The Mediocre Mom

This morning I took my 2 ½ year old daughter, Cayleigh to music class.  As we were singing the goodbye song, I looked up to see another mom staring off into space, with a distant glare and a slight but noticeable frown on her face.  My first instinct was to nudge my friend next to me and laugh.  And we did.  “What a grump,” we said to each other in the elevator after class.  But then I thought to myself on the way home, who am I to judge?  I mean, that is one of my mantras…do not judge.  I won’t judge.  I can’t judge.  The only person I’m allowed to judge is myself.  And I do.  I judge myself…on a daily basis.  And I feel ok with that.  Because, as I’ve heard so many times, you must forgive yourself for your mistakes, and I do. I practice that advice every single day of my life, especially when I’m the one staring off into space.  And, I did that just yesterday.  Cayleigh was playing with her doll house and my other daughter, Kendall was rolling around on the floor with her toys.  I caught myself staring out the window.  I’m sure there was a slight frown on my face.  I wasn’t tickling, wasn’t pretending to be the mommy and daddy living in the dollhouse, wasn’t even acknowledging my children.  For a span of a few minutes, I was that staring mother in music class…the mediocre mom.

How many times have I waited that extra few minutes to pick up my whining 6 month old to finish my ‘words with friends’ game.  How many episodes of Dora will get me from 4 pm through bedtime?  Most of the time, I feel mediocre, at best.  I pray for patience every day.  I pray that I can take a deep breath instead of yelling at my 2 ½ year old, something a miserable mediocre mom would do.  I don’t want her to grow up thinking her mom always had a frown on her face, couldn’t relax, and said “no”…all the time.  We have all been there, but I don’t know if it makes us mediocre.  I mean, don’t we all need a moment to ourselves.  Don’t we need to discipline our children?  We don’t need to get on the floor and play dollhouse with our children at every single moment.  They need mediocre moments as well.  They need to use their imaginations and play and I need to stare off into space and take a moment to regroup.  I’m hoping it makes me a better mom when I am engaged, on the floor, and tickling and playing. 

Because, I think the truth is, at the end of the day, my kids are fed, dressed, and most of the time, smiling and laughing.  They are bathed daily and hugged and kissed in abundance.  They are loved and I know that makes me more than mediocre.  It makes me exceptional.  I hope that mom in music class hugs and kisses her little daughter enough too, because that would make that moment in music class….a simple, short-lived, mediocre moment by an exceptional mom.