Let’s admit it moms. We all want perfection. We’d all like our kids to be perfectly dressed with their perfect hair and perfect attitudes and perfect manners.
Just last week my little man was dressed in the cutest outfit and we were headed out to run errands and grab dinner. As we walked down the sidewalk to the car, he excitedly saw a roly poly (which was in a small, muddy crack in the sidewalk) and dove for it. My initial reaction was to yank his handsomely little dressed body off the ground and haul him to the car where his outfit perfection could continue. Luckily just before that instinct took over, another one hit me. Does it really matter? When I look back on this day with my 15 month old, do I want to remember his handsome outfit that was kept clean by threats, yanking and tears? Or do I want to remember the wonder in my son’s eyes as he watches nature and bugs?
Present over perfect.
I first stumbled upon this phrase a few years ago and it has changed the way I look at life. Every day I have a choice. I can spend my wake time hours seeking perfection which would, I’d like to think, lead to a perfectly clean house with a perfectly toned body perfectly cooked meals and perfectly completely crafts from Pinterest (my arch enemy). But in reality all I would have is a ragged and stressed out family who would likely be cranky after a day of trying to be perfect.
My other choice is to be present. Being present means sometimes throwing cleaning the house to the wind, and sitting down with my 15 month old to play with cars (again). Or foregoing my work out (Ha. Like I even get to that every day) to sit outside and eat popsicles with my son and his friends. Or putting a Trader Joe’s frozen meal in the oven for dinner, so that we can happily greet dada on the front porch after work, instead of him finding me frantically cooking in the kitchen with a cranky baby at my feet.
What this means for me (and goodness don’t hear any judgement from me. We are all present and decompress in different ways. What works for me won’t work for you, and you will never hear a judgmental tone from me in how different momma’s choose to be present) is that I took Facebook and the Internet off my phone. Because I don’t really need to know what a friend that I didn’t even like in high school did last night or how close Kimye is to naming their daughter.
As I lay in bed listening to my husband give our 15 month old a bath, I know that time is passing far too quickly. I know that we will blink and December will be here, bringing a new baby to our family. And then life won’t be the same. Parker and I won’t have long lazy mornings sitting on the den floor playing cars, “quick” trips to Target simply won’t happen, and I won’t have one child being the center of my work, we’ll have two. Life as we know it will change.
None of the change is bad. In fact, is greatly anticipated. We cannot wait to add a new baby to our family. But I don’t want to look back at this time as a stressed out all consuming season of life. I want to look back at the small moments that we were present for and remember them. I want to remember the 30 minute walk where we only made it 20 feet down the side walk because we had to look at every single crack in the sidewalk. I want to remember the dinners at restaurants that dissolved in to tears with a tired toddler and Baby Einstein on the iPhone that saved the day.
I want to remember these moments and be present in them, not worrying about trying to be perfect.
Let’s call it fellow moms. Let’s end this battle of seeking perfection. Instead of spurring each other on to fight the battle of perfection, let’s just give a simple nod or smile to the mom at the grocery store with the toddler screaming on the floor. We’ve all been there. Give an understanding smile to the new mom who is quite clearly wandering the aisles of Target, just killing time before her husband gets home.
I’m done trying to be perfect. My son and husband don’t want perfection, they just want all of me.
*This post and the phrase “present over perfect” was inspired by Shauna Niequist’s latest book Bread & Wine. Shauna has no idea who I am (although I’d like to be her BFF) or that I wrote this post.
