to all the mommas with littles still at home

This is really important.

I mean super important, and I know you’ll hear it, but you need to stop, just for a second (catch your breath) and read these words.

Please please please do not compare your home, your schedule, your crazy with any of us mommas whose littlest one is in school.

Because that will make you crazy want to pull out your hair frustrated.

Beyond frustrated.

Overwhelmed. Wondering why you can’t keep it together. Worried that you’re not doing enough. You know, all those mom guilt and angst things that we deal with day in and day out.

Because I know. For years and years and years I wanted my house to be clean and to stay clean and for it to be quiet and to stay quiet and for the dishes to be done and the laundry and to not go from room to room cleaning up. I scrubbed marker from the wall and picked up goldfish from the floor and read stories and did naps and had a backyard that was an advertorial for Little Tikes.

When they’re little, it’s kind of futile to chase having order – or at least sustained order.

I’m not sure why I never learned that lesson when they’re little. I’d fight and clean and push and grade myself way way too hard. But I was grading myself on the scale of no longer having littles at home.

When they’re gone all day things stay put away. When they’re little well, you know. You’re in the midst of it – the depths of mothering patience and tolerance and giving.

And it’s quiet.

So I know, I know it’s crazy. I know it will feel like it will never ever ever end. I know the clothes you just folded got pulled out of the drawer. I know that you have to cut things into triangles and not squares. I know that naptime is the best. I know that somedays you feel like you’re running a sprint. I know that you hear your name cried to you every 24 seconds at times.  I know.

I also know that it ends.

So this is what I want you to do. No more comparing. It’s okay that your house looks crazy at times. You know why? You have littles in your home. And you’re in the years of unbelievable busy. Don’t run from it. Just do your best. And try, as much as you can to take time for yourself and to give yourself grace.

A whole bunch of grace.

Especially if you tend to like things perfect like I do. Because that can create such tension. But, sweet mom, I don’t ever want you to forget the beauty of what you’re doing even in the middle of the chaos. You are raising littles, prepping them, getting ready to let them go. And that’s amazing.

Keep on carrying on. Don’t compare to me. Mine are in school. And that’s a new set of crazy.

Just be you.

And do exactly what you’re doing.

Your best.

~Rachel

ps. And keep that coffee stocked and a hidden go-to stash of chocolate. At all times.