I wanted to be a stay at home mom. Check. I wanted to take my kids to activities. Check. I wanted to go to all their school functions. Hmm. I go to most of them, but I also wanted to be involved with everything, so X. I wanted to have great snacks and treats waiting for them when they got home. X. I wanted to dress up WITH them on Halloween. X. I wanted to host playdates and parties with really fun decorations and activities. Well, I do have people over now and then, but they are not in the fashion I originally had in mind. X. Just not what I had envisioned.
I know many of you moms can relate. I am doing all that I can. It seems I can't do any more than that. Friday night we went to our trunk or treat at church. It was so fun! We even decorated our car this year and passed out candy. That is a HUGE accomplishment! But we just couldn't get costumes together for Mike and I. Not to mention the expense of a good costume seems a bit silly. (Now if I were going to an adult party or something I'd be all over it!) But I looked at so many other parents dressed up and I must admit, I was envious. I could have done it, so why didn't I? And the truth is I am still so overwhelmed with just keeping everybody safe, dressed and fed, that I just couldn't get to ME. I was telling Mike on the way there, how do people with big families (5 kids+) do it? It's all I could do to get everyone in costume and we barely made it on time. At least on Halloween night I DID throw on a mask which Mackenzie really liked.
Then the next day we had a Halloween party at our house. Just family. Kaitlyn had been begging me to do it. So 2 days before I agreed. I know it wasn't this big huge planned thing, but it would seem putting up a few extra decorations and having some better food would be easy. But it wasn't. I DID have a fun brownie haunted house decorating activity for the kids that was really fun. But you know what I mean? I would like to do more, but I just can't find it in me. And it's this way about so many things. I would like to think this will change a lot as they get older. But I'm not there yet and so it DOES frustrate me that I feel like I am not meeting my own expectations.
However, I don't let anything slide on the important matters. And I'd rather have people over to a somewhat messy and unorganized house than never have people over. So I think I'm doing okay. I just want to be supermom. Maybe I need a cape.
I totally appreciate this post and I get where you're coming from. I had this vision of what kind of mom I would be too but then the good Lord sent us our children in pairs, twice. That pretty much sucked the life out of me and I'm finally just now starting to recover. We're still in survival mode on most days.
ReplyDeleteThere are nights where I realize way after putting the kids to bed that I forgot to read them a bedtime story or I forgot to kiss one of them goodnight. Let's face it, we're so outnumbered with our kids. There's 2 adults and 4 kids...and each kid needs a bath, jammies, teeth brushed...after all that, my head is spinning.
Once the girls are older, you'll probably be able to do more of the things you've dreamed about doing. Just last year, I finally hosted an Easter Party for the kids and all our friends and their kids that I had fantasized about doing for awhile. It was a blast, very successful. But it took me almost 4 years to finally feel like I could actually take it on and have fun with it.
Just keep in mind, you're doing the best you can...we all are. There's no such thing as Supermom. When your kids are all grown up with kids of their own, I'll bet their best memory of you as their mother will be how you were there for them and how much love you showed them.
You are doing great! Just to have all the kids in costumes (that fit) and to an organized activity is hard work. The great thing is, the kids don't focus on what you don't do, they only remember the things that you do. And it sounds like they will have tons of fun memories. :)
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