUILT.

Be the mom who forgot it was Valentine's Day....GUILT.

The mom who thought that surely two year old can skip that holiday one more year...GUILT.

We are just good at it.  We are so aware of it that we can let the fear of making another feel guilty stop us from being crafty or staying at home or cooking a meal or sharing our day with others.  

I think about this a lot.  This blog's main purpose is to keep a record for our family.  To be the memory keeper FOR US.  It's for Dan and me.  It's for Kate and Lauren and Jack.  

But, it's also a little for my ego.  It's for the Facebook comments and emails.  It's for the people in Laverne who stop me and tell me they enjoy it and can relate.  It's for me.

But I don't think to post about the crap stuff.  I don't tell you about the afternoons that I ignore the crying/fighting/whining because I'm reading Fifty Shades.  I don't tell you about the cereal-for-supper nights.  I don't tell you that your dad and I sometimes sit in the same room, each on our phones, don't speak, and then go to bed at different times...still not speaking.  Not because we are mad, because we are just so tired and have nothing to say.  I don't tell you about LOVING that all three of you are in Mother's Day Out now.  I never tell you that the hour that you all nap at the same time is my favorite hour of the day.  I would hate for you to know that I count it a successful day by whether or not I got my to-do list done, not by whether or not I sat and played with you.

But real is real.  My real probably looks a whole lot like your real.  So, please never let this record of events make you feel like I was better at it than you are.  I'm not.  Not even kinda.  

Just so you know how the REAL rest of the day that I took super cool Valentines to school went...

*I realized when I got to school that I hadn't brushed my teeth.

*I spent more money than I should have at Target - on nothing of consequence.

*I locked my keys in the van.  I had to knock on the car door of the hot mom who made me feel bad about myself, the one who was sitting in her new Escalade, looking (and smelling) nice, talking on her phone...and tell her that I was about to lay down under my beast of minivan, would she please not back out and run over my legs.

*I lost my debit card.  (Probably on the ground where I laid down at Target, I am NOT going back.)

*I had to meet the plumber to unclog the nasty, stinking disposal and dishwasher at home.

*I had to show the Orkin man where the mouse droppings had been, where the noises come from...

Yes, I made super cute homemade Valentines to take to school when you were two year olds.  But I think we can agree that real is real.  Mind your own business.  And just keeping telling yourself that the hot mom in the Escalade was probably talking to her therapist, 'cause she has no friends. 

And I do love you best.  I do that better than anybody.

-Momma