Nothing is ever perfect in Mommyhood!

I have sadly neglected my little blog and now I've gone and changed the title. That's right! Code Word is Mom is now The Never Perfect Mom blog, because...well nothing in mommyhood is perfect. Oh, and if it were...how boring would it be?!?

My thought is, we need to discuss the imperfections that make us who we are. We all have that idea of wanting to be the perfect parent, it isn't going to happen. There are going to be a million hiccups along the way and we are going to need to adjust. So we do! If you are too serious in the world you're going to never find the joy in "oops."

I know when my oldest two boys were little I thought, "I want a clean house, I want the perfectly organized car, I want them to do all these activities and read early and do math and swim and..." Well, we ended up in afternoon preschool and afternoon kindergarten. What a mess...or not. It totally threw off my days! I mean I had to feed my kid lunch at 10:30! But who says that's bad? If it hadn't, by chance, been the only opening in preschool I'd have never found friends, whom 12 years later I still call friends. (And those are the teachers!) Afternoon kindergarten gave us the teacher that all 5 boys have had...and they go back now in middle school and help her two days a week. That's right, sometimes the gem is hidden in the afternoon schedule from hell.

I can't cook!
I don't make good cookies!
My cute arrangements for teachers fall short or don't materialize at all at the end of the year!
More than once I've backed out of a volunteer position for one reason or another!
I get mad in the pick up line!
I am too tired to go to the park!
I have had to give them quarters to pay for lunch because I couldn't pay off the credit card to pay for lunches online...and OMG the list goes on and on.

However, I have 5 perfectly behaved and amazingly adapted sons! That's right...they are fine!!!  I didn't have to be the room mom! I didn't have to walk them into class everyday! I didn't have a set volunteer schedule! But I was involved and on first name basis with their teachers! The teachers beg me for my kids in their classes. How amazing is that? They have such an imperfect mommy and yet...they are turning out okay? Gem! They are learning to adapt like all of us have to. I see some kids whose parents are coddling them to the point that when they get their first job they are going to fail. I'm sure they are plenty smart and organized, but if your kids don't see a failure once in awhile, or feel one, how will they learn to cope with one?

Perfect is overrated. Imperfect isn't grand. But learning to adjust to anything...well now that's priceless!

Thanks for letting me rant! Join me here to see all about my rants and thoughts on raising great kids, taking awesome vacations, and doing what moms do best...adapt!

Bernadette Marie
Mother of 5 sons!