the mom confession.

I am writing this in my hallway at the top of the stairs because my two little boys won't stay in their room and go to bed unless I sit up here at the doorway and utter words like go to bed and stay in bed now - I mean it and no more water and you will lose media time if you get out of your bed again until they both decide to give in, slip under their covers and go to sleep.

That's the truth.

I've tried charts. Bedtime routines. Stickers. Time outs. All of it. And I've resorted to working at the top of the stairs for an hour each night and muttering those phrases. I've actually gotten quite used to emailing, tweeting, facebooking, and writing with my back against the door to my room and my eyes constantly looking in their room to see if they're asleep.

(they're not right now... in case you were wondering.)

My life isn't all together. I've got my share, well more than my share, of ups and downs, fails and do-overs, highs and lows, and sitting at the top of the stair moments because I can't seem to think of something better to do.

I make boxed macaroni and cheese for lunch with the little powdered cheese.

We don't eat organic apples.

I buy my kids fruit roll ups.

Sometimes my kids play too much media.

I skip words, okay paragraphs, in long books at bedtime.

I don't fold all the little boys clothes because they just dump them out anyway.

My sock basket is rarely ever folded.

I don't like doing dishes.

My living room right now (which I can see because I am sitting at the top of the stairs) has throw pillows on the floor, papers on the couch, a lamp shade that's crooked, shoes scattered by the door, and a couple empty boxes waiting for the toys to be dumped back in.

My pinterest board however, has pictures of perfectly organized living rooms.

I love Starbucks and will drive there sometimes with the kids in the back and then I will take the long way home.

I get impatient with my kids.

And I'm normal.

My kids? Well, they're normal. Or as normal as kids who want every single thing fair are ever going to be.

Motherhood isn't based on perfection. It's not based on having gluten free (which we must have in my world) or whole wheat macaroni with organic apples and socks that are matched and never getting impatient and a perfectly picked up living room that looks like a pinterest board.

Motherhood is simply real.

Real with real moms who lose their patience, who want to throw in the towel, who have kids (like my Samuel who is now in the hallway next to me telling me he doesn't want to go to bed now) who don't stay in bed. It's full of moms who have to work who'd rather stay home. Or moms who stay home who'd rather work. Or moms who are simply tired with the every day same routine.

It's full of real moms who take their kids to the apple orchard and the zoo and the coffee shop and the grocery store and the doctor and to school and all of that normal stuff. It's full of moms who feel like all they do is the laundry again and again and if they see clean clothes stuffed in the hamper again they threaten to take them away and sell them (or maybe that's just me). It's full of moms who are happy, joyful, sad, overwhelmed, and well, let's face it real.

That's the being enough mom. (link)

That's my confession. It's not that I don't want to be better. I think at heart we wake up each day and want each day to be better than the next. That's why I celebrate pulling up the boot straps and trying again and again and giving yourself grace. (Don't forget grace. Ever.) Motherhood has moments of extreme patience, extreme trying, and really learning to not compare.

Motherhood isn't based on external markers of perfection.

Motherhood is an act of learning. Every single day. It's being okay with the fact that maybe you like the convenience of that boxed macaroni and cheese. You know why? It's because it's not based on what other moms are doing - it's based on you - on you knowing your family, knowing what is best for your family, and being brave and confident in what you're doing.

Motherhood, and in fact life, is often this journey of waking up and discovering self.

That's the truth.

So I tell you, you right now, you the mother in whatever stage of motherhood you may find yourself that you are doing just fine. You are doing fine if your kids don't stay in bed, you hate potty training (does anyone like that one?), your kids have melt downs in the store, you get exasperated, you sneak the last bit of ice cream for yourself, and well, you're just you.  Just keep trying, keep doing your best, and keep growing more and more confident in your ability to mother.

You know what your kids need? Of course you do. They don't need perfect.

They need you.

You, the imperfect wonderfully perfect for your kids, mother.

That's my mom confession today.

Oh yes, and we're having hot dogs and peaches and macaroni and cheese for lunch.

******

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All photographs used by permission and credited to Hannah Nicole.
Images and original content are sole property of Rachel Martin and may not be used, copied or transmitted without prior written consent.

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calming the inner critic

You're a joke.
You messed up.
Are you kidding? You are a terrible mom.
Look at you now. Everyone will see you can't keep it together.
What if others find that you don't really care if your home is always clean?
You're messing up the kids.

Thoughts. Those pesky thoughts.

They rumble through our heads. Through my head. Over and over and over and over. It's like this almost silent soundtrack whispering to me about all the things that I'm not doing right. It's the not good enough, not measuring up, not great, all of that smooshed together.

Sometimes I don't even hear it, even though it's running on continuous loop.

You too??

If you stop, stop and think just for minute, what are the thoughts about you that you are listening to every single day?

Are they the thoughts that remind you of the great things that you do? Are they the thoughts that empower you to keep moving? Are they celebrating the little things? The moments in life where you excelled? Where you are the most amazing mom ever? Are they seeing the very brave mother moments?

Or are they the inner critic thoughts that often don't do much to build you up?

I once heard an analogy about emotions and being in control of those emotions - including that constant churning inner critic loop. First, remember, you are not your emotion. I know I write it often, but it's something that needs to get cemented in your brain. You may be feeling anger, but you, at the core aren't angry. You may be feeling frustrated, but you, at the core aren't frustration. You may be feeling overwhelmed, but you, at the core, aren't overwhelm.

So here's the deal and analogy about emotions. If you were driving a bus with little kids on it would you let one of the little kids from the back come up front and drive the bus? (credit to that analogy to a class taught by Dr. Al Larson)

I think not.

