Sometimes

I remember one evening picking my child up from a play date. It was dinner time, and the mother in the home was a woman I very much admired. Her oldest was just a few years older than mine, so she still had kids my age but was a few years farther along in the "school of moms." As I arrived she was flipping grilled cheese sandwiches and warming canned soup for dinner.
It is hard to describe the feeling of relief I felt when I saw that spatula. I suddenly felt validated- that it was OK to feed your kids canned soup and cheese sandwiches for dinner. No one had ever told me it was OK to just do something simple when you were busy and kids were crazy and you had about five minutes before they all stated screaming that they were starving to death. I really thought that to be a good mom I should be feeding my kids a four course meal with three vegetable choices and homemade whole wheat bread from flour that I had ground myself that morning. That somehow my husband needed a "real dinner" and would be disappointed in kid food. Not that I was doing those things, I just felt guilty every time I didn't.
I have, in the five years since that night, learned a few lessons in the mom school. I have learned that my husband is happy that the kids are alive and fed when he gets home in the evening and he is grateful for clean socks that aren't yet folded, and doesn't care a bit about what I feed the kids for dinner as long as I stay under budget and they are healthy. I have learned that my kids LOVE grilled cheese sandwiches and canned soup for dinner and don't really care for wheat bread (in fact, I have discovered that one of them has an allergy to wheat bran, forever freeing this mom from guilt over white flour and wonder bread!) or green vegetables. That there are worse things than getting caught with piles of clean laundry on the sofa when company shows up, and that it is perfectly OK to take your preschooler to school in his superman pajamas and your daughter to church without hair ribbons. And I have learned that someone needs to tell us this stuff!
Why was seeing my friend making real food for her family such an eye-opening experience? Why aren't we more honest with each other about how things really are? And why didn't anyone just tell me all of this sooner?
So here it is moms. This post is for all of the moms still figuring things out (isn't that all of us?) who need some validation for their real-life moments. And thank you Megan G, where ever you are, for not hiding your spatula!
Sometimes it is OK to:
* feed your children canned soup for dinner, with white bread toast covered in processed cheese
* have a cereal party in the living room as a reward for a long, tiring day
* let them play in the mud puddles since their socks are wet any way
* show up to church or school or the birthday party with a girl in mismatched clothes she picked out herself
* take a walk around the block with a miniature Batman riding a stick pony
* skip preschool in favor of a cartoon snuggle fest
* let your kids spend the whole day in pajamas, or heck even spend the whole day in pj's yourself
* take a nap while they watch TV
* eat ice cream for lunch
* go to preschool when all your kids' friends are at home
* don't go to preschool when all your kids' friends do
* shoot laser eyes at the old woman in the store who tells you to "enjoy them while they are small" while one is crying, one is climbing out of the cart, one is poopy, and the other is home with strep throat, and then go home and enjoy them only while they are sleeping
* go to bed without brushing their teeth
* leave them with a sitter while you go sit in the car and do nothing
* fill a lunch box with waffles, string cheese, and juice boxes and call it a picnic
* at the end of the day, have nothing to check off your to-do list but "play trains" and "go to sleep"
* show up to a birthday without a gift (mom will be glad anyway)
* not have a birthday party for any kid under 6, because they won't remember them anyway
* throw away the whole-class party invites your preschooler brings home and instead set up a play date with a kid she actually likes
* take a picture of the worst messes, throw the kid in the tub, and ignore it until the urge to scream or cry passes
* say no to ballet/tap/jazz classes, tiny tot sports leagues, infant swim classes, or violin lessons for your kid who still sleeps with a night light and eats with her fingers. Tigers are endangered for a reason.
* admit that you don't know the answer and look it up later
* to let your kid sleep in your bed when they have a bad dream
* let your baby cry themselves to sleep if you think it is best
* rock your baby to sleep every night if you think it is best
*say you are sorry to a child when you make a mistake
*cheer when they finally go to sleep, kiss them in the dark, and pray that tomorrow will be better

Sometimes motherhood is really hard. Sometimes it is really fun. All of the time, it is worth it!