Keeping it Real

One day many months ago a friend said to me, "I'll be honest, I don't read your blog. You make life sound too perfect, too happy and it makes me feel bad."

That made me sad. Not that she didn't read my blog. Honestly, I don't expect anyone to - but it is nice to know that some people do! I just felt sad that somehow my reflections had made someone I care about feel bad.

Too perfect? Too happy? Really?

Naturally, this has caused a lot of reflection. It's true, I don't share the nitty gritty details of what is wrong in my life. Not because I'm trying to paint this picture of a perfect life, but rather because I'm trying to protect the privacy of the people in my lives. What I share is true. But, I realize that maybe every once in a while I need to give folks a glimpse of the not-so-wonderful pieces of life. So, in that spirit, here's a glimpse into my last few days -- but, first, some context.

I'm single-parenting for a long stint (My admiration for those who do this - single parenting - all the time continues to grow) while my husband is off working - doing some really interesting and inspiring work in a place that I love.

Meanwhile, I'm here, juggling a heavy workload, home and two children (and about a million other things that I decided to take on right now.). This is not a "pity me" statement -- ( it's not like he's off sitting on a beach for weeks on end. He's working hard. And, he's away from home. And, he's away from his girls which is very hard on him.) it's just the way it is.

So, here goes - some of the highlights (read: low points) of my past few days:

• My toddler has regressed (?) to waking many times a night.
• My toddler dunked her sister's very nice baby doll in a toilet that someone forgot to flush. She then proceeded to drag that baby doll around.
• My toddler has, out of no where, decided that the way to get attention is to throw sippy cups, full drink, across the room. FYI, the tops of sippy cups burst off with the force of her throw.
• The case of a library-borrowed DVD of Elmo has gone missing. I will now owe the library money for a DVD I could surely live without.
• I organized a yard sale (along with neighbors) and a lemonade stand for my daughter. This, of course, amounted to much work trying to gather things, price things - and, now deal with the things that didn't sell. For $90. Yea, that was worth it. Not. My sometimes-annoying sister reminded me that a tax-deduction would have been a better move.
• I had to set up the yard sale - among dozens of earlybirds who arrived 2 hours before we opened - with a very crabby two year old in my arms.
• Moments after the yard sale "opened", that very crabby two year old vomited on me and spiked a fever of 102. Probably not going to win "Mother of the Year" for keeping the yard sale going.
• I drove around for 30 minutes (yea, let's not talk about the cost of that - or the impact on the environment) with a feverish toddler asleep in the back, hoping to find a friend outside a store who would watch my child-filled car while I ran into get some much-needed Tylenol (for the baby, not me) and juice because it was the only thing that this child would consume while feeling so yucky.
• I have knowingly given my littlest daughter 2 boxes of bandaids to play with (she thinks they are stickers and obsessed with them) just so I could have a peaceful shower. I got the peaceful shower, but only to find pieces of bandaid wrapper strewn everywhere and a childen laden with bandaids.
• I had a wart frozen off (I've never had a wart, that I know of, and at the dermatologist noticed it and immediately zapped it.). It hurt. It made doing all of the above harder. To add insult to injury, it developed into a GIGANTIC, super painful, blood blister - which I'm told happens to less than 5% of the population. Yea for me, I'm in the elite.