Showing My Love

I don't have a Pintrest account. I've been afraid that I would get sucked into a vortex of internet-based creativity from which I would not have the will power to remove myself. I realized that I have been keeping away for another reason entirley.

Mason wanted to have a Ninjago birthday party and I didn't have any ideas on how to make that happen. I started my google search and one of the first links was to a woman's Pintrest page on party ideas. As I browsed through the pictures I found some great ideas...in fact a lot of great ideas. The more I looked the more alarmed I became. "Has every good idea in the world already been thought of?" I lamented. (Yes, I still have some of that over-competitive drive from my younger years.)

Some of the pictures linked me through to blogs that detailed out their parties and sometimes even included free printables. These moms clearly had some mad skills - photography, design, decorating, cake frosting! The more I read the more depressing it was. I thought I was pulling off some pretty cool parties, but it was nothing compared to the professional-photography-quality depictions before me. I was clearly being outdone...by a lot of people. And it was disheartening.

Suddenly it dawned on me - is that how my friends feel when they read my blog? Were they seeing my best edit of my best moments and feeling the same way I was feeling now? Really crappy.

This weighed on me. I want to keep sharing my ideas and my adventures, but I don't want other moms to feel they are lacking because they don't do the same things that I do. That is when I reminded myself of a very important truth - this is how I show my love.

I have my own gifts and talents and creating birthday parties and themed activities is how I give the best parts of myself to my kids.

I have friends that spend hours baking homemade bread for their family. I have friends that love to read to their children and share the books they love. I have friends that play trucks and trains and Barbies with their kids. I have friends that spend hours tutoring their kids through music lessons and sports practice.

For my kids? They don't get fresh wheat bread or bedtime stories. On a good day I might read to them on the couch in the afternoon, although they usually have to nudge me awake between pages.
We don't do dance classes or karate. I don't cook gourmet meals, I don't change their sheets regularly, and I can't remember the last time I scrubbed a toilet (Kate gets them 80% clean 50% of the time and Shem does the rest).

But gosh dang it, on their birthdays they will know with every ounce of energy I have to give that they are loved by their mother!

So, my friends, if you are feeling at all discouraged like I was, just remember how it is that you show your love.  And know that I'd rather you didn't throw elaborate parties anyway, because then I will be convinced that you are doing it all!