Early Motherhood: Three Things You Don't Need To Feel Guilty About

You only know what you know.

And I know very few things for certain.

In regards to Motherhood, what I do know so far (which again, is very little), I feel compelled to type out, in the off-chance there is a woman within the radius of this humble blog who daily dodges the sense that she's not meeting the mark, or slacking in her efforts to achieve gold parental status in the eyes of her offspring and, when she's being honest, her peers.

Let me say at the offset: I am a relatively new graduate from the "Small Children At Home" stage. During this stage of my recent past, I had a healthy dose of the mindless, endless, physically exhausting tasks of tending to itsy bitsy people who are very self-insufficient and not particularly grateful to the people picking up the slack. God decided, after three pregnancy losses, to lend us five beautiful lives born within three brief years. When the youngest (twins) where born, the oldest had just turned three three months before. There were two girls in the middle. My sanity was daily perched precariously over the line of no return. Already, a deep fog surrounds this former season of life, yet even as they now all happily (for the most part) trod off to our beloved small-town mecca of higher education (Praise God from whom all blessings flow), I still clearly remember wanting to poke the eyes out of well-meaning ladies who told me to cherish every moment, as I would miss them someday.

At this very second, I'm still waiting for the feelings of nostalgia. 
Waiting. 
Whistling. 
Waiting.
No urges to wind back time are knocking. 
I'm still too busy breathing in deep sighs of relief. 
We made it! We're all alive! And they still love me!
And someday, 
God-willing,
they might all be fast friends!

There remains a vast expanse of unexplored parenting territory is stretched out ahead of me. My blog will likely grow dark with shades drawn while I hunker down and try to figure out how to navigate middle school years and beyond without losing my mind. But for this moment, I want to document just a few of the small nuggets which retrospect on the early years has afforded me. Thank you, retrospect. 

These nuggets are not one-size-fits-all. The beauty of life involves the uniqueness of DNA. The glory of family comes from the unique aura dispelled from every home. There are general practices that might work for a majority, but we must be careful not to brush too broad a stroke of assumption that the way we do things will meet the emotional and actual needs of the individual children inside another home. What I am about to share are mere musings on simple subjects, meant to alleviate any needless guilt to the mama carrying it around. 

***

THREE THINGS YOU DON'T NEED TO FEEL GUILTY ABOUT:

#1 The Birthday Party (or lack thereof).

During the summer I morphed into a beached whale (the one in which I was pregnant with twin boys), I decided to have a joint birthday party for my three, two and one year old as they all had birthdays within a three month span. We held it at a local park and invited close family and neighbors. I bought coordinating Sesame Street paper goods, rounded up a dozen helium balloons at Dollar Tree and waddled my way through all the preparation involved. I did all the food as well because I was a stay-at-home mom. What else did I have to do?

The day of the party dawned dark and rainy with no plans of turning into a clear summer evening. And as our dear friends/family showed up, the candles lit, the birthday song sung and the presents opened, all I could see where three very overstimulated children ready to simultaneously combust. I had felt I had run a marathon, only the ones who I had run it for were too busy being sugar-crazed and overwhelmed with presents they didn't need.

 It hit me as I trudged up the steps to put them to bed that night, that I had not really thrown the party for them. I had done it for me. 

I don't even know if I have pictures of that party. Photographs would have been their only memory of it, and now it relies on their belief of my description of the event that left their great-with-child mother a heap on the floor, vowing to wait until their sixteenth birthdays to do it again.

If parties for small people with short-term memories make YOU happy...then DO IT! Go all out! Enjoy! Savor! Color-coordinate and post your pictures! Seriously. I am all for it! The child at the center of it feels loved, and that is what matters.

If, however, the thought of throwing a big to-do adds more stress than joy to your life, then lay it down and walk away for a time. If your child feels lavished by your love and special by the little ways you highlight their special day, consider yourself a smashing success. 

Ever since that party in 2009, I have instituted simple birthday traditions customized to the child we are celebrating, always with the end goal of making he or she feel extra-special on their day. Simple and special, those are the key words. (I would be remiss to mention that their grandmother greatly aids in this endeavour. She LOVES making creative cakes and they will always remember her for it. If she didn't, they would forever remember Carvel Ice Cream Cakes and could still go on to have happy lives). 

