Farewell to Summer

It is with mixed emotions that I sigh goodbye to my most favorite of seasons.  I anxiously count the weeks until sunshine fills every crevice and pool days are plentiful.  I soak up and love nearly every minute.

Crocs and flip flops have filled our days, and our activities turnover as quickly as we slip on our shoes.
Eventually I do crave schedules, routine, and the ability to breath between activities.  I'm thankful we say farewell with full plates and memories to savor.

My highlights:

>99.9% of my highlights include people I love, as few things matter more to me than relationships.  But full disclosure, when I think of summer, one of the first memories that pops into my head is a solitude Saturday when hubby had the boys and I had a paintbrush and an old shelf to paint away in the sunshine. Ahhh.
Besides THAT single solitary moment (one of the few in the last 6 years post pregnancy),
I treasure these:

>Commemorating the start of summer with backyard camping.  I hold tender memories of our first Michigan summer in this home and our first summer with a tiny yard

>Watching little Chuck swim across the pool on his own -without floaties - for the first time

>Watching this three year old jump fearlessly off the diving board

>Walking out of the airport in Guatemala to see my brother's face in the crowd of Guatemalans (right next to a sign that said "Big Ass Party" -- in English.  (I'm glad we went home with my brother's driver))

>Strawberry picking with my college roomie

>The Critter Barn + a visit from Grandma

>Relaxing with a gluten free beer at a play date with two of my best friends.  The beer was good, but the friends were much better.

(Picture unavailable as it would incriminate us as mothers...use your imagination)


>Camping with my in-laws!  This is what 10 kids six and under look like:

>Cousin visit with lots of fun packed in

>Good ol' Wisconsin Dells, as cheesy as they come.  We obviously only wore these clothes for the picture, then it was back into our cutoff tanks and jean shorts.  Love my fam.  All 12 of us under one roof.

>Lest our suitcases get lonely, we left town one last time to help marry off a cousin.   Late night with the girls, ridiculous laughter with family.  Ahh...my heart is full just thinking of it.

>And, last but not least, the little in between moments like this one that declare summer, childhood, carefree days, and the preciousness of having a brother to play with that never fails to make my heart skip a beat

Yep, I'm a Terrible Mom

Often.  

And despite the never ending stream of articles I keep reading that tell me I'm not a terrible mom, I am enough, I am fabulous, wonderful, not matter what.

I know the truth.

I sometimes suck.

Like the last two months straight of deciding five minutes before dinner what I would feed my kids, then shoving random crap at them to keep them from saying they were hungry.   Let's see, my recent line up of meals has included:  left over Wendy's crackers for lunch, fish crackers for breakfast, cereal for dinner, and several other forms of crappy white bleached flour disguised as a meal.  This is not feeding my kids, people.  I know better!  I have a couple options in these moments.  Pull up an "I'm okay, you're okay" article and move along with life or - as I did last night - stumble onto a TED video about the importance of healthy food for our kids, and get a good kick of mommy guilt.  The mommy guilt motivated me to drag my kids to the local grocery store this morning, let them pick out fruits and veggies for lunch, and go home to make kale chips.  

Following this kale making process I became somewhat terrible mom yet again when N's consistent whining made the room spin around me.  I literally forced the boys outside without me (which may or may not be terrible, considering N is only three).  And when the whining came back indoors I was growling at him through my teeth (which I thought was fairly calm under the circumstances). In my most terrible of moments, well, even I don't want to be around me.  When hubby walked in the door I started unraveling at him, but quickly realized it was less-than-stellar-mom taking over.   I was tempted to label myself as deserving, look-what-I-put-up-with mom and give my husband an earful. He got half an earful before I realized arguing with my husband in front of the kids is the worst and most difficult to break of my terrible mom-isms.  So I put on my running shoes for the first time in...7 years?...and ran a decent mile. Pretty proud if I can say so myself.  My three bowls of ice cream afterwards rounded the evening out nicely.

I appreciate the concept behind the "you're not a terrible mom" type articles. My most savored moment of the last month was sitting with a cup of coffee with eight other women who each confessed their worst mom moment of the week.  

It was like a unwrapping birthday gifts.  

In the moments of vulnerability it was as if each woman was saying: "You are not alone.  You are not the only woman who looks around at others and thinks 'what do they have that I don't have? How is she pulling off three kids so smoothly when I am a train wreck with two?" ' Come to find out, three is not as much a piece of cake as I assumed from the outside looking in. Turns out, I am not the only who loses her cool trying to get everyone out the door to be somewhere on time.  In the moments of truth I learned I'm not the only woman whose arm hairs raise with insecurity about my house cleaning skills when my mom or mother-in-law walk into my home. {not because of my mom or m.i.l. specifically, I might add, just because I suck at cleaning, which stands in stark contrast to both of them}

But what made the confessions so sweet was the heart of "this is not what I want to choose."  The tears accompanying the admission of coming home from work and losing it within five minutes, knowing that is not the type of mom she wants to be.

I can find solace in knowing that you lose your cool with your kids too.  But ultimately I want to call yelling at my kids what it is - terrible parenting - and be adult enough to chose another course of action in the next moment.  

And following that, I am going to tuck my kids into bed in their un-bathed, disgusting feet (who cares if the sheets aren't clean anyways?), let N skip brushing his teeth for the night because it is my most dreaded moment of the day, snuggle them tightly, read to them, let them know I love them dearly, and call it what it is - a wonderful mommy moment.

{okay, okay, I actually have appropriate Mommy guilt about the teeth brushing.  darn that guilt.  I would much rather skip teeth brushing guiltlessly!}