Why do I read so many people's blogs. I really just need to stop the insanity. Seriously. Sometimes I feel all uplifted and I really do like to look into other people's lives - trying to escape mine, voyeuristic?? Who knows?
For the most part they just piss me off. There are the athletic mom type blogs where these women are seemingly kicking ass and taking names in whatever their chosen sport is all while balancing motherhood and sometimes full time jobs with the greatest of ease. They chat about how they ran 7 minute miles in their last long run and won their age group in LIKE EVERY RACE they have done!!!! Their kids are great and their abs are ripped and they have the photos and finish times to prove it.
Then their are the blogs (moms again) w/ beautiful photography of fabulous craft projects they do WITH THEIR KIDS and everyone loves each other, it's all grand and no one yells and the kids go to bed when they are told to go to bed. They all eat yummy home cooked organic food that their kids devour with out complaint. You know the ones...
HRMPH!! Do you think they are REAL? Do you think that life is as it is depicted. I mean yea, the people are real and their lives are real they are blogging about THEIR reality, but do you think my perception is correct?
Where are the screaming banshies that bounce off the walls, complain about EVERYTHING you put in front of them be it food or activities. They want you to play with them, but then when you finally do decide to give it a shot hoping it doesn't bore you into an early grave they tell you YOU AREN'T DOING IT RIGHT! Well shit if I'm going to be bored to an early death AND I can't do it right screw it.. play with your brother/sister. Where are the balls of dog hair finding homes and creating colonies in every corner. Where are the dirty dishes in the sink, the never ending piles of laundry in some state of done and not done, the pajamas that I'm pretty sure I've had on for three days in a row, the cups of coffee, the tv shows while I pretend I care or catch a nap, the clutter that seems to always be here despite my efforts to dispell it?
Where is the piss poor attitude and thinking... uh, I WANTED this? Where's the reality folks... you are making the rest of us feel like shit!
Perhaps I just am not that zen? Perhaps?? You think? I wish oh, wish I could be those ladies. I'm okay in my speed and I'm happy w/ that.. but these ladies are out their racing a ton. I could not keep up with that.... I've tried and not even at their pace. Guess I should just accept that. We are all different, eh? I wish I could sit down and ENJOY doing crafts with my kids, enjoy just playing silly kid games. Eat them up and love every second to include the many tantrums, loud LOUD noises and messes. I need a chill pill.. hmm HAPPY pill? Little "purple" pill.. or is it little "blue" pill. I can't remember..... What I really need is SOME FREAKIN' WARMTH!!! A nice warm day where we can go play and climb and run and scream OUT SIDE!!!! ALL DAY! A park to WALK to would be GREAT! I miss Madison!
Okay... I just had to get that out of my head. Now I'm off to delete almost EVERY ONE of my RSS feeds so I can stop pretending I'm fast, clean, creative or really fit to be a parent! ha ha I'll be buried under a pile of laundry, drinking a cup of coffee in my three day old jammies if you need me. No pretty photographs. There's just no way to pretty that up!
LOL. I loved this rant. Fortunately you have my blog, in which you can read about crying kids, the fact that I can barely take it, and even see videos of them screaming at the dinner table! :) All the ugliness of motherhood in all its glory! Hopefully you feel better after reading about the hot mess that is my life.
ReplyDeleteBTW, what you describe feeling when you read those blogs...your blog is kind of like that for me. Not in a bad way, but in a "damn, she just ran a MARATHON and at a speed I could never achieve in my wildest dreams!" way. To me it is very very impressive (and a little intimidating) especially when I hit that bike path at my super-slow speed. So, you are that amazing person to somebody else, even if it doesn't feel like it when you read those other blogs.
Signed, the mom who was too dumb to think up that idea about letting both kids out of the same side of the car. ;)
Ha! I have thought this same thing! But I haven't seen any blogs written by moms, creative or athletic or otherwise, where the mom works full time or even part time.
ReplyDeleteI've been looking for one of those, actually!
I stopped reading parenting blogs for a while for this very reason!
I think many in the blogosphere are either stay-at-home moms who have the time to blog, or they are younger people without kids, or they are professional bloggers...that's what I've run across anyway.
Either that, or they have a lot more help than most people do with raising their kids so that they still have some free time.
I think that is why I find your blog interesting...you are brutally honest about how hard parenting is and how there is a lot of the doubt, and the questioning, and the exhaustion, and kids who aren't always behaving.
So THANKS for posting this. And don't compare yourself and feel bad...you don't really know what is happening behind the blogs and what has been edited out of a person's life before they post. My guess is that it's not all sunshine and 5 minute miles.
:)
Clearly, you do not speak of my blog!!! I am right there with you, Laura, and you are so brave to put it out there. Too bad more mothers can't be so forthright!! Maybe there wouldn't be so much mommy guilt if we could all just be real.
ReplyDeleteAs to the playing with your kids, thing, I totally agree. It's frustrating. If I'm doing it, I either end up yelling or crying, and if I'm not doing it I feel horribly guilty. I've taken to letting them "help" me with the things I like to do like cooking... still frustrating, but more fun than Candyland!!
HA! This is why I read Dooce's blog. It's always a healthy dose of my kind of 'reality'.
ReplyDeleteI imagine you have read Pioneer Woman right? If her photography alone doesn't make you want to hurl...
