Well Said

I found this inspiring comment on one of my favorite baby blogs - Dear Baby.

Author Melissa writes about her life as a mother in a way that is incredibly inspiring and real. One of her posts dealt with trying to do it all - love your baby and clean your house and pay your bills and and and...the list goes on.

I was perusing the comments and this one really stuck with me, so I thought I'd share it with you (along with some gratuitous baby photos)

Karla Akins wrote:


You have to choose and decide what things MUST be done and are non-negotiable, and what things would just be nice to do.

Be true to your health first, because you can't be a good mom if you're not healthy. Be true to your marriage first because you can't rear [your baby] in the best way possible without parents who are in love with one another and are good to one another.

What helps me is to pray every morning and ask God what I absolutely must do today and to help me do it with grace.

I also write a list of the six most important things the night before, that i know must be done the next day. Sure, there are many more than six things, but I always feel good if I do get those six things done.

Delegate as much as you can. You don't have to do everything yourself.

And don't forget to shower. :-) (Moms go without and don't tell anyone, I know this from personal experience.)

You are only human and you are only you. Make sure your expectations aren't some pie in the sky ideal. Make sure they are exactly what they should be: human, realistic, and good enough. You are not a magazine cover or reality TV show. You are you. And you are the very parent God wanted your baby to have. No one will parent her any better.

Your baby isn't going to care if her Mom kept the house perfect when she was a babe. But she is going to know if you're stressed. So just enjoy that baby and let the dust bunnies attend to themselves. 

I'm sure you're familiar with this poem, but it's one that kept me going through five children of my own, and three foster children:

"Mother, oh Mother, come shake out your cloth
empty the dustpan, poison the moth,
hang out the washing and butter the bread,
sew on a button and make up a bed.
Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?
She's up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.

Oh, I've grown shiftless as Little Boy Blue
(lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo).
Dishes are waiting and bills are past due
(pat-a-cake, darling, and peek, peekaboo).
The shopping's not done and there's nothing for stew
and out in the yard there's a hullabaloo
but I'm playing Kanga and this is my Roo.
Look! Aren't her eyes the most wonderful hue?
(lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo).

The cleaning and scrubbing will wait till tomorrow,
for children grow up, as I've learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down, cobwebs. Dust go to sleep.
I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep."

by Ruth Hulburt Hamilton