Friday, August 22, 2014

Potty training continued; and what makes you a better Mom?


For all the messes he makes, he is orderly after all :)
So today was the second time Boy announced that he needed to go potty! (Yes the first and only other time was like a month ago...) So we ran and made it to the bathroom on time and I did lots of praising and he was very proud of himself; we may succeed in this endeavor after all!

In other news, I have been working a lot lately; I keep getting calls to fill in at offices. So the other day I had a patient who was a mother of teenage children. We were talking about that it is hard leaving the kiddos to go to work when they are little, but that some days it is an easier job to be at work than at home (and if the job is harder/more stressful than being at work then you need a new job!). Anyway, her comment about leaving them in the morning even though it's hard is that "Ya, but it makes you a better Mom.".  I was silently saying "Huh???? So the Moms who choose to or get to stay home with their children are worse Moms???? Ya I don't think so!!!!"

After all didn't she just get done agreeing that it was harder to stay home with the kids? Just my thoughts, looking at it from a Christian perspective, things that are harder for us to do tend to be more sanctifying, so wouldn't that make us better Moms too? See, what I think people should realize, is that Moms who stay home, or Moms who work outside the home are not better than the other. Our duty as Moms is to do the best we can for our children each day, and sometimes (okay, probably often, if we are honest with ourselves), that is not the easy choice or the one we imagined when we blissfully pictured to ourselves what kind of a Mom we would be before we actually acquired the title.

Here's the bottom line: we are to do everything we do as unto the Lord, and that includes staying home all day with your kids, or leaving them in capable hands (at our house that's Daddy) and going to work for a few hours and then coming home and being Mom for the other sixteen hours in the day. Either way, it's hard, and saying "This makes you a better Mom" or "That makes you a better Mom" is only hurtful to all the other Moms out there who are doing it differently than you. See? Mothering is hard any way you cut it, but it is the best thing in the world to hear at the end of the day "Mama, you 'a pretty face!" and see your adorable 3-year-old beaming at you. Little moments like that and many many others are what define and make Moms great.

And now I should go check on the 3-year-old who is playing with his dolphin toy in the bathroom sink.