The other day, a friend shared a link on Facebook, to an article by Alissa at Creative with Kids.

It was entitled You Know What Will Ruin My Kids? or

Banishing the Should Mama

I am such a “Should” Momma, at least in my head.  I look around my house and think, “If I was a good Momma, we wouldn’t have fire ants (more on that later,) our windowsills wouldn’t have dead mosquitos on them, there wouldn’t be dirty laundry, we wouldn’t be out of fresh carrots and the new seedlings would already be planted.

When we are at a playdate, I think,”If I was a good Momma, my children would sit quietly for Storytime, my son would never push or hit or yell, my daughter wouldn’t tell me “No,” and for that matter, I could put my daughter’s hair in a tie and she’d leave it there.

I blog, fairly often.  I have guilt about this sometimes, too.  It isn’t because I push for “me time,” but because my husband pushes me to do something that isn’t for the kids.  Even if no one responds, I am talking to (or at, I suppose) adults.  This is therapeutic.

I do love my Stay-at-Home life.  I am blessed.  I will say it again and again.  My stresses are purely related to my blessings.  I wouldn’t trade with anyone else.  BUT, it isn’t always pretty.  The faces aren’t always smiling.  The voices aren’t always laughing and we aren’t always having fun.

Why a lengthy break?  Because we just finished up nap time and I was blogging while I was waiting for Baby Girl to awaken and then we came out into the loft (Little Man was napping with Big Man,) to find a drawer of craft supplies had been ransacked.  Glitter was everywhere!!!!  On/in the recliner, all over the kids chairs & their cupholders, all over the floor and the stairs, trailing to downstairs.  And that is just the glitter.

Ooooooooh!  I’m not going to get into the range of emotions and responses.  But the long break was neccessary to clean up.  That wasn’t an easy task  And then, since I was a mess and vacuuming anyway, I figured that giving my husband his hair cut was probably a good idea as well, so we did that too… while my son bathed to remove the glitter from his body (SO MUCH GLITTER!!!!,) and we discussed the range of reasons our son made that mess and who was responsible (all of us.)  So stressful.

And this is so much more so true because of the never-ending streams of self-criticisms that I’m good at to begin with, without reasons like glitter all over the floor and house.

At the end of the day, if we had a perfect house, and my kids slept in their own beds, and I went and had my hair and nails done and looked like a model… my kids wouldn’t have what they want so much of the time… Me.  And, as Alissa put it, they NEED ME.  Thanks, Alissa… I needed that article.

Really, when this is the view I get at night… I can’t really drown in my self-induced stress. I need to soak up the peace and the innocence and the joys.  And just BE me.