It's Not a Competition

 I wish I got along better with other women.  It’s not like I start fights with people or anything, but it is hard for me to connect with other members of my gender.  It’s especially hard when I start comparing my life to the other mothers.

There’s the mom at the farmer’s market with her homemade canvas shopping bags bursting with beautiful organic green veggies you know her children will eat without any sign of pickiness.  Or, there’s the lovely family at church who are just too nice and patient to ever imagine them yelling at their kids in moments of frustration. Or, the tall blonde in her perfect clothes whose two blonde girls are always perfectly dressed as well, in matching outfits less.  There’s no way that I could be friends with them, not while my life is so incredibly different.  I submit the following confessions as evidence:

Big A watches a lot of Dora, more than I’d probably like to admit.  The plus side to that is she can now count to ten in Spanish, and knows that the verde stoplight means go, while rojo means stop.

There are times that I wish I had decided to bottle feed, just so I could claim my chest as my own again.  I have a beautiful, healthy baby girl, who happens to have a very healthy appetite, and putting food in a bottle just seems easier.  

On that same vein, some days I lament the fact that I really can’t wear dresses for the next year, since they don’t really allow easy access for feeding.  That kinda sucks, since some days my jeans just don’t fit right, and a dress would cover my new mommy lumps and bumps a little better.

I am a terrible cook.  I really, really love food, but I’m not very good at preparing it.  I’m hoping that practice makes perfect, but when you’re a person that can screw up ramen (yes, it’s happened), I need to keep the bar set pretty low. 

But the most important truth in my life?  I love my children.  While pregnant with both of my girls, I was riddled with doubts as to whether I would be able to handle motherhood.  I looked at the other “mommy moms” and knew that I could never measure up, and therefore I couldn’t ever be a good mother.  In the moment that my first daughter was born, all those comparisons didn’t matter.   I loved this little squirmy crying baby that I had known for less than a minute more than anything else in this world.  During the second pregnancy, I didn’t know if I had enough love (and energy!) left to lavish on another child, which, if you’re a mother you know, is a completely unfounded fear.  Both of my girls are loved, and I make so many decisions about our life based on my love for them.

You know what?  All these other moms that I compare myself to make most of their decisions based on that same love for their children.   I know it seems cliché to say that love is a great equalizer, but most cliché’s are based on truth.  There is no reason for me to distance myself from other women based on our differences, because the truth is, we love our children. 

The reason I say all this is because I don’t want to give a false impression of our life on this little blog of mine.  I don’t want to alienate anyone by giving a ‘perfect’ picture of our lives.  I want to share snippets of our lives, and usually what I’m inclined to share is the positives.  I’ll post recipes that I’ve tried and actually succeeded in making.  I’ll upload adorable pictures of my beautiful children.  I’ll talk about how much I love my husband, and how he loves me back.  I’ll be sharing from the highlight reel of our life, while it’s actually full of miss-takes and bloopers.  I want you to know that I am not a perfect mother or domestic diva, and can hope that by admitting that, I can realize that other mothers are the same.  I’m also vowing to begin building friendships with all of you, based on the simple fact that we’re all humans called to love each other in Christ.  In the words of Mister Rogers, “Won’t you be… my neighbor?”