I am not Mrs Cleaver

I have to admit even though it wasn't my home life I always thought being a good mom meant that you were like Mrs. Cleaver or those other 1950's television housewives. You know the stereotype I mean. Where mom is at home all day, she cooks, she cleans, she looks effortlessly put together even when the kiddo gets caught sneaking in the middle of the night. She has her husband a cocktail and his slippers ready when he comes walking through the door. We never see her have a melt down or shot tequila out of the bottle because she is burn out and just can't handle it. No she is the picture of perfect wife and mother.

That standard of mothering perfection is something I am no longer going to hold myself up to. Will the house be kept clean, yes! However we live here. We are home a lot because it's also my office for 4 days of the week. That means there may be plates in the sink, the rug might need a vacuum, and sometimes the house might even look like I have gone with a shabby chic ozian winged monkey attack theme. It's ok that doesn't make me a bad mother that makes me a mother who needs to clean and who could maybe use some help.

Breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks! They happen it's true. However they might not always be perfect multicourse meal. Some nights they could be salad, main, and desert offerings. Other nights it could be pizza out of a box or chicken out of a bucket. It's a good thing I am just snobby/lazy enough to get the organics to you produce box delivered so even if I am a horrible mother we can ward off scurvy with some fruit and vegetables. End of the day I have still gotten everyone fed. Why can't we just call that a win even if it wasn't a 100% organic free range dinner.

My life is not the life of a 1950's housewife so the standard can't be the same. I work outside of the home, I am a student, as well as wife and mother. If I could put the 80 some hours a week I spend on those pursuits into home making than maybe my husband would have me meeting him at the door with a perfectly shaken martini and his slippers. The truth is though the hubs is a perfectly capable human being who could shake his own damn martini if he wanted one. If anyone needs me I will be out lowering the bar for mothers everywhere.

#Sunday Confessions # Never Again will I say diet

Never again, that's a great phrase to get yourself into a lot of trouble with. We have all said I will never do x again and often we repeat the behavior.  I have spent years thinking if I just found the right diet, or pill, or plan than I would be the perfect size. The jeans from the back of my closet would fit. That dress that didn't quite fit but was on clearance that I bought anyway. Those are getting purged. I will never again say the dirty d word diet.

I realized if I can't love myself what type of example am I setting for the children. I don't need them saying if only I lost 5lbs. If only I was a size small instead of medium. It was horrible having the discussion with them that a scoop of ice cream won't make you fat. That sitting down with the entire bucket and spoon however is a good way to develop a problem. That there is a difference between a serving and a binge. How to make healthy choices versus reaching for the bag of chips. To identify eating out of hunger or out of emotion or boredom or even just gluttony.

So I will never again say diet. I will also never say that I have the healthiest of eating behaviors.  I do try to make sure that during the course of the day that I eat fruit, vegetables, whole grains but I also have a taste for the "junk".  I am doing much better now though than I did for years I no longer eat the secret family sized bag of Skittles and dispose of the wrapper. Will I ever be a size small. No but that's ok. I have found peace with being a size large or  extra large  or depending on cut some times even an extra extra large and eating the occasional cheeseburger.

#Sunday Confessions Celebrate

This last year or so has taught me to celebrate the everyday. There is no point in hoarding the good china, the nice bottle of wine, or saving a restaurant for a special occasion. We need to not wait and hope that something is good enough to celebrate. We need to make the celebration happen. Or else someday our people will be cleaning out our things and will wonder why we never used the good china or drank the bottle of wine (all though that may make the cleaning more joyous). There is always an excuse to not make a reservation and go out. Instead make a reason to. It's ok to celebrate the silly.

True if we use the nice things they might get worn out or break, the bottle might run dry but we also will be making memories. We will have the ability to look back and say remember when we drank the in case of celebration champagne because there was champagne and we were together. That we ate dinner off the good plates because we could. That time we went to dinner at the frufru place just because we could.  Those memories are worth more than saying we should someday.

So in the morning I will have my coffee cup toast with the toddler. Later I may even have a cookie or a piece of chocolate. We will laugh about something silly or maybe blow bubbles in the house. To celebrate that we have made it to another day, or we had chocolate, or that toasting is ridiculous fun and fancy