Unplugging...

Ok, so I'm not really unplugging anything.  I'm just taking a facebook hiatus.  I don't know about you, but the more time I spend of facebook, the sadder I get.  Between the starving children, barbaric ISIS beheadings/general terror, fires, droughts, floods, rapes, murders, crooked politicians, evil monsanto, and various other bummerage, my brain just fizzles after a few minutes of scrolling.  My heart just withers in my chest and starts crying, "Just stop.  Look away, find something else."

Of course, then there's my little herd of stampeding buffalo that always seem to want my attention right when I've settled in for a nice little social media session.  Bless their little hearts.  There are times when I have heard their little voices trying to reach me through all the crap that's marinating my soul, "Mama, will you play with me?" Sometimes, I brush them off with a, "Not right now." but on the times when I really listen, I get off the computer and go have a tea party or play super heroes.

Sometimes I forget that I have a serious job to do.  On days when the hubby is gone for the week and nothing seems to be going right, I just sink into this wormhole of self-preservation and try to forget that I'm a mother.  It's a hard job.  Much harder than you ever believe it will be before you have any children.  People try to warn you, but every single woman is certain that she will be the one superwoman immune to the hardships of motherdom... and every single woman usually has some kind of meltdown that stems from the realization that she didn't have it as figured out as she thought. 

My mother told me over and over and over before I was even married that once I had kids, my life would cease to be about me.  I would roll my eyes and nod and agree, and I really thought I understood.  Sweet, naive Rachelle. 

The year I had two babies in diapers was really hard, possibly the hardest of my life to date.  One thing that made it worse was logging onto facebook in search of connections, but all I ended up feeling was isolated.  I would look at these unbelievably productive mothers (some of which had more kids than I did!) who posted pictures of delicious-looking dinners, gourmet lunches, elaborately themed birthday parties, and flawless bodies that held no trace of stretch marks, extra pounds, or excess skin.  They would humble brag about how their one year old was already potty-trained and learning to read and that their three year old was already swimming and painting masterpieces.

All I could think was: "How do they do it?!"  I compared myself to these other mothers and found myself to be extremely wanting.  Compared to these mystical miracle workers, I was just a fat, sleep-deprived, scatter-brained, unmotivated, and just plain not good enough schlub.  I wish I had turned off facebook back then.  It would have helped me significantly. 

New mothers don't need to feel like they're in a competition with the world, life is hard enough those first few months.  They need support.  They need someone to talk to them every day, someone who will let them sob about spilling the 2 oz of pumped breast milk they just spent 30 minutes wrenching out of their boobs.  They need someone who will not judge them for their decision to make boxed macaroni and cheese for dinner for the third night in a row because they just don't have the mental stamina for anything beyond that.  And they really need someone who will smile and tell them they are doing a great job and promise that it won't last forever. 

Anyway, my original point was that social media these days contains so much awful information that you never wanted to know.  So much crap that you don't need to know.  I already know that the world has been slipping into a downward spiral for years.  I understand... really!  I just don't want to talk about it anymore.  I can't talk about it anymore.

I need to be blissfully ignorant for awhile.  I have to raise my kids with care and attention and not have a million things buzzing in the back of my mind all day long... things that are out of my control anyway.  It's too easy to forget the importance of the job I'm doing with so much ugliness in the world.  It's easy to feel like it won't matter how your kids turn out because we're probably all going to end up blown to bits in a few years anyway.  I'm not going to raise my kids in fear of what might happen, though, I'm going to raise them how I feel they should be raised, in spite of the ugliness around them.  I'm going to give them what security and happiness I can, while I can, because none of us really know what tomorrow will bring. 

And while I'm at it, I'm going to cut myself some slack, too.  I am realizing that I don't have to be supermom - at least not all the time - plain ol' "Mama" seems to be just fine with my kids so it's just fine with me, too. 

"I yam what I yam and that's all that I yam." Popeye the Sailor Man

Rachelle