;-) Most of us are just clam diggin our way through the muck.
Holy crap, that was fricking awesome. If you delete me, I'll strangle you. I'm too addicted to your blog to come to terms with the fact that you might stop reading mine. Maybe some people just blog about the good stuff cause they are too afraid to comit the bad stuff to print :). That's my story...and by the way just my frickin workout clothes create one entire load of laundry A DAY. Sigh.
ReplyDeletehaha ha ha ha!!! Oh my, you are too funny. And I know you didn't mean to be. I know exactly what you are talking about. There is always someone to compare yourself too - someone faster, more creative, fitter, funner, more interesting, neater, etc. I think these people have real lives and real struggles. you only know what they post, you don't really know what is going on. I think everyone is more like you - screaming kids, neverending laundry and dishes...This is real life. It's everyone's life, unless they can afford full time nannies and housecleaners. We have to stop comparing ourselves to others. We just do the best we can and be happy with our clutter, our dishes, our speed, our fitness because our life is the only life we have.
ReplyDeleteIt certainly isn't perfect. Stop reading those damn blogs and comparing yourself to other people. You are awesome, you are driven, your work hard, you are super fit and you are a great mom! :-)
I hear ya, sometimes it feels that way when you read other's blogs - but in reality - its really just a snapshot of his or her life and not the whole picture. I assure you everyone has some good and some bad going on in their lives but how we choose to depict it in a post is entirely another matter.
ReplyDeleteHi...found your blog through Erin's FB page.....LOVED this post. I couldn't have said it better myself. You're so right on!! Thanks for putting into words exactly what I've been thinking since the day my daughter was born!!
ReplyDeleteI think we need more bloggers in the world who blog about the difficulties instead of describing their lives through rose colored glasses. There is peace (and serenity) in honesty!
Well, I don't know where the realistic BLOGS are, but what you described about YOUR day sounds exactly like MY day! Dirty laundry? Check. Boring kid games? Check. Dirty PJs? check. double check.
ReplyDeleteI guess that you could be grateful that you are fit and trim and not fat and tired all the time like me.
Move back here and then you and the kids could come over to my dirty house and I wouldn't have to feel bad for not cleaning before you come! :)
All I have to say is....
ReplyDeleteThank you!!! Seriously, I have to make myself stop reading most of it because, I, too am inferior. I don't do crafts, bake cookes, bake bread, make an amazing dinner, clean my house and home school my kids all in one day.
I am not creative, my body is a mess after the boys, and can barely even find time to try to exercise in the week. My kids whine and scream-- sometimes, *I* whine and scream, and often I wonder what I was thinking! Yes, I love my kids, every day, and there are moments in every week that make me remember how I couldn't live without them now. It's just harder to remember when the 6 year old is raging in her room about some horrible injustice I have inflicted while one of her brothers is standing at my feet making the most horrible whining noise I have ever heard in my life, and the other brother is off chucking things into the toilet that do not belong in the toilet (and consequently may require taking said toilet UP OFF THE FLOOR to get said object out)... Yea... I *totally* hear you. I am not zen.
I've always looked at you thinking how amazing you are, being able to train and run the way you do, plus juggle twins! I can barely seem to get out of the house most days!
Now, enjoy your coffee and excuse me while I go sift through the 3 baskets of clean laundry hanging out on the couch to find something for the girl to wear to school tomorrow... ;)
Ha - I LOVE this post! I always wonder how the heck these mom's with 6 pack abs and 4 young children manage to find time to train for an Ironman, run 7:30 minute miles, on a "slow day", and cook wholesome organic food that the "kiddos just love". Anyway, see, now I am going off! :) Great post.
ReplyDeleteSo funny - I mean I'm sure not at the time you wrote it...but SO FUNNY! Honey - when people read YOUR blog they think that too =) Bringing up twins and still can train and accomplish these amazing feats all while making home made nut milk and whatever the hell else you do in that blender thingy of yours =)
ReplyDeleteI so wish you lived HERE!
Someday I'll tell you about the woman I met at Matt and Jansie's with 3 or was it 4 kids that told me that she just, "kissed her kids off to sleep each night" - this was when Fiona was still a babe and cried non stop for months on end - I could have kicked her in the teeth - we still talk about her. Bitch. =)
Glad you pulled out of it - we should talk some day about my business thought, "guiltymom.com" - hang in there - you rock!
I just read this and LOVE it because you are REAL and not afraid to show it !!! The good times and the bad : ) I completely connect with everything you said and just wanted to say thanks because it made me laugh which I think was the first time today doing so. I needed that : ) Your an amazing mother and I honestly don't think you give yourself enough credit for all that you do but I also know that none of us ever do.
ReplyDeleteTake care~ Erin
Ooo, I feel ya. We just moved. I'm feeling like I just want to hide out. Peer out the blinds with straggly hair and scream at my kids over my shoulder to quit talking, squirming, jumping, yelling and asking me a million f-ing questions. Sheesh. I really want to start training for something. Help! Where do I start?
ReplyDeleteI feel so much better!! I don't know what happened, but I stopped getting notices about comments and I was wondering why NO ONE said anything about this post. Then today I went to post something and saw all these great comments!!! THANK YOU ALL!!!! I'm happy to report that I am feeling much better! I love all the ladies far and wide supporting each other whether they've met or not!!!
ReplyDelete