Sometimes there is just too much to keep track of when you have kids. There are days that just keeping up with the library books is too much. Usually there are at least twenty other things piled on top. Homework. Who’s going where at what time. Managing clothing and shoes but the sizes keep changing at a increasingly rapid rate. What’s for dinner. Or what’s not. The list can be endless. I can forget stuff. More often than I want to admit.
When the boys were little, I mixed up some important information. We had signed our boys up for swimming lessons. Our oldest had learned to swim that summer and had far outgrown Preschool B. So the lessons were at two different times but on the same day. Bonus!
Our youngest went first but he didn’t even make it in the door. He had decided he wasn’t going anywhere near the pool without his brother in tow. My husband brought him back home without even going inside to the community centre pool. Thankfully we lived only a five minute drive from there.
Exactly an hour later, I left with a very excited five-year old. We got there, and he changed and we waited for 6 pm. When 6 finally rolled around, Preschool B was called but not Swimmer 1. I began to have a sinking feeling in my stomach. I talked to the life guard and she confirmed my fears. I had mixed up the times. Swimmer 1 had been an hour earlier. Needless to say, my five-year old was not happy with me. I explained to him that everyone makes mistakes, including him and me. In a dejected voice, he told me, “Yeah but you make a lot.” Ouch.
The bright spot in that little parenting misadventure is that at least he learned early on that in the real world people aren’t perfect, even mommies. It was a good lesson for both of us.
We don’t need to be perfect. Being a mother is hard enough as it is.
I really don’t like Mother’s Day. It’s a hard day for so many. Do we really need to see all those touchy-feely, perfect families in the videos, pictures and movies they haul out every year for Mother’s Day? The kind that make you squirm in your seat because you know what happened in your own house before eight am this morning. Or how the wee hours of last night went down. It wasn’t pretty. Not touchy-feely in any way. No warm fuzzy feelings.
Instead of feeling encouraged, I feel depressed. I don’t really need a reminder of how badly I’m doing the job some days.
I know that’s not what it’s supposed to be but that’s what it ends up being for many. A reminder of what they’ve lost, never had or want to forget.
So this weekend, I post my mom-fail. One of many. Because we don’t need to be perfect or even blissfully happy all the time. We just need to be real; with the kids in our lives, with our spouses and with our expectations. Perfection is not bliss. It’s not even real. Authenticity and love is really what it’s all about.
Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.
1 Peter 4:8