Comeback Mom

In the midst of my January blahs, I've also had good reason to celebrate.

First, and certainly most important, is the fact that I am honestly and truly happy. I don't know if I've ever been able to say this with certainty before - and inspite of the general blahness of the past few weeks, I am at peace with myself more than ever. Sure, there are things I'd like to change but all in all, I'm in a good place.

I know who I am. I know what I want. I'm on the road to making my dreams become a reality and I've made some of them come true already. I believe fiercly in the importance of setting goals and holding onto our dreams. I let some of my dreams go in the past, and I've just managed to catch up to them again. Want in on the dream? Check it all out here.

I can still hear the snide remarks, feel the hurt from the blows that told me no one would want to read what I write so I stopped writing. Don't we all do that from time to time? We let the negativity of others beat us down. Have you?

Well, I think it's time for you to have your Comeback.

Good Enough

I've already said that I'm skipping the whole New Year's Resolution this year, but I still have high hopes and many goals to accomplish in 2013. Some of these goals will come to fruition mostly on their own, and some will take work and I know many more will take shape as the days, weeks and months come along. Even though I have no idea what lies in store for F and I, I know that after 2012 he and I can take on just about anything.

Like F turning three, for example. It seems like it was only yesterday that I was laying in the maternity ward of the hospital, flipping through my What to Expect When You're Expecting book and wondering what the Hell I was about to get myself into. The book prepared me for a lot of things, but there were many more "surprises" I was totally unprepared for. I'm not sure if anyone or anything could have prepared me for the sense that I'm never going to be good enough as a Mom.

I know I'm not alone in this. Mommy guilt takes over our lives before we've even given birth. It's the matter of whether or not we followed a certain diet and exercise plan while we were pregnant, if we had an all-natural, drug-free labour or a Caesarian, to the decision (or necessity) of formula vs. breastfeeding. It only gets worse as time goes on, from the music we play for our children, whether they co-sleep (GUILTY!) and what we feed them.

I'm sure there's a large community of mothers who would say I'm an awful Mom and I'm equally sure that there's a large community of mothers who would say that I'm a great Mom. Meanwhile, I'm on the fence.

I breastfed F until he was 18 months old and would have continued to do so only that he lost interest, but I supplemented with formula for eight months because it was too hard to pump while I was in class. I fed him the baby food from the supermarket because he didn't care much for my homemade variety, and quite frankly, a lot of the time I didn't feel up to making it for him. He slept with me from the get-go, and continues to enjoy sleeping in Mommy's bed. He stays up too late, sleeps in and eats junk food every once and a while. Sometimes, to avoid a fight, I'll even let him go to bed without brushing his teeth.

But he's happy and he's loved.

If I don't accomplish anything else in 2013, I want to overcome the feeling that I'm never getting it right. I don't have time to listen to that nagging voice in my head any more. I'm tired of comparing F and I to the mother and child pairs we see at the grocery store or the park. It's useless, and the truth is that she's probably thinking the exact same thing.

Little Dreams

I am a "go big, or go home" kinda gal.

It doesn't always work out in my favour.

I think it's a societal thing, really, but I'll go ahead and take full responsibility for my impossible-to-keep-up lifestyle. Why volunteer for one organization when there are five who need an extra set of hands? Why aim for a five pound weight loss when you could lose twenty? Rather than taking the small, necessary (and feasible) steps toward something, I have a really bad habit of leaping off the edge without thinking things through. W'hoops. Needless to say, I've landed on my ass about 77 billion times.

At some point, though, I think reality has caught up to me. Instead of setting outrageous goals I'll probably never really achieve, I need to make smaller ones. I mean, not even mega-planes can fly forever without stopping to refuel. Cars need to pull into rest stops for oil changes, new tires... why is it so hard to accept that I have to do these things too? I can't race through a day without stopping for at least one meal or bounce through my week sans sleep. Instead of taking over the entire universe in a day, I have to break it down into one region at a time.

Dreams don't have to be gigantic, they can be as small as a pin. They're mosaics, made up of millions of little pieces: more attainable pieces, pieces that fuel you and motivate you to accomplish that next goal and catch that new dream. Some dreams take days to realize and others will take years. Some will take minutes, seconds even. Some are the result of good fortune, but most are the result of hard work and dedication, love and conscientiousness.

But, you'll never realize a dream you gave up on, so go for it! You won't be sorry.