Sunday, June 2, 2013

Oh Bite Me, Pinterest!

Do you ever see other moms' pins on Pinterest, observe their Facebook lives or read other mommy bloggers and start to think that unless you are homeschooling six children who never watch TV because you keep them continuously engaged with homemade educational crafting projects while hand-sewing their clothes and growing the equivalent of 50 acres of organic produce in egg cartons on your windowsill, that you are in some way less of a mom?  Are you allowing others to guilt-trip you by way of social media?  Guilty!!! (Arm frantically waving)  I admit that I am constantly comparing myself to other people's virtual lives, and every time I fall short.

Do you know why?  Because it's not real!!!  We are not jealous of the women who put it all out there and admit that they are just happy to have survived the day when their toddler refused to change out of their pajamas or eat anything other than marshmallows and potato chips.  We instead marvel at the women who tell us all about their abilities to live environmentally friendly, organic, gluten-free, vegan, from-scratch lifestyles on less than 38¢ a day with perfect cooperation from their children and spouse.

Well, I could go ahead and tell you about how I already have handmade my daughters' next Halloween costumes using nothing but dryer lint and gum wrappers, but I hope you would realize that is ridiculous.  Let me clarify, I love that a new recipe or a fun craft project can always be at my fingertips thanks to the internet.  What I am battling against is the idea that "EVERY OTHER MOM IS SO MUCH BETTER THAN ME, JUST LOOK AT FACEBOOK!"  Why do I continue to compare myself to virtual moms?  Sometimes I need to unplug and spend more time engaging with my children instead of spending the last hour before bedtime searching Pinterest for the best bedtime wind-down activity.

One of my goals with this blog is to be real so you won't feel alone in YOUR realness (is that a word?).  Sometimes I am proud of what I am able to accomplish in a day and I hope you will celebrate with me.  Other times I want to throw my computer out the window because I cannot bear to look at the clearance-bin birthday invitations I just bought at Wal-Mart after seeing "Blog Mom's" personalized, hand-made, pop-up, delivered-by-a-unicorn birthday invites.  You'll get to see those moments, too.

If you're ready for one, stay tuned.  Yesterday we had our girls' princess birthday party...tomorrow I'll tell you about their birthday cupcakes.  Don't worry, there's pictures:)

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