Quite often, I feel like I fake it a lot. A bit like this photo.... (This is what you get when you ask a 2yr-old to smile)
Life is hard. Every day I have at least 5 moments of extreme anxiety where I question WHY? You know the kinds of situations where we are exhausted and exasperated enought to ask these types of questions: why did I have children? Why am I shopping with children? Why am I attempting to paint with 2 boisterous children while cooking dinner? Why did I mop the floor? Why did I teach Hayden to talk? WHY, WHY WHY? Incidentally, Hayden's favourite phrase at the moment is "why"......
And so over my short term of motherhood thus far, I have tried to take on the mantle of 'fake it till you make it'. .... a smile when I am grumpy.... a sweet kind voice when I want to scream.... going out when I'm feeling reclusive and prickly.... being tired and pushing on anyway.... pretending I know exactly what I'm talking about when my child asks me to explain a rather difficult phenomenon..... flying by the seat of my pants to look competent when I'm not....
I remember a good teacher friend of mine advising me "get in there, have a go and fake it. Eventually you'll realise one day that you're not faking it anymore".
Unfortunately, I am not at that stage yet. I wish that I wanted to talk more sweetly to my children than I do. I wish that I was calmer than I am. I wish that I didn't have to consciously remind myself to keep my voice measured and look for a positive way to respond to a child's misdemeanor. I wish that I enjoyed cleaning the house up 50x a day.
Maybe one day this mother thing will come naturally. Till then..... consider me a faker!
awesome post bev! faker mcfakey pants you! lol... yeah I read an article in the feb ensign yesterday about fatherhood (but you could apply the same principle to motherhood) ahhhhh I am going to try harder... AGAIN!! I honestly spend too much time on the computer and not enough playing with my kids.. so I am attempting to be better...... *sigh*
ReplyDeleteOnce again you echo my own personal thoughts, feelings and failures in your blog! When one counsels to "fake it till you make it" they fail to mention a time frame! Perhaps it will come as grandparents when your a bit more removed and not so intensely connected to child/ren. I can't wait that long if its the case. To your credit Bev you actually try which is more than i can say for many mothers out there...
ReplyDeleteYou are so gorgeous Bev! I love these thoughts - thanks for sharing - I'm sure we'll all agree you're pretty good at faking it, unlike me - i let it all hang out there - scream when I need to, cry when I need to, throw something when I need - hehehehe...off to read some more! xxx
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