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One year ago, I made a really scary decision.
I hit "publish."
Actually, that's not true. One year and one week ago I hit "publish." That was January 10. I had this crazy idea to start a blog and write a post about four little words a stranger said to me in Meijer just before Christmas and I hit "publish" and words I had written were out there on the Internet.
But not really.
Nobody really knew it was there, knew to look for it, knew where to find. It took me about 3 days, and I shared that first blog post with my mom. And then my sister. And they both said lots of nice things, which I figured was their duty as my mom and my sister, but they also encouraged me to share it with others. So I did.
But it took me a week.
It took me an entire week to work up the nerve to actually share that first blog post, to put it out there and let someone else read it. I was terrified. But then you came. And you clicked. And you read. And you commented and you "liked" and you "shared." And then it wasn't quite so scary any more.
I came to find out there were other moms...and dads...who had felt what I had felt, been where I had been, lived what I had lived, and connected with what I had written that day. They had needed to hear those four little words...You're a Good Mom...just as badly as I had. They needed to be reminded they were good enough, strong enough, worthy enough to take on the huge role that is parenthood. They needed to know they were not alone.
And then I felt not quite so alone.
For that, and so much more, I say thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you for reading. Thank you for following. Thank you for commenting and "liking" and "sharing." It means more to me than any of you will ever, ever know.
It's hard to believe it's been an entire year since that first post. What an incredible, amazing journey it has been! I am so very thankful for all of you that have come along on this journey with me.
One later, now more than ever, please hear and take these words to heart...You Are a Good Mom.
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In celebration of this "blog-iversary," would you consider sharing your "You're a Good Mom" moment? Share a time when you most needed to be reminded that You're a Good Mom, a time when truly felt like a Good Mom, or even just encouraging words for others to read to remind them that they are a Good Mom. I would LOVE to hear from you! Feel free to comment below on the blog or on Facebook. Thanks!
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If you haven't already, be sure to stop by and check out the "You're a Good Mom" page on Facebook. "Like" it and any new blog posts will be delivered right to your news feed! Thanks!!
It's a New Year, so a new blog post seemed fitting today.
That, and sitting with my laptop, writing a blog entry, falls into the category "Can be Accomplished while Sitting on my Couch in my Pajamas."
Other activities in this category for today include, but are not limited to, holding my sleeping 8-month-old niece, watching the Rose Bowl and drinking coffee while eavesdropping on my kids as they fill the laundry basket with their stuffed animals and send them down the stairs. 2014 is off to a good start!
Because I am, indeed, being so very ambitious on this first day of the New Year, I figured I'd jot down my New Year's Resolutions. They are a work in progress.
A Mom's Revised List of New Year's Resolutions
1. Serve only gluten-free, organic, vegan, free range, low carb, unprocessed, non-GMO foods for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
1. Prepare delicious, homemade, healthy meals for my family every night.
2. Workout every day for 2 hours, while burning fat and building muscle, until I have rock hard gluts and chiseled abs.
2.Lift some weights to remove the "grandma jiggle" from my triceps and run on the treadmill daily.
3. Go to bed by 9:00pm each night and wake up, refreshed, rejuvenated and ready to tackle the day with only optimistic, positive thoughts, at 5:00am each morning.
3. Actually listen to my body, crying out from exhaustion, and go to bed when I'm tired at 11:00pm.
4. Sort, organize and label all of the photographs ever taken of each of my children, and create unique, detailed, creative scrapbooks of each year of each of their lives.
4. Attempt to get all of the digital pictures off of my camera, and use those pictures to make updated picture frame collages to be displayed prominently throughout our home.
5. Purge all unused, outdated, outgrown items from all closets, dressers, bookcases and storage areas. Organize all useful items into color-coded Rubermaid tubs, providing easy acess for any member of the family at any time.
5. Keep toys and clutter picked up by completing one of the 2,354 organizational things I pinned on Pinterest last year.
With these few minor tweaks, these Resolutions might just be within my grasp this year...
