Yesterday morning, I met my preschooler's new classmate and his mom....and dad...and grandmother. I know it's the kid's first day at preschool but how many people does it take to drop him off? The kid was cute, a little boy, and his mom was...perky. Way too perky to be a working mom, but she was dressed like she was going to a job. Why else would her kid be in preschool? I thought.

As my son clamored for his breakfast bar, I looked at the new kid's breakfast: sliced grapefruit (what 2 year old eats grapefruit?? not mine, I can tell you) and some egg concoction. I asked his perky mom about it. "Oh that. *smile* it may be a Pintrest fail *laugh* but I tried. It's a mixture of egg, kidney beans..." (her son eats these like candy! *laugh*) some veggies and i think she said waffles? I dunno, I had stopped listening. I was too busy thinking "who in the fudge has time to do that crap?" Certainly not me, as I handed my 2 year old his breakfast bar which he happily consumed, not even looking twice at his classmate's Pintrest quiche. I liked her, but she was teetering on the edge of annoying.

So, rewind to last night. I race home with my family to get cleaned up and changed, throw together some chili and shove it down everyone's throat (had to make pizza for the tween, he doesn't like chili, while the 2 year old took about a zillion years to eat 3 bites of now room temperature chili) ignore the 2 year old's request for ice cream and threw some Reese's Pieces at him for using the potty at school, hurriedly clean the dishes that I could, then race out the door for the tween's awards ceremony at school. Who the **** has time for mini quiche baking? Ok, maybe I *have* the time, but do I want to spend it baking mini-quiches? No.

The point of this whole story is while I started questioning my worth as a mom and started feeling bad because my son didn't have homemade quiche breakfast thingies at take to preschool, he was still happy and he thought I was the best mom ever, I could see it in his eyes. I could see the same look in my tween's eyes when I told him I was proud of the award he won that night, even after I asked if he had a girlfriend because I thought I wasn't involved enough in his personal life (that's a good thing to a 12 year old boy. You're his mom, not his homie) then I felt bad because I told him that his female friend's name sounded like a stripper's name. He still laughed though.

So even if you think you're a sub-par parent, all you have to do it look into your children's eyes and see the love that is there, and know that you're doing ok. In fact, to them, you're the best parent in the world.