non-obligatory mother's day post

Sometimes Mother's Day can be anti-climactic.
Even upsetting and emotional.

I can remember a few Mother's Day's sitting in a pew at church hearing stories about the most amazing mother's ever and not knowing how I would or could ever measure up to that.

Add to that my preggo hormonal emotions AND the cover of Time magazine asks me this week "Are You Mom Enough" and I'm maybe at my wits end with this glorious day we celebrate mothers.

It's not a race.  It's not a challenge.  It's not a competition.  I am the right mom for each of my kids.  And my mom was the right mom for each of us girls.  The working mommy vs. stay at home mommy debate rears it's ugly head in society every couple of years and it's just infuriating.  We should be building each other up and supporting other mom's, not critiquing and feeling insufficient to some perfect mold made up in our heads.

(stepping off my soap box now)

So this mother's day has been a little different for me.  We've spent the weekend with ALL of the kids home-even Big Man on Campus who's on a mini-summer break from college.  So naturally we spent it assembling IKEA furniture and getting all of our rooms and furniture squared away for my little jelly bean to make her arrival.  And rather than compare notes or sit in a church building feeling less than I started thinking about what's the one quality MY mom has that I admire most and would like to be better at.

I've written about my mom before-I'm a big fan of hers-you can read more about her HERE

My mom is a forgiving fool.
Seriously.
She'll forgive even the most difficult of things if she loves you.

What I love about that is what it's done for us as a family.  I've known a few families that have not been able to forgive a loved ones decisions or mistakes and have severed ties or created such tension that it's difficult to live with.  I've watched other families tear each other up just to prove who's right and who's wrong creating painful riffs that last longer than they should.

In our family, family is family.  Period.  We have all made poor choices and fallen off the deep end.  Including me.  In a family of so many girls let me just say we have all pissed each other off, some of us have made life altering bad choices, others of us have judged and pointed fingers at the others (that was my specialty, truth be told), we've fought, we've fallen away from each other, we've made up, we've made messes.  But we know we're in this forever and I really think this goes back to my mom and her ability to forgive.  She taught us by example that when your sister or your loved one, or even you kid screws up it's ok to be angry.  It's ok to be disappointed.  It's ok to have a messy response and throw your own fit.  But it will never be ok to walk away and everyone gets to make a comeback.

What's odd is that I can't remember my mom ever sitting us down and explaining this or teaching us this lesson.  I've just seen it time and time again.  It's sort of amazing to me.  And she's certainly not perfect at it-I'm sure there are situations unresolved for her or things that have been painful to forgive but she does it.  Repeatedly.  Almost with reckless abandon.

I want to be more like that.
I would love to forgive more freely.
Let people have their do-overs a little more gracefully.

So that's how I choose to spend my mother's day energy today, getting ready for the baby and focusing on the part of my mom I would really like to be more like.

Feels really good.

Oh.  And mom?
Thanks for being who you are.
I sure do love you.

(And I think I just inadvertently blog named this baby in this post!  Every kid has a nickname I use here and in life...I think we'll shorten Jelly Bean to just Bean.  Yup.  That works!)

-McGee

in these four walls...

Wars.
Sickness.
Recession.
Challenged Economy.
Crazy people with drama all around.

There are plenty of things in the outside world that given the chance would absolutely drive the most sane, well adjusted person up a wall if given the chance. But here we are at the grateful season of Thanksgiving followed quickly by the wonderful heartfelt season of Christmas and love. So I’ve been thinking a lot about what makes our lives great out here in McGee-ville.

I am grateful on any given day for many things and many people in my life. I have been blessed with an amazing mother, a father who loved me in his own ways crazy as they may be and sisters that I make crazy and vice versa but who stick together when it counts. I am grateful for the huge extended family I grew up with and the memories that time can’t even take away from me. I’m grateful that I have a job. I don’t love it but I am grateful for work! I’m grateful for good friends, good health, a roof over my head, a reliable car, the clothes on my back…there are a great many things that I am grateful for.

But this year…
This year I am most grateful for my own four walls.

I’m not a self proclaimed accomplished homemaker by any stretch. I’m not very good at decorating-I know when it looks good but I’m not sure how to start. I can’t bake bread and I love flowers but I’m not so sure how to arrange them. I cook…a little…I can bake up a storm but that is perhaps as domestic as I get!

But I think I found the secret.

I learned how to create the home our family needed with some help from my man-let’s call him Mr. Man. And it had nothing to do with shabby chic décor or Betty Crocker homemaking-although I wish I had those skills! It was about what we feel when we walk into our four walls.

This past year Mr. Man and I have spent lots of blood, sweat and tears taking the best of our homes growing up and meshing that into our own home. As a result, I am most grateful that regardless of the craziness that is life, the challenge of whatever school or work has brought, that no matter who or what attempts to tear us down at the end of the day we and any combination of our four kids get to come home to a safe, loving, warm, supportive home where we block the rest of the world out and focus on our family.

THAT is a home.
THAT is what I am extremely grateful for.
THAT is why 2009 has been such a blessing.

I have a partner in Mr. Man that picks up where I leave off, that adores me and all four of these kids and that loves to cook the most amazing meals. I have been blessed to fall in love with my very best friend and find-to my delight-that he wants the same four walls that I do. We have four beautiful, strong, smart, loving children who are healthy and happy and who know they are loved. We share what’s in our four walls with good friends and family from time to time who leave little imprints of their hearts as they fill our four walls.

It’s not always blissful, it’s not always clean and much to our kids dismay sometimes I have to cook instead of him.

But what happens in our four walls
will always outweigh what waits outside.

And we are all the better for it.
Because it’s home.

McGee