Well, Hello Monday Morning!!!!

I've come to a conclusion that I might, maybe... possibly, all things considering.... I just might use too many exclamation points.

I mean, come on. Monday Morning gets four???? (We will have to tackle question marks a different day, I guess....)

Nobody is that excited to see Monday Morning. Right?

Except, this morning, I am in an exceptionally good mood and feel actually awake. Like, awake awake. And motivated to accomplish something.

Anything!!!!

And that's where all the !!!!! come from.

This from the girl who woke up yesterday and was back asleep two hours later for a mid-morning nap!!!!

This pregnancy is kicking my ass....

Don't even ask me how many pages into Starbright I am. It's awful. So awful in fact that I need to blog about it later in
this post.

But first. To the exclamation points!!!!!

It's an addiction. Or a medical condition.... I haven't decided yet.

And, I get it. It can be SO annoying!! Someone that excited about everything??? It can't be real. Obviously I'm faking. Using the Internet to hide behind excitable punctuation.

But here's the thing. I am actually that excited when I choose to use exclamation points. It's true. I can't help it. I'm just.... annoyingly optimistic!!!!

So, Text Messages in my life occur like this:

Someone else: Do you guys want to meet at the park for a play date?

Me: Absolutely!!!!!!!!!! We are SO excited to see you!!!!!!!!!

Someone else: Don't forget dance changed from Wednesday to Thursday this week.

Me: Oh my gosh!!!!! I definitely would have forgot!!! Thank you SO much for reminding me!!!!!!

Someone else: My cat just died.... It is a horrific event in my life and he was my best and only friend for twelve years. He talked me out of marrying the wrong person. (Yes, I said Cat..)(And Ok, this might not be a real event.)

Me. OH NO!!!!!!!!! How awful!!!!!!!! Please, please let me know if there is anything I can do for you!!!!!!!!!!!

See what I mean??? This is a serious problem.

And yet... I can't stop. Nor do I even really want to.... Yikes, huh?

Zach says it's because I LOVE everything. And I don't know how to just like something. Which might be true, I don't know. I do seem to love a lot of things.

Like, last night, we had this date night planned, because we ate a late lunch and Zach and I knew we wouldn't be hungry by dinner time, so we decided to feed the kids early, send them off to bed and have our own little date night at home.

And oh my gosh, it was the cutest thing we've ever done.

I mean, we do that a lot. At least once a week, just because we like to eat together, without the noise and distraction of kids and make our food extra spicy... But anyway, on our way home from lunch yesterday, Zach and I decided we are so sick and tired of meat and especially chicken that we cannot EVEN take it anymore!!! So we wanted a light, easy, vegetarian dinner.

Especially after the super heavy Mexican lunch we had just consumed.

So. We get to the store and Scarlett fell asleep in the car, so I send Zach and Stella in to find something easy, light and vegetarian.

They took forever.

Not going to lie.

But when they came back out, I demanded to know what they got, of course, and they refused to tell me! Can you believe it????

So we get home, and I finally get to see into the bags and Zach has done one of the sweetest things ever!!! He picked up a bunch of fancy cheeses, special bread and a bottle of wine. For him. And me to smell.... :(

You see, I learned how to drink in France. I spent six months in Europe. And ever since then, have had this complex where every once in a while, I definitely consider myself European, if not specifically Alsacian/French.

Yep.

It drives Zach crazy.

But he comes home with this dinner that is so specifically and wonderfully tailored to me that it is just the sweetest thing he has ever done.

And on top of it all, he also bought some Cheesecake!!!!! Another favorite of mine.

Don't even get me started on all my fave desserts though. We could be here for a while.

Anyway, needless to say I LOVED our date last night. LOVED IT. It was just so romantic!!! And I tell him that, and he's all, "Really? You loved it? I am so very surprised by that..."

And I'm like, "Well, yes, I LOVED it! Would you rather I didn't love it?"

And he's like, "You could just like it. That is an emotion you could have."

And I'm like, "I could.... But I don't like it! I couldn't possibly just like this dinner. Or this date. Or you. I love it all!!!! And that's that."

And it's true. I'm not sure if I can like things. Not just dinner last night. But things in general.... And because I can never just like something, because I love it all, I can also never just use one exclamation point. That feels too close to underselling my emotions. Even lying about my enthusiasm.

Because I don't just ! things. I !!!!!!!!!!!!! everything!!!!! :)

Except this. Except what I am about to say....

Think of this as a confession. An admission of reality.

Mainly because I can't stand the idea of people thinking differently of me than the truth. And in normal circumstances that usually means thinking worse of me than is necessary.

But not this time.

This time I'm correcting the opposite effect. The thinking better of me than I actually am!!!

I get the sweetest emails and messages and comments or whatever from readers who say the nicest things about me being a mom. Seriously, they are so encouraging and wonderful and flattering that I just treasure them.

I know that I don't deserve them and that really, they're not true, but still I hold them close and pray that one day they become true! That one day I can live up to that perception of me.

