The reality of parenting

There are strechmarks under my shirt. Their are crumbs under my kitchen table. Something is probably staining or crunching into my carpet at any given time. There are things piled at random in the bottom of every closet. If you come over without calling first you'll probably find the livingroom looking sort of like this.

The reality is that parenthood is not glamorous. You don't wear make-up to play with the play dough. You sport a pony tail more than you do the polished look of the hair straightener. Sometimes you spend so much of a day in your pajamas that when you finally do get dressed you just clean into new clean pajamas.

It's not that parenthood is lazy. It's not that parenting is so hard that you can't get it all done. It's that at some point you love someone enough that spending quality time with them is more important than the 5 minutes to apply perfect eyeliner or that extra trip to the store is worth. I do not sit home all day and wait for life to happen. I am swallowed alive by life at any given moment and living it is a full time job.

Parenting is practical. It cleans up at the end of the day. It gets dinner on the table. It knows when to brush it off and when to kiss it to make it better. Parenting is picking battles and picking up things you can't identify off the floor before you vacume.

The reality of parenthood is that it's about choices. It's about how you sleep, what you eat, what you say & how you say it. It's about learning from your mistakes.

Maybe the reality is that your learn to find beauty in the mess.