By no means am I an All Together Perfect Mommy. The seams seem to come apart slowly slowly as the week progresses. I honestly deep down thought I would be an ATPM after a perfect pregnancy of glowing goodness and health. I believed this ridiculous lie all through single hood and even in my married un-pregnant reality. I, the one born of a Great Mother, would carry the tradition and be an ATPM. In my glorified self assessment I used to judge those moms whose children wore their bicycle helmets into stores.
"Why on earth can't they let their children live a little....what are they going to do slip and bonk their heads while shopping?"
Little did I know till recently that they were probably letting their little guy live it up. Or they had such a horrible pregnancy they just had no more fight left in them to get the helmet off their kid.
I remember visiting with a mom of three down in Florida area and standing chatting with her as she prepared for dinner two days down the road. I asked for something to do but in my heart wondered why we had to be busy while we talked. Of All Together Perfect Mommies have unlimited time to sit and drink coffee with friends as their well behaved children play around their feet and dinner cooks itself in a crock pot. Now I know I should have been sweeping her floor, vacuuming, and maybe wiping down her fridge. And I thought I was being thoughtful just to strip the sheets and leave a thank you! Aaah growing in understanding is good.
So as I remember those days when, in my ignorance, motherhood seemed to be so simple as "clear expectations, follow through and family devotions" I laugh (sometimes right out loud) and other times I bite my lip to stop myself from making excuses for the less than exemplary behavior of my children. I also realize any clean home is a miracle home, but I have held longer than I should to the perfect mom has a perfect home lie a little longer than the perfect kids lie! So I clean.
I drag myself out of bed to coffee, I study the word, I cook, I serve, I do laundry and I clean. Today however I have decided to stop cleaning. I have known for awhile now I am not an ATPM but now the cleanliness of my house will reveal this truth. At least my windows. It is a deadly task.
This morning under the guise of high energy I sprayed and wiped down all my windows. This is my second time doing this since arriving. Now that sounds excessive but I have two little people who look out the windows with more than just their eyes. Watching is a full body experience. Which painfully means there are streaks down all my windows, finger prints, hand prints, cheek prints and even forehead prints. Sadly at times there are even tongue prints in slug slidey marks down the front window in the living room.
So I sprayed windex, which I love, and wiped and felt officially proud of myself. Until nap time. I sat down for my 20 minutes of reading and BAM! Bam. A bird. Flew. Right. Into. Our window and died. It fell from the glass onto the little patio table in a sad tableaux of little claws pointing heaven ward and eyes very closed with forever sleep. I could not bring myself to pick it up. It would still be warm. I left it.
I am also going to leave the windows. I much rather have dirty windows than dead birds. Dead warm little birds that I have to clean up. No more windows for me so if you visit and you can't see through my windows know that it is not laziness but rather a fear for my fine feathered friends.
"Why on earth can't they let their children live a little....what are they going to do slip and bonk their heads while shopping?"
Little did I know till recently that they were probably letting their little guy live it up. Or they had such a horrible pregnancy they just had no more fight left in them to get the helmet off their kid.
I remember visiting with a mom of three down in Florida area and standing chatting with her as she prepared for dinner two days down the road. I asked for something to do but in my heart wondered why we had to be busy while we talked. Of All Together Perfect Mommies have unlimited time to sit and drink coffee with friends as their well behaved children play around their feet and dinner cooks itself in a crock pot. Now I know I should have been sweeping her floor, vacuuming, and maybe wiping down her fridge. And I thought I was being thoughtful just to strip the sheets and leave a thank you! Aaah growing in understanding is good.
So as I remember those days when, in my ignorance, motherhood seemed to be so simple as "clear expectations, follow through and family devotions" I laugh (sometimes right out loud) and other times I bite my lip to stop myself from making excuses for the less than exemplary behavior of my children. I also realize any clean home is a miracle home, but I have held longer than I should to the perfect mom has a perfect home lie a little longer than the perfect kids lie! So I clean.
I drag myself out of bed to coffee, I study the word, I cook, I serve, I do laundry and I clean. Today however I have decided to stop cleaning. I have known for awhile now I am not an ATPM but now the cleanliness of my house will reveal this truth. At least my windows. It is a deadly task.
This morning under the guise of high energy I sprayed and wiped down all my windows. This is my second time doing this since arriving. Now that sounds excessive but I have two little people who look out the windows with more than just their eyes. Watching is a full body experience. Which painfully means there are streaks down all my windows, finger prints, hand prints, cheek prints and even forehead prints. Sadly at times there are even tongue prints in slug slidey marks down the front window in the living room.
So I sprayed windex, which I love, and wiped and felt officially proud of myself. Until nap time. I sat down for my 20 minutes of reading and BAM! Bam. A bird. Flew. Right. Into. Our window and died. It fell from the glass onto the little patio table in a sad tableaux of little claws pointing heaven ward and eyes very closed with forever sleep. I could not bring myself to pick it up. It would still be warm. I left it.
I am also going to leave the windows. I much rather have dirty windows than dead birds. Dead warm little birds that I have to clean up. No more windows for me so if you visit and you can't see through my windows know that it is not laziness but rather a fear for my fine feathered friends.
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