I've always felt this blog has been like a microscope on my life. I mean, there are some things I won't share on here, things that are too personal and I'll still always brag about my husband, even if we're in the middle of a fight and I can't even stand the thought of texting him at the moment. :) And there are other things that I hold tightly to me, not even sharing with close friends. But for the most part, I usually share everything, ahem, over-share everything that is going on in this crazy brain.

So even if my marriage appears perfect, which it's not, there is no such thing, I have always believed my parenting comes out honestly. My mistakes. My faults. My short-comings. I have hoped to always be honest and upfront about them! Mostly because parenting is nothing if it's not an adventure and if I'm going to get sympathy from anyone about the fact that Stryker is becoming so naughty I don't even know what to do with him and his 14 month old self, it's from other moms, right??

But I'm afraid, somewhere along the line my mothering has because an illusion, an exaggeration of what it really is.

And I want to clear the air.

I am not a perfect mother. I am not even a good mother most days. I struggle, exhausted and overwhelmed, just like everybody else! I don't get dressed until like noon, and that usually means I've just dropped AND picked up Stella bra-less and unshowered.

I hate laundry. I let my dishes pile up until my husband can't even walk in the kitchen. I forget everything. Everything. Including Teddy Bear Day in which Stella arrived to preschool without a Teddy Bear. How awful right??? I have Christmas presents I STILL haven't sent. And a Baby Gift from the beginning of January I still haven't delivered. Birthday Week is OVER and I still haven't planned the girls party!! What am I waiting for???? And we are now officially well into March and I still have Snowmen decorating my walls when it should clearly be Easter Eggs and Flowers!!!

But worst of all... Worst of all.... was something Stella said to me a little over a week ago.

Well, she didn't even say it to me. She said it to her sister in front of me. And I just about lost all my composure, sunk down to the floor and wept big, hysterical, sobbing tears.

It went like this. I was making breakfast before dance two Saturdays ago and the girls were crowded around me, like usual. Picture starving vultures swooping low over their next meal just waiting for it to take it's very last breath of life, I mean that's what my kids are like at breakfast time. So. I was pouring cereal and Scarlett was chatting my earlobe off.

She said something like, "Mommy, after breakfast will you play Polly Pockets with me?"

And I started to mumble something incoherent, because I hadn't had my caffeine yet, about how after breakfast we would be getting ready for dance, when Stella piped up and answered for me.

My sweet, smart, funny, but very sensitive little five year old said, "Scarlett, Mommy's don't play! Mommy's have too much work to do!!"

Oh my gosh. Talk about a broken heart. In fact, my heart is still breaking!!!!!

I don't even know how I kept it together, except that part of me was so in shock I could barely move forward with my day.

It was awful. And a painful, very painful reality check.

And now, all I can think about is that little girl, my eldest, my sweet, amazing little girl is going to start school full time next year and her mother is too busy working to play with her!

Ugh. I feel sick.

And that very same day, I got an email praising me for being a mother and a writer, saying she didn't know how I could do it all!

I replied politely and gratefully, because I was very thankful for the note. But also, it was like salt on a wound because the truth is, I Don't do it all.

Not hardly.

Most of the time I am a chicken with my head cut off, running from one thing to the next. No. Running LATE from one thing to the next. I neglect my house. I neglect my writing. I neglect my family. All in an attempt to juggle them all.

I have said it before. I can either be a good housewife, a great mother or a successful writer, but I cannot be all three.

I can do two of them Ok....

But when I try for all three, something happens, pieces begin to fall off of our well-oiled rusty-broken down machine, I start to drop the balls that I'm juggling and in general we all suffer.

And I don't know the answer. I don't know how to fit the pieces of this puzzle together so that they work and stay unbroken.

But I know that I can't give one piece up. I know that we have to figure this out, the hard, painful way. The long way, most likely....

And my family is not asking me to give any of it up. But it sure would be nice to do everything perfectly, without letting one area suffer.

Obviously that's unrealistic. Delusional even....

Before this whole writing career took off, I had Two Week Meal Plans, where each meal cost $5 to make. My house was cleaned pristinely like clockwork every two weeks. And in the in between time we played.

But $5 meal plans were a necessity. And I could clean because there wasn't much else in my life going on.

Now, things are different. Good different. But still different. And that means we have to adjust.

And until I figure it out, apparently I'm going home with the Worst Mother Award... Ok, maybe that's a little harsh, but at the very least the Too Busy For My Kids Award.

Which is just as hard a pill to swallow as the other one....

This I know for certain though, whether I get this new life figured out or not, I will never have it all together. I will never balance everything perfectly and pat myself on the back at the end of the day satisfied with a job well done. I will forever be figuring it out, learning to balance and rebalance as the demands of life shift and change. Motherhood.... Marriage.... A Career.... Life in general is just plain tough. There is no easy way, or right way to go about this life, we just do the best we can, and when we're not doing that, we pray for the forgiveness of our loved ones and hope we can start with more motivation tomorrow.

So. That's where I'm at. That's the truest kind of mother I am.

Frazzled. Forgetful. Busy. And. Dysfunctional.

Today I just hope to get the house picked up, make two phone calls, get Stella to dance on time and find something to put on the table for dinner. Sounds easy, but you know it won't be! :)