I know I should be spending Elijah's nap time either doing something productive or sleeping, but alas, here I sit in front of my computer, doing nothing, and eating cookies. :) Oh, well. At least my brain is taking a break at the moment.
This morning the speaker at MOPS was talking about getting rid of "mommy guilt." This is a topic that I was completely unaware of even a few months ago...and now, with only ten weeks of motherhood under my belt, I could completely relate to everything she was saying. There have been so many times when I questioned whether I was doing the right thing, or the best thing, and even more times when I had no earthly idea what to do.
I've been trying to figure out why motherhood has completely overwhelmed me at times. The reason, I've decided, is that there's really no way to measure success. In school, you get grades. At work, you get feedback from your boss. But as a mother, not only is there no endpoint, but there are no grades or annual reviews. There's no syllabus outlining expectations. You don't win or lose. And there is always something more you could be doing. And there's always some new thing to wonder about ("shouldn't he be able to do X by now?"). So, as a habitual overachiever-type, I have had this nagging feeling that I'm not succeeding at this, even though I can't explain what I'm not doing right. It's crazy!
Fortunately for me, I have wonderful people in my life who tell me to get a grip, to go outdoors and take a walk, to stop reading all of the parenting books, to stop worrying, and to just breathe (you know who you are!). And I really, truly am enjoying this. It's the most difficult, delirious, uncertain season of my life thus far, but I wouldn't trade it for anything. So thank you, all of you who have helped preserve my sanity in the last few months!
