My Greatest Teacher

Mommy to Anne :  "How did you get so big?  I am having severe Mommy issues with you getting so big."

Anne (sighs):  "I know Mom."

    It happens to all of us Moms...those occasional moments when we look at our kids and say to ourselves "Where did my baby go?"

My first glimpse, my first kiss.

     My oldest, my daughter Anne turns four in just two days.  FOUR!!!  I have my desktop background on my computer set to pull pictures randomly from my picture files every fifteen minutes.  I keep seeing pictures of tiny Anne.  Then I see the child in front of me and she is so BIG!  She truly is amazing.  I know all Moms think that about their kids.  When I see how happy and full of life she is, I wonder what I did right, when so often I feel that I have done absolutely everything wrong.   I feel that aside from myself, it was Anne that bore the brunt of my PPD.  There were days that I feared that I ruined her.  In the end it seems that we are both turning out okay.  In the end, in this journey to find myself, this journey to find my light, she has been my greatest teacher and my beacon of light and hope.

Anne at 18 months.

     In the midst of my struggles with PPD, my daughter added many challenges to the one I was already facing.  She was two when it all started.  A very strong willed two....and then a strong willed three.  One day I came to the realization that she is a Mini Me.  I started seeing traits in her that were reflections of things that I did not like about myself.  I saw her stubbornness, her selfishness, her intense need for control.  I could only see these traits in a negative light and found myself constantly butting heads with this beautiful small child that I simply could not bend to my will.  I wondered if I would survive potty training her....as she dragged it out for a year and a half.   I constantly questioned myself and my parenting abilities.  Those feelings of resentment and disconnect that most sufferers of PPD have towards their babies I found directed towards Anne instead....which only intensified the guilt.

  
    But I could not ignore the intense light that shines around this beautiful girl.  Slowly, I let myself learn from her, and I changed.  She SHINES!  She thinks her life is a musical, and would sing all day and night if the mood struck her.  Her smile lights up a room, with her big blue eyes and her Daddy's dimple on her chin.

    

   She is strong willed, and I have learned to be thankful for that.  She will ALWAYS be able to stand up for herself and for those who cannot defend themselves.  She is compassionate.  She is always concerned when others are hurt, or sad, or sick.    If I have a headache she will say "I am sorry that you have a headache." while she gently strokes my forehead with her small hand.   She can be a girly girl...but she LOVES trains.  Thomas the Tank Engine is the current center of her universe.  We will be celebrating with a Thomas Party on her birthday.

      I love that individuality about her.  I used to cringe when she would dress herself and it wouldn't match.  That was MY need for control.  Now I don't care if she wears stuff that doesn't match or if she wants to wear her Thomas shirt to school EVERY day.

    She has taught me how to be a parent.  She has taught me patience.  She has taught me what it truly means to pick my battles.  I am so in love with her.  I can't wait hear what words will come out of her mouth next.  She makes me laugh everyday, even on the bad days.  She has such a love for life.  She tells me she loves me all the time, and I know that she means it.  I am not sure what I did right in the midst of all that I did wrong.   I must have done something right, she is an AMAZING, BEAUTIFUL, LOVING person.  And she is so incredibly happy. 

    I just can't believe that she is going to be four!  She is such a little person now.  A person that I can have real conversations and discussions with.  A person who is learning to understand consequences.  A person who is so mature about dealing with the hand that she has been dealt.  She takes her allergies in stride and doesn't ever complain.  I am so proud of the way that she handles herself.  She touches the hearts of everyone she meets.  I am not in a hurry for her to grow up and leave me...but I often wonder who she will grow up to be.  I am not sure...but I know that no matter what she does she is going to shine her light all over this world.  SHINE Anne SHINE!    I love you with everything in me.

I am a Terrible Mother!

"I am a terrible mother, the worst mother in the world."  We all think that at one point or another, don't we?  When you are trapped in the throes of depression, some days it can be ALL that you think.

It is amazing how EASY the lives of everybody else can look.  I would drag myself out to the grocery store and watch how happy everybody else looked.  And Facebook, that is the perfect place to go if you want to feel more inadequate than you already do.  People usually only post the good stuff, and can leave a distorted view of the world to the rest of us.  To me it looked like all the other Mommies were doing all sorts of activities and crafts with their kids, living in their happy little bubbles.  I felt like everyone else had something that I didn't have.

But guess what?  After awhile I started feeling better.  Then I started talking to other Moms and made an important discovery.  The truth of the world is not on Facebook.  The truth is every mom feels like a terrible mother some days, even the ones that aren't battling PPD.   I actually read a comment on a blog once where a mother was saying how sad she was at bedtime, and how much she missed her kids after she went to bed.  I laughed out loud at that because it couldn't possibly be true.  Was she saying what she thought she should say?  Come on, we all have days when we can't WAIT until bedtime! We all hide in the pantry from the kids so we can get a nibble of chocolate.  None of us enjoy cleaning the toilets or folding endless baskets of laundry.  Everyone has parts of their jobs that they hate.

Guess what else?  We all LOVE our kids, happy or not, depressed or not, we all LOVE our kids.  We all feel guilty at some point.  We all wish that we could do more, that we could be more.  On the bad days we all need to remember that we love our kids.  It is okay to ask for help, it is okay to take a break.  It is important to remember that we are all doing the best that we can do.  There will be perfect moments in life, but there will be more imperfect moments.  Laugh at those moments and hug your kids close!

One of those imperfect, perfect moments of life!