Supermom vs. Reality Mom

I had a thought the other day as I was standing in line at Walmart. I find that this can be a great time for introspection because it's a nicer practice than grumbling about being in line. On this particular day my thoughts weren't 100% peaceful given that it was Saturday night and I was accompanied by Two 11-year old boys and a 9-year old boy. The voices inside my head sounded something like this:

Supermom: "I really should calm those kids down, people will get annoyed at how loud they are"

Reality Mom: "Oh stop it, they are fine, they are 11 and this is what they do, look at how cute they are"

Supermom: "Look at Tyler's hair, I've got to make him cut it. That man behind us is wishing me and my kids would just get out of the store already and that mom two lines over is probably thinking of how my kids will grow up to be menaces to society"

Reality Mom: "Actually that man behind us is smiling at the kids in a 'I totally get how you feel right now' way. And that mom, she almost looks a little wistful doesn't she? Maybe she misses when her kids were little."

Supermom: "I shouldn't be letting them get 3 different flavors of ice cream and toppings, they are going to grow up to be...." at this point the conversation gets really redundant but the important part of it is who won the argument and it was won by one simple sentence that we don't say in our house:

Reality mom: "Shut up, seriously, you are no fun"

The truth of it is reality mom usually wins in my family. The reality is, kids don't look perfect, they don't act perfect, especially in Walmart where all kids go to get out every tantrum they've had the decency to hold in all day long. You are only 11 on a Saturday night for a short time, where it's still cool to hang with your friend and your little brother and your mom at the same time. The messier a project is, the more fun you have while doing it.

My kids won't remember anything about the cleanliness of my house but they will remember that sometimes at dinner our family laughs so hard it becomes a choking hazard. They will remember that when they came home from school mom was ready to hang out with them instead of worrying about cleaning something or organizing something just in case someone shows up at our door to inspect our house with white gloves.

To all my lovely friends with little tiny children, please stop apologizing when your littles come to my house and knock stuff over. If I cared, I would have moved the stuff. To my amazing friends who are the mothers of my son's friends, please don't bother to apologize for a messy kitchen or a messy living room. I know what you're going through, these boys are like golden retriever puppies. They are full of energy and don't seem to know how big their paws are. I feel like Tyler knocks over more stuff now than he did when he was a toddler!

I can't help that supermom still creeps out in my head, but the least I can do for humanity is tell her to shut up. Because no one needs another person trying to be perfect in all the wrong areas. I would rather try to be a perfect mom and to me that looks like a mom who loves her kids unconditionally. A mom who cares more about their feelings and what they are learning from life than what other people think of them. A perfect mom realizes that there are no perfect answers, no perfect kids, no perfect house but an abundance of perfect ideas. And maybe those ideas will inspire little moments of reality-supermom, where I can be supportive, fun, and the house is clean and dinner is made and that's awesome! But of all the things I've learned on this mom journey, the ability to let it go was my best idea ever!