Comparisonitis

Warning - for those of you in the Quad City area, I'm totally copping this post idea from the Quad City Moms Blog because Heather (who's a friend of mine through Stroller Strides a few years ago) wrote a post about "Mommy Comparisonitis" which is a "condition" in which you find yourself comparing yourself to other super moms (or those you view as super moms/coworkers/anyone) to the point in which you start to lose perspective and feel like what you have/do isn't good enough. So here goes. I'm going to air out some of my comparisonitises and hopefully it will help bring some perspective about how great my life really is. Truly! I love my life. Happy girl right here. Onward.

Comparisonitis: While I am pretty sure I am a rockstar single mom most of the time when Adam travels, I'm still extremely jealous of moms who get their husbands home all the time (I mean 90% of the time or more).
Reality: We chose this life/career path. Mostly. When Adam interviewed for jobs, his current company was the one that fit us the best. Then they moved him within the company here...there...and then over THERE. All of these moves are completely normal for this company (any GPC employee/wife of can attest to that!). This new (old) job involves travel and it makes it difficult to be a rockstar SET of parents almost every night of the week. Am I insanely jealous of other moms who have reliable schedules week to week? Sure bet I do. Do I cry when he leaves? No, but I can get pretty sad when a tiny person in my house looks at me and asks for him or looks to where she'd normally find him in the morning when she gets out of bed.

Comparisonitis: Careful - this one's a doozy. I can't believe I'm not 5'10" and 145lbs of sheer tiger. (PS. I AM 5'10" however)
Reality: Seriously...I think every other person on this planet who's had a baby was back to "normal" within 10 minutes of popping out said child. Ok, ok, that may not be the case, but with Morgan it took me a YEAR to feel like I *might* sort of look like I should be allowed in a swimsuit without a moo moo over it and guess what...we're going on 13 months strong here with Hadley and I'm STILL ~9lbs up. STILL. I'm on my way down though - I had an AH HA THIS BLOWS moment FINALLY and decided it's time. I'm not being crazy gung ho here (as in no 10 mile runs in the dark in 10 degree weather for me!) but I'm doing SOMEthing at least 3-5x/week. I love this one Pin on Pinterest - it gives a workout for each day of the week which is totally doable and I can do without shoes on (good grippy socks though or I'd fall on my rear). It makes me feel like at least I got off the couch (when I finally hit it) and am doing SOMEthing. I'm going to love my body again...hopefully by summertime.

Comparisonitis: Everyone else has their families around to help them but us.
Reality: When we were young and didn't know anything, we figured all the job offers/interviews Adam was up for shouldn't be a flight away so we didn't pick any of those (we didn't mind living farTHER away, just not FAR away). So we ended up in good ol' Iowa. It was our choice. Do we always love it? Nope, sure don't. Do I sometimes want to cry my eyes out from missing our families and wanting our girls to spend more time with them? Yup. So...we put tens of thousands of miles on our cars, let our girls watch entirely too much TV in the car, and go up to see them as much as we can. Once I did the math b/c I was curious how much it really cost to do this oh, 10-12x/year, and I don't want to do it again. The cost was HIGH. Hey, HEY! Totally worth it.

Comparisonitis: The other amazing SLPs I work with learned more/retained everything/keep current on things I have no idea about. Since I don't do these things, I'm totally sub-par when it comes to being a Speech-Language Pathologist (SLP).
Reality: I don't suck at my job. Some days are definitely better than others and I can meet a deadline like nobody's business. Am I a graphing queen? HA. No. (although I am working on it with a little "help" I suppose...but I digress). I'm learning as I go and can't believe how much more I know now than I did even a year ago at this time. This is a work-in-progress career. I think I'm finally grasping this...although I swear there are some of my colleagues who stay up late reading the latest research and using it perfectly in their therapy sessions....anyone feeling guilty??

Comparisonitis: All our friends have beautiful homes that are always clean (toy clutter doesn't count), updated, and don't have glaring issues wrong with them, much unlike our house.
Reality: Our house is not a bad house (Adam will vehemently disagree, but then again, he's the one doing most of the projects these days). The girls have the HUGEST/cutest bedrooms I've ever seen for kids (an entire floor to themselves! ah, the space!) and we've decorated them well. While their rooms are practically perfection, the rest of our house lacks...cohesiveness. Things are kind of hodge-podged all over and there's no real theme. Not that a house needs a theme necessarily, but things don't match, pictures remain propped up near where they should be hung, there's chips in paint, the trim is a disaster (we hate wood trim, want white)...and I'm not willing to spend the time/money to redo each room's decor when we could be moving in the next few years or so to our forever home (we tried and failed at this the summer I was pregnant with Hadley). More reality - this house is the house where we brought home our babies (fuzzy and human). We made this house our HOME. Laughter fills these spaces as well as tears of all kinds, good and maybe not so good. We hate all the projects this place that is as old as we are still has left to do. It feels like a never ending battle and we realize you'll have that almost any house save for new construction (eep! big cash!). So we work on projects, try to keep it clean, and someday, dang it, when the government stops taking so dang much money from us, maybe I'll have a cleaning lady. ;-)

Comparisonitis: My friends never yell at their kids. They are super patient with them and their kids are near perfect as a result.
Reality: I'm relatively patient with the girls (see C#1). There are times, though, where I get away from myself and I'm mad. I'm frustrated. I don't see why they can't see my point of view and this makes total sense to me, an almost 31 y/o woman, about a 1 and 3 year old. Ok, I lie. I have a temper and it can get ugly (thank you Adam for still loving me anyway. I blame my genes mostly). Sometimes, as most parents do, I'm sure, I have to step back and breathe. Remember they are kids. And that they're healthy and normal. And wonderful!! We are truly blessed to have these two little people in our lives and I hate putting them to bed  after a rough night knowing I have to wait hours and hours until I can be a better mom again. I was mad at the dog the other day for something...and Morgan actually "coached" me to take some deep breaths (it felt like I was talking to myself out of her mouth like when I have to help her calm down). Woah, reality check. Since then I've been better. It feels like sometimes I'm so patient during Adamless weeks that it gets all bottled up and flies out when he's home b/c I know they'll have someone else to fall back on when mom's nuts again. It's not like I scream and yell, guys. It's the feeling of constantly saying NO, repeating myself over and over and just kid-testing-mom kinds of things. It's normal...right?

Comparisonitis: Everyone has their best friend in their back pocket (ie. lives down the street, close city, next door...)
Reality: No they don't. Geez. This is just a shout out to my bestie because I miss her like crazy and it's really not fair that she lives 5.2503 hours away from me. I blame her. ;-)


So here's the reality, folks (self?). I'm so very lucky to have the best husband, amazing children, and beautiful roof over our heads. I wouldn't change a thing unless it meant I'd be better for them. So onward with thanking God for all the blessings we have and continue to enjoy this life we share b/c honestly - it's the best one I could have hoped for.