Has having kids humbled you like it has me?

I swear, just when you feel like you are on top of things, each child is moving in the general right direction and no one is hitting anyone else, a brand new problem arises and knocks your momfidence to the ground! (Momfidence- I just made that up- you can use that).

Before having kids I of course wouldn’t have said that having kids was easy, per se. But I definitely didn’t think some days would be downright hard to get through.

I just assumed that I’d be a great mom- you know, because I was raised by a great mom who taught me great values!

It never crossed my mind that I would also carry on the torch of some not so great traits straight into motherhood.

I loved my children more than life itself…wasn’t that enough to make me pretty much the perfect mother?

As I found out, not by a long shot.

Motherhood has brought out the best and the worst in me

Examples:

~ I love my kids more than the air I breathe, but when I get asked 90 times in a half hour when can I play Roblox next- I sometimes want to gouge out my own eardrums and ban them from electronics altogether.

~ When we are trying to leave the house and every child is literally meandering in different directions with no apparent purpose instead of streamlining toward the car…I tend to become…impatient, and generally yelling is involved.

~ When I am overly tired because I have taken care of people all day and I want to go to bed, and I tell my kids to get ready for bed…this is the worst possible time for one of them to mention that they didn’t have dinner and now want to make mac and cheese “on their own.”

What I’ve learned about myself through becoming a mom, is that I am not a very patient person, and I tend to say things that come into my head and then think about a more loving way I could have said it later.

So here it is.

This is what my kids have taught me about being the perfect mom

This…

~ They taught me that I am NOT ever going to be a perfect mom, and that is TOTALLY OK with them. They teach me that they want me- not some perfect mom.

~ They teach me that some days, I can just be a mom in survival mode and that they will be OK, and they will still love me, because I’m their mom.

As Amy from Hiding in The Closet with Coffee puts it, “Sometimes we just have to be a mess.” Sometimes motherhood is so dang emotionally hard, that crying and moving into survival mode for a while is all that we can do.

~ They teach me that love isn’t always enough to keep someone from losing their temper, but that forgiveness is given freely when asked for.

~ They teach me that grace shouldn’t be withheld because someone is having a bad day.

~ They teach me that kids are so much stronger, smarter, and understanding than I ever would have thought possible.

I find it fascinating that these are the same principals about love and grace that God teaches, and uses with His children.

I will still mess up as a mom, I will still have rotten days and feel guilty for not being a better mom that day, but I am so thankful to have kids that constantly teach me that It’s Ok to not be a perfect mom, as long as I keep showing up to be THEIR mom.