It will be okay

Life has been an insane whirlwind this month...I cannot even believe it is November in five days.  This is my favorite time of year and I feel like I may have missed it.  Those perfect cool days are going to be quickly replaced by freezing cold ones and I know the dreaded white stuff will arrive before we know it.

My days are very much groundhogs day....wake up and run, shower if there is time, wake up G3 to get her to eat a bagel in 45 minutes-how does it take her this long??!!??-, and grab G4 before heading out the door to take G3 to school while G4 eats cereal in the car with a spoon...spilling a large amount on the floor of an already messy messy minivan.  We run to the big three on any given day, Target, Costco and Wegmans.  I am bound to see a fellow mom or dad out getting their errands in...I am hoping I remembered to brush my teeth before I left the house.  G4 is genuinely a happy little buddy to have with me on my morning circus ride and makes the run around fun for the most part.

Last week we managed to get some errands done in the morning and then actually made it, just a tad late, you should not be surprised, to G3's school for the firetruck day.  I knew G4 would be more psyched about this than anything...he had his firetruck book in tow and his firetruck socks on...ready to show the "woo woo guys" as he calls them.

As I was standing out in line to see the truck another mom from a different class came up to me and asked me my name.  She reintroduced herself and said that last year when she was pregnant with her fourth child I was sitting by her in the church during a preschool activity.  I had asked her what number this was for her...and she told me four.  My next phrase to her was..."It will be okay."  She told me that this phrase has stuck with her as she now has a one month old on top of three other littles all under the age of 5.  She continued to tell me how she would see me at the Trunk or Treat...one more thing for a parent to stress over...and I did not decorate my car but rather was there in my minion costume handing out candy from a plastic pumpkin...nothing fancy but there with all my spirit.  She said she looked at me and said...it will be okay.  She said with the Easter version of trunk or treat happened again...let's tax these parents two times over the course of the school year...again I did not go all in for the decorations but was there with rabbit ears on and a smile on my face...she would say again...it would be okay.   She continued to tell me that over the course of last year and this year she would see me in my craziness knowing that I have four kiddos as well...and she would look at me and say to herself...it will be okay.

Well she made my day!  I came home and told my husband this story and just started to cry.  We all know and feel the pressure coming in every direction for us to be as "perfect" as can be.  I guess I have resigned to the fact that some days...heck most day...I, nor my children, are perfect.  They are happy, smiley, loved, healthy, silly, and far from perfect and that is okay.  I know that I put pressure on myself to keep up the good front but then there are days like today that I slept in my sweatpants that I wore Sunday afternoon and its' 11:40 on Monday and I am still wearing them.  I realize that perfect is not a reality and whatever I am living feels pretty darn amazing.

The piles of clean laundry that line my upstairs hall, the basement that has a floor covered with toys, the bins of clothes I have ready to rotate in or out or consign, the many random piles of school papers and restaurant coupons in the hopes of maybe making it out to dinner some day cover the dining room table and are shoved into many a drawer when people are coming over, the coolers that were used two weeks ago that still sit in the path to the garage yet are not put away, the beautiful fall centerpiece my mom bought for me but the reality of there ever being a spotless table to let it stand out on its own is minimal, the three huge bins of legos someone donated to us and the kids LOVE to play together with but where does one store these things when they aren't, oh the list can go on.

So I want to thank that mom that shared with me that my words help her get through some days because really, it will be okay.  We just need to love the ones we are with, give them the best of us on any given day, and take deep breaths even though that doesn't always work, and help someone a little bit each day.  Perfect is overrated, too hard, exhausting, and not fun...being exactly who you are is really the only way to go and that will be okay.

Embrace the Suck...choose you...and breath.