The phone rang and I eagerly answered it, if only to ensure that this afternoon my husband was coming straight home and not taking any gym or library detours. It was a long day, filled with a teething 4 month old which is new for me because in my other kids this phase didn’t start until much later. My normally sweet, calm, mild natured little babe was replaced today by a fussy, irritable person filled with angst and tears. Compounded by the fact that she was extremely needy was the fact that we were all awake at 6 am and I made a mental to-do list of all the things I needed to accomplish which included 4 loads of laundry, vacuuming, cleaning 3 bathrooms, changing all the linens and replacing them with springtime ones, fulfilling several promises I made and plans I needed to execute with my other kids, etc etc.
Although I miraculously did everything I needed to do; hey, baby wearing is fabulous and I highly encourage it; there was one thing that I came nowhere close to accomplishing. That is: dinner!
So when the phone rang, after a few minutes of casual conversation, I began to say “sorry I didn’t…..” and the thought just trailed off in my mind and out of that this blog post was born.
As a mother, I know this is different in different households but in ours, dinner is my responsibility. Today, I had no apologies. There was no need for a dinner from scratch, or a gourmet meal. My husband and I ate leftovers and my kids ate mac and cheese and fruit..i tried to convince myself it was ok because they were “at least” organic and then again, I caught myself and stopped.
As moms, we need to stop apologizing for hard days, for quick dinners, for snacky lunches, for messy living rooms, for sinks with dishes piled up, for crumbs on the floor, for not having time to get dressed up, etc etc.
And apart from that, we need to be kinder to those women in our lives who have hard days when one or all the above happen.
We guilt trip ourselves into this false sense of what our roles are instead of focusing on loving, nurturing and teaching.
At the end of today, the only things I am sure will matter are the games we played on the floor, the books we read, the pictures we colored and their mac and cheese dinner will satiate their hunger, satisfy their souls and nourish their bodies until tomorrow when we wake up, and do this all over again.
And please know that if you are reading this, and questioning or trying to justify any shortcuts you took today, STOP…because you are enough and if in this moment, you are feeling guilty or confident or not so confident or feeling frayed around the edges, please know that everything will be alright as long as you love with everything you have to offer.