#2 Pre-School Skillz (or lack thereof).

The above journal entry came home from school just last week. While I know you are taken with what a charming little chap I have on my hands, let me point to a larger revelation. These sentences were legibly printed and spaced out by my little guy who turned six two months after he entered kindergarten. That is not the impressive part. He entered kindergarten with nary one day of pre-school tucked under his elastic band. Furthermore, I spent a paltry amount time going over letters, numbers and math facts with him (or any of his siblings). Sure I had bought them a three-pack bundle of preschool workbooks at Costco to satisfy my guilt and show my resolve. Every now and then, I would pick them up off the kitchen floor to attempt a lesson in phonetics, yet couldn't help but notice LeapFrog on Netflix did a fine job and held their attention much better (while I was making dinner!). Quiet moments for educational pursuits were few and far between because in the zoo-like environment in which we lived, such moments were as scarce as the "me-time" I was supposed to frequently make for myself. They weren't all that interested in learning when they were two, three and four...and I truly was just doing my level best to keep them clean,fed and fingernails clipped. That was the best I could do.

And guess what? Even with the lack of formal AND informal pre-school education, they are eager learners and their teacher is doing a magnificent job at teaching them! I am amazed and grateful. And letting out a big "SHWEW!" for the way they are picking up the learning of things.

During my early elementary years I was diagnosed with a learning disability which caused me to switch schools to received specialized tutoring. Even then, my mom and dad spent countless hours going over specially-formulated exercises to help reshape my brain to comprehend certain things. This makes me very sensitive to children with special learning needs. What I am describing above is something much more general in regards to the pressure to have your children practically reading before they go to kindergarten. Sure it's nice for them, but it's not necessary. They will be JUST FINE...and might even THRIVE!!

#3 Potty Training (or lack thereof).

Because I sequestered myself during the years knee-deep in baby/toddlerdom, was not an avid participator of playdates and also because I blessedly did not have the booming presence of social-media to tell me all the ways everyone else was winning at parenthood, I put little pressure on myself when it came to potty training. By the time the twins came along, I had adopted the the mantra "Don't begin training until they BEG you". And for every one of my five children, the begging did not happen until after their third birthday. And technically, no one begged. But they were ripe and ready for training. Until they were, I clung to my second potty-training mantra:

"Pull-Ups Are My Friend"

And they how they were. Pull-ups and pacifiers were my lifesavers of choice and they served us all very well. To this day, I have no doubt under the floorboards and lodged in the drywall of the house we no longer call home are 243 Nuks we never recovered during middle-of-the-night, under-the-crib searches. The Pull-Ups gave both me and my kiddos a chance to transition from diapers to undies without a straight-jacket involved. Not to mention my predictable reaction of dry-heaving over poop-encrusted cotton. There is only so much crap one woman can handle!

If you get a thrill out of telling people your six-month old can defecate in the commode, than all the power to you! Great for you! If you love to teach pee-control to little toothless people, consider yourself gifted and consider making a career out of it (do you know how many mothers would pay for in-house certified potty trainers?). Sometimes it's a matter of saving money, and trust me, during these years we didn't have a dime to spare. Yet for me, Pull-ups were more precious than eating out or trips to Target. I know mama's who have bought books to learn how to train their babes in three days. I bought them too, but for me, "by-the-book" rarely worked in my landscape. 

As far as I know, there are still no Potty Training Police Units who come knocking at any given age of life. Give yourself a break. Wait for them to BEG you to sit on the porcelain throne and when they take to it, crown yourself Queen of the World.

PS. Years down the road, no one is going to be asking you how long your children were in Pull-Ups.  In it's place will be another silly measuring stick of "achievement". It's best to get used to refusing to line your child up to the things that have nothing to do with actual character development. 

***

Above all, do what needs to be done to give yourself the ability to be a fully-functioning, sane and loving mama. We have made big deals out of small ones, placed little people in the center of our universes and run ourselves ragged trying to prove we are good parents when much of our hustling has very little to do with the heart of our children. 

Just do the next thing. You've got this.