Middle School Mentality

I want to start this entry by saying that I love my children more than anything in the world. That being said...

So it's been awhile since I had the time to sit down and write, but Hattie got her immunizations yesterday so she's drugged up on Tylenol... in other words, she's a napping fool today!


There's something I've noticed in the past few years about moms, young and old, brand new or seasoned. For some reason, there is this need to make everyone else out there believe that you experienced the perfect pregnancy, the least painful labor, have the best sleeping infant, and the most well behaved toddlers. That's as far as I've gotten since I don't have teenagers yet, but I'm sure this trend will continue.


Why can't we all just admit that pregnancy sucks, infants drive you crazy the majority of the time, and toddlers make you want a glass of wine at noon?

When I got pregnant with Ash and Gracie, it seemed like everyone around me was pregnant too, but they were all REALLY enjoying themselves. I felt like such an awful person because I HATED being pregnant. I was constantly nauseous, couldn't fit into any cute clothes, and wouldn't even DARE look at myself naked in the mirror for fear that the sight of the cellulite forming on my legs might make my morning sickness act up at 7:00pm. Plus, there was this little bitty part of me that was so worried I wouldn't love my babies. But why was I the only person feeling this way? I spent every day completely flooded with guilt, convinced that if I hated being pregnant, there was no way I would be a good mother.


Months feeling like years later, the crappy pregnancy was over. Now the fun should begin, right? I mean, if every other person around me was having such a wonderful time with their new baby, then I should be loving the fact that I had two, right? Again, wrong. I'm not going to get into all the craziness of infants because most people reading this already know that all they do is eat, sleep, and poop. But wait, mine weren't sleeping... and it was a lot easier said than done to get them to eat without puking half of it up. But oh, did they poop. Of all the skills at which they could be successful, this is the one talent they picked. The days were dragging by... I missed my family and wanted my babies to be the little bundles of joy that everyone said theirs were being. Before I knew it, I was wrapped up in my own little world of post-partum depression, and again, NOBODY else around me was going through it.

I'm not going to go into much detail right now about my PPD, because it's definitely worthy of its own entry. But for those of you reading this who have suffered or are suffering from post-partum depression, YOU ARE NOT ALONE!!

Getting through the first year of Ash and Gracie's life was excruciating, but I survived. I didn't handle it with nearly as much grace as the other moms around me who always seemed to have clean houses and perfect hair, but I survived nonetheless. And I was on a wonderful medication called Lexapro to help me through my PPD. Life should start becoming easier now, right? I think you know the answer by now. Ashton and Graysen were STILL not sleeping through the night, naptime was a daily battle, and they were extremely picky eaters. I had done everything the doctors and other mothers had suggested I do to get them to eat healthy foods and sleep longer, but nothing was working! And to make things even worse, every mother I talked to would go on and on about how their precious little ones preferred carrots over applesauce and slept thirteen hours a night after a day filled with two three hour naps. What was wrong with my children? Again, I was living in a constant guilt filled world. My children were going to eat macaroni and cheese every night for the rest of their lives, and I was going to have to spend the next eighteen years of my life tiptoeing around the house at night to make sure I wouldn't wake them.

It was around this time that I really started getting into Facebook. As many of us have, I became obsessed with reading people's status updates, feeling like it was my connection with other moms and the outside world. But I would also become extremely depressed when I would read about other people's lives. All of these moms were telling the cutest stories about how easy and wonderful their pregnancies/infants/toddlers were while I was at home PRAYING that my two little terrors wouldn't wake up early from their nap and interrupt my Facebooking time.

It wasn't until I started online chatting with moms that I made my discovery. I would be reading these status updates about these women with their perfect lives, then five minutes later, I would be chatting with that SAME mom about how awful and frustrating children are. And this isn't one mom in particular. I'm talking about five to ten moms who were absolutely miserable!! Hmmm... maybe I wasn't alone after all. It was as if a light bulb turned on in my head, and I suddenly had flashbacks of Middle School, when these perfect, popular classmates would come to school dressed flawlessly in that season's latest fashions, with their perfect hair, holding hands with their popular boyfriends. Oh, to be so lucky to just have a conversation with someone from the cool crowd. They were all so perfect! Obviously, I was young and naive while believing these things, but as it turns out, this doesn't stop in Middle School. Now, all of us moms are the popular girls, trying so desperately to show everyone out there how wonderful our children are, and how perfect the lives are that we live. But WHY?

I am truly interested in receiving feedback from anyone and everyone reading this entry. Please, I'm dying to know, what are your thoughts??