I’m never a perfect mommy. In fact, I’m rarely an excellent mommy. I aim for “good enough” and like to believe I generally fall somewhere in the range of “great.”
But, really, what is “great”? It’s something we exclaim when we’re excited about something that’s happening. It’s also something we moan when things don’t go as planned. “Great” is a double-sided coin in which you have a 50/50 chance of getting the exciting side or the disappointing.
I feel like a failure. A lot. I rarely meet my own expectations but am more than happy when everyone makes it to bedtime in generally good shape (even if they’re unbathed or a little banged up from the day.)
I’m not the blogger I want to be. I’m not the patient toddler caregiver of my pre-mommy days. I never have the time to teach my preschooler “essential life skills” like recognizing letters and correct counting. I haven’t taught ballet in over a year and haven’t taken class regularly in almost two. Lunch might be leftovers or lunchables and dinner (if I even remember to make it before running the crew to gymnastics) is some meat slow-cooked with some vegetable that my kids will mostly likely say “doesn’t look good.”
I’m a far cry from the shiny homeschooling mommy who has it all together.
And I regularly doubt every decision I’ve ever made.
What was I thinking wanting 4 kids?! Was moving to our new house really the best choice?! What if we had stuck it out in Dublin?! Why on earth did I think I’d ever succeed at homeschooling?!
You see, I’m good at planning. I’m horrible at follow through.
After many attempts at organizing our lives and homeschooling, stickers became my Savior. Each girl gets two sheets a week (one for math and one for language arts) and they sticker their completed pages. When the stockers are gone, their work is done for the week.
It’s an awesome way to ensure they’re getting their work done and keeps me from having to constantly count their pages and tell them how much more there is to do. The stickers say it all.
But where those stickers tell my girls their work is done, it means my work is just beginning. Because when they are done, I have to look it over and help them correct their mistakes.
And this is where I’ve been failing. It takes a lot of time to look over 100 pages every week. And I’m tired. So tired. Or at least that’s my excuse for not doing it.
So while I make sure my girls are diligently completing their work (threatening to take away library trips and gymnastics class of they don’t), the truth is that I don’t regularly hold up my end of the deal.
I finally forced myself to sit down and look over their work a few weeks ago. My eyes welled with tears when I realized I hadn’t done it since May. I felt overwhed by the hundreds and hundreds of pages I had to review but more angry with myself for not being a better mommy.
I sat with a stack of books, two months of hard work my girls put in, that I never even bothered to look at.
It took me a few nights to get through all the books. I meticulously circled the things that needed corrected and stickied the pages that needed to be fixed.
I handed my fourth graders her stack of books, stickies sticking out all over the place and said “this is going to be a correcting week, let’s try to get all this fixed before our trip!”
I saw her face fall and could feel her anxiety. But instead of walking away and puttong it back on her, I took responsibility for my mistake and told her we’d be going over it together.
I gave up hours of blog work, multiple naptimes and chit chat time with my friends in order to sit with her and help her understand her mistakes. Because we all make mistakes and I needed to take responsibility for mine.
It was a daunting task and we peeled those stickies off, one at a time as we went. And instead of tossing them in the trash, we slowly filled up a container. A tangible reminder of how much we accomplished as we worked through the stack of books.
We didn’t get it done before our trip (we brought two books along with us) but that container was overflowing when we left. Neither of us gave up and we only found ourselves in one big argument.
Mommying has taught me a lot about life and a lot about myself. But most importantly, it’s taught me that you can’t change the past. You can’t actually go back and fix your mistakes but you can learn from them and be better going forward. And that’s all I’ve ever aimed to do.
I just hope to be better today than I was yesterday.
