Confession Tuesday

The Balance of Art

It's raining and storming and we lost our power for five minutes last night. It was bizarre, but long enough for us to find the flashlights, the lantern, call the electric company to report our outage and hear my daughter say to the stairs, "I wish the lights would come on!" And then they did. (We tend to lose power every time someone sneezes too hard in this town...)

Saturday was not raining and storming, but a beautiful almost-70 degree day that allowed me to garden all day. I planted our cool crop (aka the guinea pig garden) - a selection of greens-- spinach, lettuce, swiss chard, flat parsley, chives, etc. We also walked up to see our neighbor's new baby lambs. Ridiculously cute. Easter cute.

But I injured my right wrist while gardening, which is not good if you are a right-handed writer, if you are a right-handed gardener.

But this is life in a small town and it seems I should be confessing, but is there anything to confess.. Yes, of course there is. Let's begin.


To the confessional--

The Art of Being a Mom-


I confess when I was a kid I never looked at my mum and thought, "Wow, it's hard being a mom," but honestly, as a mother now, I must say, it's kind of tough sometimes.

And it's not the "being a mom" part that's tough, that's the easy part--all the love and crafts, the board games and groceries, the artwork, the free hugs, the love love love--but some of the other things like balance, like having to deal with other moms who you may normally not be friends with but you now know this person because your child knows their child, like the worry (some or all self-imposed), and the small dramas of childhood that come by surprise.

Sometimes it's hard for me to find that balance where it feels as if nothing was (is) neglected.

I'm sure there are others who are better at it than I am. I'm sure I worry more than I need to. Maybe it's because "parenting" has become a verb and when I was growing up you "had kids."

I once heard a woman say, "We do our best as mothers, and when we learn how to do better, we do that." I always liked that as I am far from perfect and constantly, always, learning.

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I confess I don't think I ever appreciated what my mother did for me until I had a child.

Looking back at my mum, who raised 5 girls (I was the youngest of 5), how she spent 37 years of her life as raising us from when the oldest was born until I went to college, I wonder if anyone of us ever told her Thank You, a sincere thank you.

My mum is turning 76 tomorrow. We're taking her out to a surprise dinner and event. We will give her flowers and cake. And I will try to make sure she knows how thankful I am that she is in my life and for her raising/parenting/loving me.

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I confess I wasn't planning on this being the parenting version of Confession Tuesday, but it seems that is where my mind is this morning.

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I confess I saw that I had 97 Followers of my blog this morning and that made me happy. I'm thinking of doing something fun or giving something away when I hit 100.

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As always, thanks for listening.
~Kells