Less than Perfect Mom

Welcome to Mom Motivation Mondays where weekly contributing writers share their motherhood experiences to encourage you to find the joy in being a mom.

{This week: Post by Heather}

Until this year, I never fully understood what my parents talked about when they said each year went by faster than the last. I am now painfully aware that in order to truly feel the effects of this statement you have to be one of two things: above a certain age or a parent.

As I sit here typing this, I am struck with the thousands of possibilities of what I could resolve to do over the next year. When I was younger I made a resolution simply out of tradition. I never really thought too deeply about it. I just picked something and went with it. Eventually, in my twenties I simply gave up on resolutions. I didn’t have the time or the notion to make a silly resolution I knew in my heart I wasn’t going to accomplish.

Imagine my surprise when this year I started coming around to the idea of making a resolution. At first, I was alarmed my perspective was changing. Maybe it’s my getting older and knowing this year will be over before I know it and with it I will be one year older. Maybe it’s the fact my girls seem to age faster than is humanly possible.  It could possibly be all the motivational and life books I have been picking up by the caseload as of late. Whatever the reason this year a resolution sounded like a grand idea.

There are plenty of things I could focus my attention on throughout the New Year in the traditional sense, but I was looking for a resolution that was larger than the obvious. Then yesterday it hit me. The excitement coursed through me as I laughed at how obvious my resolution was. Isn’t there a saying about, how you can’t see what’s right in front of you? That clearly applies to me.

So, what is my non-traditional, super awesome resolution? It might be surprising or down-right confusing for some (psst…I tried it out on my friends and the raised eyebrows I received meant a follow-up explanation was not only necessary it was imperative).

If you’ve read any of my other posts such as this one or this one you know I am a self-declared Type A personality with OCD tendencies. I have two very different sides to my personality. On the one side, I can be lively, spontaneous and over the top and then on the other I like to have a place for everything and everything in it’s place mentality. So basically, most days I come out as a neurotic, perfectionist, seeking to be the perfect mom. I call ’em like I see them even when I’m being reflective about myself.

It’s all fine and good and I know a lot of people can relate to the need for things to be perfect. What wasn’t fine was I was noticing both my girls picking up on my perfectionist behaviors, and I can’t deny the sinking I felt in my heart.

I don’t want to rob them of their uniqueness and their individuality.

I don’t want them to freak out about things the way I do.

I don’t want them to think that love comes from a place of perfection.

I don’t want them having a melt down on Christmas day because it’s too overwhelming. (True story about Christmas day even though I’m cowering in the corner as I admit that.)

After I witnessed some of the incidences of perfection from my own girls I felt at a loss of what to do. What had I done? Could I fix it? How would I do that? As I was thinking about all the resolutions I could make, of all the things most important to me or what would make a difference I realized this could fix everything.

My 2016 Resolution is to be the less than perfect mom.

I resolve to quite literally not yell about “spilled milk”. I don’t want to teach my girls to take every single moment seriously. I want to show that some things in life need to slide off your back and not everything is as important as it seems in the moment.

I resolve to get down on the ground and play and play and play some more with my kids even when there’s other work to be done. I’ve lived by the sentence, “I’ll be there after I’ve finished this.” The thing is nothing is ever completely finished or “perfect” and wasting time doing this instead of being with my girls is wasting my life.

I resolve to stop worrying they messed up another outfit with stains I can’t get out. I love the clothes at Target anyway so this will just be an excuse to pick up a new cute outfit

I resolve to embrace everything with my children, just as it is. There will be good and bad, fun and sad, happy and tantrums (ohhhh the tantrums), grinning and pouting. Through it all I need to remember they are just little girls. Even when I catch myself saying, “You’re seven you know how to act” I think only seven short years ago I was delivering a precious and completely vulnerable tiny person in the world.

I resolve to stop trying to make everything so picture perfect because let’s face it life is hardly like that. This is a big one for me. If I don’t show them that there is another way in life they won’t understand when things aren’t perfect in life. Life is messy by nature and trying to fight against it all the time is futile. I’ll embrace the messy.

Each year feels like it moves along faster than the last, so I resolve to not waste any time. I resolve to be the less than perfect mom who will become exactly what her girls need her to be each day. And in that I will surely find the perfection I have been chasing.

Do you have a goal for the year that will benefit not only you but your family? How did you come up with a resolution that will last the entire year?

 

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Heather lives in Florida with her husband, two girls and two pups. She is a lover of most things in life, too many to name here without scaring you, but a few include working out, learning new recipes, Pinterest, organizing (yes, it’s true!), home decor and learning to lead a more minimal and purposeful life.

At the end of 2014, she was feeling unhappy, burnt out and discouraged but couldn’t pinpoint exactly what was making her feel that way. She started Just Becoming Me as a venture to better understand herself and what will lead her towards a more fulfilling life. Her motto is: “We only have one life, and I want to learn to live mine in a way that gets me excited to jump out of bed.”

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Enjoy your time at home!