You know how sometimes you’re having one of those days, and then God just sends you that thing that you need to see or hear that helps get you through it? Sometimes it’s a friend on the phone or at your door, a text message with encouraging words, or just something that straight up cracks you up. Today, for me, it was a post by another mom on Facebook, and I am so glad I saw it. Even though my situation is totally different from hers (though we both work at home, my kiddos are much older), blogger Amy Weatherly really touched me with her words about struggling with being super mom. And because they meant so much to me, I’m going to share them with you as well.
I needed to read these words because today is one of those days when I have MILES to go before I can sleep. I’ve been running my tail off to get all my work done and get the family ready to go out of town for a long weekend. Parent-teacher conferences loom large tomorrow, as do two work deadlines. And somehow, not already having all this done and wrapped up in a neat little bow at least 24 hours ahead of time has made me feel like a complete failure. WHY are we moms so hard on ourselves?
An-y-waaay…back to Amy Weatherly’s post. Just as I was feeling like giving up on climbing my personal deadline-filled mountain today, I came upon this Facebook post of Amy’s I could really identify with. She posted an exasperated pic of herself and a familiar looking mess and said:
I’m sitting here trying to work, bawling my eyes out.
I have a list a mile long:
– Take care of three kids (two who woke up sick in the middle of the night, but have since rebounded with energy at full capacity.)
– Go to the grocery store.
– Send out the mail that’s been taking up kitchen space for a month.
– Go up to the school and get all the work we missed today.
– Fight with my child and get him to actually do all the work we missed today.
– Get supplies for a meeting tonight.
– Phone conference in an hour.
– Laundry (always laundry).
– Take a friend dinner.
– And now clean up the billion toys that just got dumped on the kitchen floor.And I have absolutely no idea how I’ll ever get it all done before 5 pm today. Even if the gift of time management was mine (which it most definitely is not), and even if we weren’t out of coffee (which we most definitely are, and I’m so sad about it, I can’t even bring myself to discuss it), I don’t see how it’s possible, especially when you fill in the spaces with all the normal mom activities (getting snacks, more snacks, breaking up fights, cleaning up the mess from lunch, making pirate costumes).
It’s just too much.