Confessions of a Not so SuperMom

Let me preface this post by saying if you are a Melancholy Personality or consider yourself a neat freak the images included in this blog may cause some anxiety.

So clearly I did not have an opportunity to update yesterday so today I will be updating twice. This post was the planned for yesterday but after waking up to a frightening sight clearly this post goes right along with today too.



Dishes in my sink this morning



I do not consider myself a SuperMom I relinquished that title years ago but only turned in the cape this year. I am a mother of 4 young children as some of you know. They are 7, 5, 3, & 3months. I did work outside of the home 20hrs a week until March of this year. I also home school my two school aged children, one of which is special needs for lack of a better term. We spend several hours a week outside of our home going back and forth to appointments and therapy sessions so my home is not what some would call kept up as you will see in the photos included in this post.

I have struggled for years with the fact that I am not Susie Homemaker because I feel surrounded by 100's of Perfect Housekeeper & award winning Susie Homemakers. But Let me say that this is my day of deliverance. So let's begin the Confessions:

Confession 1: I do not do dishes everyday. Sometimes I do not even do them every other day. Let's be honest here since this is confession time, there are times I do not do them all week and we eat off of paper plates. Now some of you just totally freaked out and could not imagine serving your family a meal on plates that you just throw away at the end. Me on the other hand find peace in throw away plates. There have been times that I have not gotten to the dishes in a sufficient amount of time and found very scary things at the bottom of the sink. Now that you know the truth I can be set free.



My Laundry Room Floor



Confession 2:  I hate laundry. Let me say that again, I HATE LAUNDRY!!!! How in the world can little people have so much laundry? I do not understand. So again let me explain where I stand in the battle against the monster I call laundry aka The Devil. I attempt to do laundry several times a week because a single laundry day is not realistic for me. With so many outside commitments that cannot be dropped one day cannot be devoted to just laundry. So as of this morning I have 6 loads that need to be washed and at least that many that need to be folded and put away. As all of my children run around the house in pajamas because nothing else is available I am aware that I must attempt to do battle once again with "The Devil."

Confession 3:  I am not a good steward of my temple and I generally don't care. At this very moment I am weighing in at 144lbs. Yes I did it, I posted my actual weight. For some of you 144lbs does not seem like much but for other's this is a number that you hope to never see. This is the biggest that I have every been which really is not that big but let me remind you that I am barely 5'2 so for me this is considered moderately obese per some weight loss sights. So in regards to my weight I say it is what it is. I am currently breastfeeding and will be for the next 10 months. I did just have a baby within the last 12 weeks and I am older than I once was so the weight isn't just melting off like butter on a steaming hot roll. Instead it is hanging out. So as I squeeze into my size 8 jeans, sometimes size 10's I think this is life no point fighting it.



My son's bedroom

Confession 4: I am not a Supermom. The photo you see in this confession is what I was awaken to this very morning. My children needed a Hot Wheel so terribly bad that toppling over the dresser was necessary. Let me confess that for a moment I felt myself slipping into crazy, But I took a deep breathe and then took a picture. In 20 years when my children are parents this will be comical and when they come to me with complaints of their own unruly children I will remind them of this day and the many others like this one. I have generally well behaved children and do fully believe in discipline so do not assume that I am a parent that let's my children run wild, I am actually quite the opposite. I am at times a screamer and at other times I am an ignorer. Then there are times when I am sitting with the kids reading books and feeling like I am the best mom in the world.

I confessed these things today to set some people free from self condemnation and to honestly set myself free from it as well. The Bible says that "The truth will set us free" so here I am telling the truth about what happens or doesn't happen behind closed doors. As women we always assume that every other woman, mother, wife, etc has it all together. They have perfectly spotless homes without a dish in the sink or one piece of unfolded laundry. Their children are angels and adore them. And they are always put together, never struggle with their weight, and just wake up that beautiful. Well I am here to say that none of those things are true, there are exceptions to the rule of course. We assume that whatever it is that we struggle with is what every other women is mastering. So by doing that we fall into the trap of self condemnation and allow the devil (the actual devil not "The Devil" of laundry.) to plant seeds in our lives that create low self worth and jealousy. Some of these seeds take root and then we separate ourselves from who we believe to be "SuperMom" or "SuperWife" or "SuperWhatever" because we feel as though we do not measure up. But what we do not realize is that by separating ourselves we are losing out on relationships that God intends for us to have. God is into the relationship business not isolation. When we isolate ourselves we also allow depression to take hold.

As women we should love and encourage those that may be struggling without judgement. We should be coming beside those new moms that seem to be falling behind. We should remember that as women we are not in competition with each other, this is not supposed to be a one-up event but a friendship.  By showing you life behind my four walls I am stripping away the things that I have assumed about all of you and saying this is real life. I have struggled with feeling as if I do not measure up, I have isolated myself from relationships or opportunities to have relationships because of my own personal insecurities. Not anymore, my "dirty laundry" has been exposed as well as my real life dirty laundry.

I hope that you are encouraged by this post today and that you can realize that all of us really are "SuperMoms", "SuperWives" or "Superwhatevers." if we are children of the Most High God!!