And yet, yet often we let our emotions - anger, worry, fear, anxiety, etc - drive us and define us - just like letting the little kid come up from the back and drive the bus. I say, step back, recognize the emotion, the inner critic voice, and challenge it. I may be feeling like I'm the worst mom, but that's not the truth.

The truth is that even when I'm having the feelings - or you're having those feelings - that those feelings are emotions. Challenge the emotions. Learn from the emotions. Maybe you did mess up, because we need to be real we all have those days, but messing up doesn't mean that you're the worst mom ever. It just means that you had a hard day. Plain and simple. Don't let the emotion of that hard day become part of the dialogue of self that you tell yourself.

And don't let it define you.

That inner critic can be a terribly hard thing to escape, but knowing that the tape is running is half the battle. It's running, but you can choose to listen and choose what you believe.

You know what you do right. Start seeing those things. All the hugs, bandages put on skinned knees, dinners made with rice and beans and leftovers, times pushing on the swings, reading extra books at night, giving hugs in the morning, and simply loving on kids in the midst of a world that is often full of chaos.

Those are brave mother things.

Truth? You are amazing.

Try adding that to your inner critic's loop.

I'm serious.

Try reminding yourself of all the things that you do right during the day. Challenge those thoughts, those emotions, and remind yourself of the truth. Listen to the loop of thoughts in your head and if they don't empower then they shouldn't be played over and over.

I want you to celebrate you and your journey. It's not the perfect journey. It's not absent of moments where mistakes were made. It's real. It's your journey. It's a brave mother story.

And silence the loop that challenges that.

You can do this.

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All photographs used by permission and credited to Hannah Nicole.
Images and original content are sole property of Rachel Martin and may not be used, copied or transmitted without prior written consent.

measured up motherhood defined

I can't do it anymore.

The words spilled out of my mouth and tumbled into the room as the tears rolled down my face. This motherhood race - the race filled with expectations, things to do, projects, places to be, kids to raise, meals to cook, work to complete, relationships to deal with, rooms to clean - it all simply felt like too much. My hands felt like they were working to keep seven hundred billion plates spinning around and around and now I was being thrown one hundred billion more. I didn't want to admit that I couldn't keep all those plates spinning or that I really didn't care about some of them.

It's a world of measured up expectations - be this, do this, don't do this, let go of this, make sure your kids are like this. It hurts my head sometimes, honestly. What happened to the mornings of simply waking up and gathering your kids in your arms and loving them? Now every single thing feels like it has to be the amazing over the top documented perfect thing. Well, maybe not everything, but most things.

I can't be supermom.

You can't be supermom.

But we can be real.

You and I can look at all the things that we think we're being told to do - all those spinning plates - and we can decide to let some of those plates go crashing down. They can spin out of our reach and then those plates - those worries - they so quickly become evidence of worries that don't need to bog down our mothering heart.

I couldn't do it because I thought that I needed to keep it all together all the time.

And sometimes, sometimes in life, sometimes it means letting go of some of the expectations that we put on ourselves. Oh those expectations - those times where it's hard to open the door and say that we would love a bit of help. Or to admit that we really don't know what to do with the three year old that won't potty train and ignore the fact that everyone else's child had it down by the time they were two. Or that your kids played poptropica too long on the computer but you needed just a moment of quiet.

Measured up motherhood.

Those things don't define us.

You know what I mean. I know you do. Deep down there's the anxiety that motherhood is this measured up way to define success. Motherhood shouldn't be measured by how many plates we can keep spinning - that results in a mom out of breath exhausted. So many of you are exhausted. You are racing from thing to thing. You are wondering if all of this every day normal stuff matters. You are comparing. You are worrying. You are alone. You are trying to give even though you are exhausted. You are. You are. You are.

You are mother.

Lets measure that for a while. Not based on the externals that you do, but on the little things - those little things matter moments.

You are the perfect answer for the skinned knee. You know which child loves his pbj cut into triangles and which loves the squares. You know how to look them in the eye and tell them you love them. You know how to roll yourself out of bed in the morning even though you're exhausted. You can split the last of the cereal in equal ways. You can find the missing soccer shoe in thirty two seconds. You can discern between cries between the I'm irritated cry and the brother took my toy cry and the I fell down and hurt my knee cry. You can answer to the words mom fifty two times in what feels like fifty two seconds.

But most importantly, you love, even if you don't have everything perfect.

Lives are messy.

My life? Messy. Your life? More than likely a bit messy.

Messy doesn't mean beautiful. Messy doesn't mean that what you're doing doesn't matter. Messy doesn't mean that you don't have it all together.

In fact, messy is often the most beautiful things in life. It's the areas in life where you can discover just how much what you do matters and what is important. It's the moments in life that someday you will look back at and celebrate. It's the times when you mumbled the I can't do it anymore words just like I did and instead found the courage and bravery to do it.

You can do it.

I can do it.

Measured up motherhood is about us being the best moms that you and I can be right now. In this moment. And maybe it means our kids birthday parties are bought with the clearance stuff at Target even though you have a whole board of crazy birthday ideas on Pinterest. And maybe that means that instead of worrying about whether everything is absolutely perfect you are simply real. You.

Motherhood is an amazing journey of self discovery. You find where you're weak and you really find out where you are strong. You are strong. You are powerful. You are brave.

And you have the courage to move forward.

Let some of the plates go.

Motherhood measured up defined.

It's not about keeping everything perfect. It's about you. Trying. Loving. Celebrating little things. Celebrating big things. Being brave. Not being afraid of measuring up. Being real. Being you. Being a mom.

You can be brave.

You can do it.

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself" Franklin D. Roosevelt

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All photographs used by permission and credited to Hannah Nicole.
Images and original content are sole property of Rachel Martin and may not be used, copied or transmitted without prior written consent.

Want to read more letters to moms? Grab my ebook with 21 original letters.