A Month After Mother’s Day, Let’s Reflect On Lessons Learned

Mother’s Day is over. The flowers have long wilted, and the glitter from the homemade card has probably been picked off by the toddler. So I won’t go into the part about how having children really hits home what it means to show love and sacrifice, nor will I talk about how motherhood (parenthood) is tough. Everybody already knows.

I’m talkin’ about the day-to-day practical living skills that get us through, the juggling of The Neverending.

Flexibility

Not the kind that comes with yoga (though we’ve probably learned that, too). The kind that I know well when I started this post, initially titled, “The Day Week After Mother’s Day.” Blog didn’t take priority last month, so let’s get this in before Father’s Day is upon us.   🙂

Cosmetic improvement

Forget The 5-minute Face. Real moms can do a 4-minute face, and I’ve mastered a 3-minute face, and a 2-minute face, alternating these looks – depending on the time I have and how late I slept past my (first) alarm. We know splashing on color and coverage, while slightly superficial, and not quite as newsworthy as the 4-minute mile, is still a highly useful skill.

Fast food

How to whip together a meal, and make it look like you really planned one, when you haven’t really planned one. Yanking cold veggies, lunch meats, cheeses, and fruits out of the refrigerator and laying out – buffet style – just like the sandwich bar at the trendy, family-friendly downtown restaurant, and those put-’em-together Lunchables they keep begging me to buy.

Cleanliness

Mommahood has also taught us that it’s okay to sift through the children’s dirty laundry and fluff up clothing in the dryer with a bit of special spray for no-clothing emergencies. Oh wait, we learned that in college.

Work ethic

Now, I’m not accusing anyone of being lazy, but what did you do before you had kids? I’m ashamed to think of all the free time I had. With children, we accomplish 87 things in a day simply because we have to. We have learned to make everything count, and hardly find any down time for reading or movies – the reason there is so much talk about that tiny slice in our pie graph of a day referred to as “me time.”

What lessons have you really learned from mommyhood?

Juggling balls photo from Hans & Pixabay.