I Got This Mom Thing Covered!

I’m linking up again with Charity at The Wounded Dove for #GoodEnoughMom, and this week I’m running more than a little behind, but that’s okay and part of what helps me think I may one day master this whole Mom thing.

In May and June I start planning for the lazy, hazy days of summer and the restful, relaxing recuperation period that I long for, but it’s been a whirlwind of a summer already and there seems no end to the activity.

This summer I’ve driven to and from Washington DC twice in two consecutive weekends (6+ hours each way) for Troy’s amazing experience with the Friends of the NRA Youth Education Summit, two trips to Boy Scout camp in three days, camping outside of Raleigh so Troy could look at NC State for engineering (I can’t believe he’s starting his senior year of high school! Where did the time go???), and then right up to Maine for a family vacation, followed by two long trips up and back to environmental camp for George.

Anyway…with all that going on, even with my flexible summer work schedule, I know it’s sometimes what I don’t do that give me hope that I’ll get this Mom thing mastered one day.

Like, for example…

• I don’t worry when the laundry sits too long and the kids are clean, but wrinkled and we’ve spent time swimming at the local park or playing ball in the backyard,
• I don’t stop to vacuum when the kids ask to sit on the floor and play Othello or Jenga or Monopoly or our favorites, Doodle Dice and Taboo.
• I don’t compare my kids to what other kids do or what the experts say they should be doing or
• I don’t get upset when I pull into the driveway and see our yard looks less than perfect.
• I don’t try to imitate camp stove cooking and instead choose crock pots and Ramen noodle soups made in the coffee pot!
• I don’t think everyone will dislike me or weigh my self worth on whether I linked up my blog post when I should have or not. I don’t put others down by thinking they won’t understand. (Thanks Charity and anyone stopping by from #GoodEnoughMom 🙂 )

But even more importantly, the biggest things I don’t do that help me know I’m getting this Mom thing down are the hardest things for me to not do, things that I still fail to not do once in a while.

• Once in a while, I fail to remember the doctor’s words to us when Troy was born, “The best thing you can do for your child is to love your spouse,”  but that failing is only once in a while, and many times, I’ve chosen to act in Love for my Savior and for my children by biting my tongue more times than I can count (but, not as often as I should!) when it comes to their father and his girlfriend. The times I remember that we are called to love our enemies and I act on that Love, those are the times I know I am being a Good Mom. 
• And hardest of all, I am learning to not push my boys when I think they should or shouldn’t do something. I’m learning to let them go, piece by piece, little bit by little bit. It’s in the letting go, the letting them make their own decisions, their own mistakes, and have their own triumphs, their own celebrations, their own futures and in the way they always return to me, that I know that God has positioned me exactly where He wants me to be to help them, and that’s when I know I am being a Really Good Mom.

It’s when I think I can’t go on any longer or when I just want to run away or am tired and want to throw in the towel but I don’t, it is then, through that positioning by my Father, that I know…

I can totally do this Mom thing.

So, in the long run, it’s not so much what I do for my boys, the cooking, the cleaning, the laundry or where I take my boys, to Boy Scouts, their games, college visits, camps, and family vacations, that let me know that I’m doing a bang up job as a mom.

It’s often the things that I don’t do.

Celebrate yourself. What do you do that makes you the parent God wants you to be?

A single mom of five boys says sometimes It’s what we don’t do that makes us know we are doing what is right for our kids. Celebrate Moms! #GoodEnoughMom

God Bless