Motherhood Musings

In years past I think I was still settling into the idea of motherhood. Maybe it is the third kid, maybe it is the pending minivan purchase, or maybe it is the 'boyfriend jeans' that I have been living in that sometimes look a little like "mom jeans" (thank you Mrs. Cruise, btw--fabricated though you may be, at least you gave me an excuse for wearing jeans that allow me to hide my birthing butterfly wings for a bit), but for some reason this year I felt like it was made for me. Not in the "I'm a great mother and so you should thank me" sense, but more in the "I need any excuse to slack off for a day" kinda way.

In the end though, I didn't slack off that much. I got to sleep in, even though C and D woke up for some reason at 6, because Andrew slept on the floor with them for an hour!

Then I got to go to a Bar Method class, which is a huge treat for me as I never get to go anymore (and thank you A for the gift certificate there!). After that we actually split the girls up to do some errands. In the afternoon Andrew and I hired a babysitter and went to see a movie. Yes folks, that was what I wanted to do more than anything else...sit and veg in a movie. We had actually had a full 3 nights of socializing prior to that, which is probably a record for us. So a day of relaxing a bit was great.

But I did think a little about motherhood. And while there is nothing I can say that hasn't been said already, let me just say that the words that kept coming back to me were "amazing, exhausting, frightening." Lately I am so frightened about whether or not I'm actually doing a good job. And I'm not looking for reassurance, I'm just being honest. How do you find the balance between surviving the day and shaping individuals while at the same time keeping yourself sane and married? Sometimes it just seems like too daunting of a task.

So I stopped thinking about that because it made my brain hurt, and I decided to start thinking about my mother. And how grateful I am to have her--the most selfless person I have ever met-- as my mother. And how much I appreciate her now--all that she does for me today and all that she did for me way back when. And how much my girls adore her. And at the very least it gave me a little hope that my kids will appreciate my attempts at parenting someday.

Since it is technically "my day," I thought I'd post my current favorite pictures of each member of my family.

Here is C. She's headed back for another run on the slip n slide in Houston. I love this picture because she has her face and chin jutting out and her shoulders are a little slumped. It is a very "C" pose and to me it shows a mix of determination and goofiness. The little bum sticking out is how she walks--with a little feminine bum sashaying.

Here is D, all dressed up to 'swim' in her room. As her preschool 'review' said, D has a certain "joie de vivre" about her. And this pic gives a little hit of it I think.

Here is Lila B. I like this recent pic because I imagine all the thoughts that might be going through her developing brain. It has a sort of "oh the places you'll go" feeling about it, at least for me. And I love the spit bubbles too.
And last but never least, "Daddy Waddy." This is a self portrait A sent to C and D because he forgot to wave to them from the street as he left in the morning. I like it for more reasons than I could explain without getting sappy, so I'll just give two: because he was even willing to do it just to make C/D happy, and because when C saw it she waved excitedly back at my iphone for 3 minutes.