I just read an excellent post on being real from This is My Life.

I was very inspired, and convicted, and torn. Oh, so many emotions surround this topic.

I am the only one of my close circle of friends that has kids. It is sorta isolating, in a way. My friends are absolutely amazing, but as any mother knows – motherhood is something that has to be experienced first-hand in order to “know”. Ya know?

So anyway, I find it difficult sometimes to be totally real and honest about how the whole motherhood thing is going, because to be honest, sometimes it’s not so pretty. And I’m afraid of putting that out there. I don’t want to be judged. I don’t want to offend. I don’t want to alienate. We women are sorta funny that way, aren’t we?

But I want to be real. And honest.

About things like how in the few months after my son was born, I sometimes wondered in the sleep-deprived far reaches of my mind if maybe I had made a mistake… maybe we should have waited longer before deciding to have children. Or how I felt relieved when we decided to let him cry it out to go to sleep because it meant I could sit down on the couch, and not have to jump up the second he whimpered. Or sitting on the couch watching my recorded episodes of Friends while trying desperately not to watch the clock and count the seconds until Daddy came home. Or the moments where I prayed and pleaded with God to please make him sleep a really long time so that I can have more time to myself. Or how I swore up and down that I would not be the kind of mom that lets her kids watch TV, and here we are at not even 7 months old and he’s totally loving the baby DVD’s I got from the church library. Or how I chose to use cloth diapers and am glad we’re saving money, the environment, blah blah blah, but really I wish I’d just done disposables because they’re easier. Oh, or how about the guilt that I feel every time I read articles about not trying to be supermom, and think about the fact that I just spent all morning on the internet with the TV on and the kid in the exersaucer, and how being supermom is not exactly my problem right now. Oh, and the kicker… I currently hate breastfeeding. It’s difficult, it’s not going well at all, and I’m mentally exhausted over it.

Sigh.

My brain feels all muddled up with sleep schedules and boob issues, sour-milk smelling mis-matching sweats and the guilty conscience that knows I could be a better mom if I chose to do something constructive rather than sitting on the couch.

I will chew on this for awhile, and perhaps write a follow-up that is a little more positive in nature. I love being a mom, really. It just doesn’t always feel warm and cozy.

And I think that’s ok.

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