Even if a New Year's Resolution isn't my thing, I do feel like a New Year is a chance for a fresh start. It's a time to reflect on the year behind me, and look forward to the year ahead. In thinking about finishing one year and being at the top of a brand spankin' new one, I suppose I do have a slightly different list of things I can focus on.
A Mom's Truly Revised List of the "Me I'd Like to Be This Year-lutions"
1. Be more patient with my kids. And my husband. And myself.
2. Live in the moment, and appreciate every one of them God has blessed me with.
3. Laugh more. Worry less.
4. Let go of the guilt.
5. Trust myself and my instincts.
The moral of this story is as a New Year arrives, don't be too hard on yourself. In this season of Resolutions, take a minute and celebrate all that was right and good and wonderful about last year. Cut yourself some slack, and remember that while it's good to lose 5 pounds, clean our your closets and create a budget you'd like to stick to, even if those things don't quite play out the way you imagine, you are doing the thing that matters most...You're a Good Mom.
Every day when you wake up and change diapers, pack lunches, read bedtime stories, wash underwear, run the dishwasher, drive to basketball practice and tuba lessons and drama rehearsals, you have carried out the very best Resolution of all: loving on your kids. The everyday, seemingly mundane tasks you are doing day in and day out, that sometimes don't feel very "resolution-y" or life changing at all, are some of the most important. You have resolved to stay committed to the most wonderful, exhausting, exhilarating, boring, rewarding, thankless job on the planet...Motherhood.
So Happy New Year! Bring on 2014! May it be filled with blessings beyond your wildest dreams and may the worst days of the year ahead be better than the best days of the year behind.
Remember, You Are a Good Mom.
There is no Resolution you need to make about that.
[And to every one of you that told me over the holidays you missed my blog posts, or asked me in the last few weeks if I had written anything new, or inquired if your iPhone somehow deleted my blog from the Internet, thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You can totally take credit for this post actually making it to the great big world wide web. You were the kick in the butt I needed. You actually read this entire post. You rock.]
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If you haven't already, be sure to stop by and check out the "You're a Good Mom" page on Facebook. "Like" it and any new blog posts will be delivered right to your news feed! Thanks!!
So this is it. This is me starting a blog. I'm not really sure what I'm doing or what I'm supposed to write. I feel like I should have something profound to say that would be worth putting out there for someone else to read. It should be funny. It should be poignant. It should be eloquent. It should be worth whatever space it is taking up on the Internet. The first blog entry on a blank page in the blogosphere... Oh, the pressure...
And so I suppose that is where this all begins. Pressure. The pressure that comes with being a mom. The pressure we put on ourselves. The pressure we inadvertently put on each other. The pressure the rest of the world puts on us. But most of all, the pressure we put on ourselves.
I had been toying with the idea of starting a blog for about six months, after a dear friend had suggested starting one (Thanks, Tara! :), but I had yet to act on it. Nothing had hit me as far as having anything to say about anything. I had lots of experiences and lots of feelings on lots of things (and oh don't you worry...that will all come later!), but nothing that really rang true or felt authentic that other people could relate to that I could actually start a blog about. That all changed after a grocery shopping trip to Meijer with my toddler and preschooler in tow. (Enter collective sigh by all moms here...)
I had embarked on our weekly grocery shopping trip to Meijer with my 4-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter. As always, it was my lofty goal to get the things on my shopping list, check out, load the car and get home without a.) losing a child or b.) losing my mind. This particular shopping trip was in the middle of a business trip my for my husband and the Christmas season. Double whammy. Needless to say, there had not been much sleep in our house, and the kiddos were getting a little sick of the "all mommy, all the time" show. We were far enough into Dad being out of town that everyone was tired, but not yet close enough to him being back home to have that "light at the end of the tunnel" feel. I was looking especially lovely, having not slept through the night in a few nights, and not showered in just as many days, I'm sure.
