I Want to be That Mom

Want to know what I find to be the hardest part of motherhood? Want to know what I find to often be the thing that eats me up with guilt? Let me tell you friends. I bet you deal with this too.

I want to be that mom.

I want to be that mom that is on the floor playing. I want to be that mom that when my children ask me to color with them that I just can. That I won’t have dishes piled up and laundry to do and that I won’t fret over the fact that the house is a mess. I want to be that mom who plays Barbies for an hour with her girls because, um why not?! Barbies are cool and my kids are even better.

I want to be that mom.

I want to be that mom who manages to play all day with her children and yet her home is still tidy, laundry is done and dinner is simmering. The mom who folds clothes while they’re still warm and who actually remembers to switch the clothes from the washer to the dryer before they start to stink. Yes, we don’t want to be smelly.

I want to be that mom.

I want to be that mom that is able to pull out all of the crafting things and paint masterpieces with her children. I want to be that mom that can manage to do arts and crafts, and play doh with her children while her toddler just quietly plays nearby instead of eating the fallen play doh crumbs from the floor. I want to sometimes play instead of cleaning near by.

I want to be that mom.

The one who isn’t always frazzled and short fused. Who has patience and kindness oozing out of every pore and the mom who has a voice so angelic she likely never raises it. The mom who has a home that is always calm and peaceful. A home that is always inviting with warm cookies, scriptures and oils diffusing. I don’t really want to be the hot mess mom.

I want to be that mom.

I want to be that mom who never questions her decisions or her parenting. Is she making the right health decisions for her children? Is she feeding them wholesome meals and will their brains be fried from the TV that stays on more than planned? The mom who knows exactly what she wants and how to do it. The mom who knows what she stands for and is even confident in how to handle bad behavior and toddler tantrums (is that real?).

I want to be that mom.

I want to be the mom working from home building a business that pays the bills. Or the mom banging away at a keyboard late at night to be a rockstar and fulfill her goals and dreams. Because we are still people too and we have goals and dreams, remember?

I want to be that mom. We all do.

You see, there’s so much that I want to be sometimes. There’s so many hats and capes that I wear; that we all wear as mothers. There’s so many moments of wishing we knew what was the right call to make. Do we just leave the housework alone to sit and color? Are we wrong for handling a toddler who hits a particular way? Is it wrong for my children to just veg out every day during the winter because it’s just too cold and rainy for anything else?

I love who I am as a mother and I hope you do too. But I would be lying if I didn’t say that there were not days and moments where I wish I was “her.”

Whoever “her” is, it’s this mother who exists and is perfect. Sometimes it’s our own mother or our grandmother. It’s the lady of wisdom and the pillar of faith. Sometimes it’s some chick from Instagram who based on some filtered squares we think leads the perfect life or perhaps it’s the mom in yoga pants in the carpool line with a booty out of this world (I hate squats). Perhaps it’s just a thought up person or heck, maybe it’s the Blessed Mother. Like she probably did an amazing job at parenting, right?! #goals

So while I am confident in who I am most of the time, I remind myself of who I want to be on my bad days. When I struggle to find my grace or when things just get hard and I want to be the hands on mama, I remind myself of who I want to be as a mother. I may not always be perfect and I may not always find the balance, but I strive to always do more for them. I have a hard time leaving the house a mess…there I said it.

I pray about it. I forgive myself and I love myself.

That’s really about all we can do. We can only do so much and give this parenting gig our best shot and we have to stop the game of comparison (for real though). So whoever it is that you want to be, I hope you find her. But most of all, I hope that you embrace who you are first because really, we just need to be “Mom.”