Propping the bottle

9 months since my last post? Lame. Add "blogging" to the list of things I can't keep up on.

I feel like all my posts are about Mom Guilt, and it's because the feeling is so intensely present in my every waking moment that it's pretty much all I can think about. I have to constantly get it off my chest and send it out into the universe in the hope that I will be relieved from some of it, though that never seems to be the result. My personality has always been such that I feel extreme guilt for things that couldn't possibly be my fault, so being in charge of two little people is hardly a recipe for success in that vein.

Being the mother of 2 has been a bumpy road, and I never seem to have enough time to finish anything. My house is dirty. The kids are usually in some state of undress. One or the other never gets quite enough attention because the sibling is being needy that day. I don't plan my meals out ahead of time because there is no possible way I can be that organized amid the sea of chaos that is my living room. The patience that I was always complimented on by employers and teachers seems to vanish most days, and there is at least one occasion every week that I throw a full-blown Mom tantrum. I have very few coping skills, and the ones I have largely center around eating delicious things, because THAT helps. I feel every day is a lesson where I don't quite grasp the final concept, but I do my best to get by. If Motherhood were a university course, I feel like I'm a B- student. Maybe a B. Maybe.

In all this experience, the conclusion I have come to is that sometimes you have to prop the bottle.

What I mean is that when you are too drained from everything else happening around you, sometimes it's okay to put on a movie and let your toddler plop down in front of the TV for an afternoon. It's okay to make whatever box of food is in your cabinet that night because you were too busy cleaning up a poop mural to get to the grocery store for fresh produce. It's okay to put the baby in her crib and literally prop her bottle up on a blanket and let her feed herself while you go and sit quietly and gather you thoughts (or empty your head of them, whatever works).

These things are all severely frowned upon by parenting books, crunchy mothers and most people who live a conscientious lifestyle that somehow seem to have it all together. But you know, the next biggest lesson I've learned is that everyone has their own shit going on, it just doesn't always manifest itself in the same form as mine. I try not to judge anyone else for how they deal with their problems, so hopefully nobody judges me for my methods, though I'm constantly paranoid they do. I need to learn to let that crap go. Such a waste of time.

My mantra these days is "do your best, get through it, it won't be like this forever". I'm hoping that I'm getting brownie points with the universe for not yelling at my kid, even if it means she watches more TV that day than is probably a good idea. And on the days that I DO yell... well, I try to make it up to her somehow.

I also hope that my experiences-- the good, the bad, the hilariously ugly, will help motivate another mother to stop being so down on herself.

As for me, I'm trying really hard to make changes, even if it will take until my kids are teenagers to implement them. For now I'm taking baby steps and handing out snuggles, sometimes fruit snacks, and yes, propping the bottle as needed.