We were slogging up one aisle and down the next, and had avoided a couple melt down situations with the distraction of Goldfish crackers, the highlight of getting to walk by the cart for an aisle instead of being strapped in, or the special job of going to get a requested item off Mom's list. This had been, and was continuing to be, an extra long trip, as I was not only doing our weekly grocery shopping, but also the Christmas grocery shopping for the family gathering of 25+ we'd be having at our house soon. Things were actually going relatively well, all things considered...and then we hit the baking aisle. Oh, the baking aisle...
Per our advent activity calendar that I was attempting to do with my kids, we were getting supplies to bake a birthday cake for Jesus for Christmas day. We have never before done this, but I thought, "What the heck, let's give it a try..." I told the kids they could pick out sprinkles and frosting to decorate the cake. They approached the shelf, and of course wanted totally different things. As I looked up, my son had his hand raised and was coming down at full force to deliver a mighty blow to his younger sister, who was no doubt, aggravating him. A birthday cake for Jesus and we are hitting each other over it. Perfect. I think that parable was somewhere in the New Testament... Anyway... Moments before my son could make contact with his target, I reached out and quickly pulled them both back by me. The aisle was pretty much empty, but the last thing I needed was two kids in major melt down mode in Meijer, with a finished list and a check out lane miles away!
I'm not gonna lie. I was pretty close to losing my mind at that point. There were a lot of deep breaths being taken. I kept my cool the best I could and tried to talk as calmly as I could to my kiddos, and we all worked through the issue without physical violence or crying on anyone's part. (In general, I consider this a good day...) I was feeling pretty much at the end of my rope and like my last ounce of energy and patience had just been sucked out of me, and I still had about half a shopping trip ahead of me. As I finally loaded the kids back in the cart and we were getting ready to finish up our list and survive yet another week in the saga that is the Meijer trip, a woman in her 40s came walking calmly down the aisle, pushing her cart, without any kids in tow. She didn't slow down, she didn't stop, she just casually walked by and leaned over and said "You're a good mom," smiled, winked and kept walking. She had no intention of having a conversation or talking to the kids, as many people do when we grocery shop. She just wanted to deliver that message and move on.
That was it. Four little words. Nothing more, nothing less.
But they were the four little words I needed to hear the absolute most in that moment. They weren't in judgement. They weren't in praise. They weren't meant to begin a conversation. But they calmed me and encouraged me and made me smile when I felt like crying. They gave me the energy and patience I needed; that my kids needed me to have. Those four little words did, however, begin thoughts for me about what we do day in and day out as moms, how we question and second-guess ourselves, how we push ourselves, how we give every ounce of ourselves and sometimes still feel like we come up short. The quiet, simple encouragement of one mom to another at the moment it was needed most. This rang true. This felt authentic. This felt like something I could say something about.
In all the thinking, in all the pondering, in all the wondering for six months about writing something and putting it out there...that's it. That's what this blog is going to be about...at least for now.
You're a Good Mom. They are not my words, but her words. A total stranger in Meijer, who gave me the gift of those four little words at the moment I needed it most. She will never know what a gift those words were and continue to be.
You're a Good Mom. Because you need to hear it. Because I need to hear it. Because we all need to believe it...of ourselves, and of each other.
I figure that whenever you visit this page, at the very least you will read that title and know those four little words were meant for YOU in that moment...
YOU are a good mom.
No matter where you are, what you are doing, how you are feeling...
You ARE a good mom.
No matter what the day has held or the future may hold...
You are a GOOD mom.
No matter if your baby is a week old, or is now having a baby of her own...
You are a good MOM.
Just by swinging by this little piece of the world wide web, no matter if you stay to read anything or not, you have heard the message YOU ARE A GOOD MOM and I hope you take it to heart.
So there you have it...I guess that takes the pressure off me having to say something funny, poignant, eloquent. Taking the pressure off? I think that's a pretty good place to start...for all of us.
