Do you have days when you feel like you're the worst? The worst mom. The worst wife. The worst housekeeper. The worst dog owner. The worst friend. I have days when I feel like I'm the worst at everything. I look around my house and see dog fur in the corners or I stop to think when I gave Peyton her last bath and realize it was at least 3 nights ago. Some days I completely forget to brush her teeth! My poor dog doesn't get walked very regularly at all and he certainly needs it. And the only time my sweet husband gets my full attention is for about five minutes before I fall asleep. THE WORST!
I'm not writing this so that people will comment on all the good things I am able to accomplish and how loved my daughter is, or how it's more important to play with her than to have a clean house. I know all those things. But there are still days when I feel like the worst.
One of the biggest problems is that I compare myself to what I see other people doing. People that have more kids than I do and have a much cleaner house. Or people that have more kids and work full time and still make homemade meals and keep up on their scrapbooking and host amazing dinners or birthday parties. I sit there in awe and wonder how they do it. I can barely keep up with the bare necessities most days, how are they going above and beyond??? What is the secret???
I can't remember the last time I put on make up when I wasn't going anywhere, or sat and loved my dog for no reason, or made my husband a cute note like I used to. Has having Peyton really changed everything THAT much? How does becoming a mother make me feel so inadequate in every other area?
I honestly am not trying to have a pity party. I'm just expressing some of the things I've been going through since becoming a mom. I know I'm a good mom, 95% of the time. I really don't need reassurance. I have a wonderful husband who tells me what a great mom I am all the time. And logically I know I'm a good wife. I don't do everything that some wives do for their husbands (like pack their suitcases for a trip), but he knows he is loved. When I step back and look at it, I think I do a pretty decent job of living my life, but why do I still go through those moments of feeling like the worst? Is it just part of the humbling job of motherhood?
Having my sweet baby girl has been the greatest, hardest, most humbling, most amazing thing I've ever done in my life. I don't think I'm inadequate, I think I'm realizing I can be better. I think being a mom makes us reevaluate who we are, because who we are is who our daughters will become. It makes us take a good look at the way we treat our husbands and our friends to make sure we're being the example we need to be, for our children to learn from and for them to live up to. It makes us realize we are always being watched, not just by God, but by our children and that is sometimes more frightening.
So in the end, if having Peyton forces me to step it up and be a little bit better wife, or a little bit better housekeeper, or a little bit better person overall, then I will always be in debt to her.
