I’m getting to the POST-MOTHER’S DAY LETDOWN thoughts….I swear 🙂 

Just bear with me as I get some pictures onto my blog so that, when my kids are 30 and 40 and all sitting around the table every holiday scrolling through my blog (huge eyeroll :)) 

They will remember a bit of these moments captured forever….

 (We just spent some time in St. Petersburg, FL. It was a great week…)

 Required Mother’s Day pictures…”Children…stand around me and smile NOW!” ;))))

 Our profession (and highly annoying) family photobomber 🙂

 OH SWEET MERCY they are SO amazingly gorgeous when they are asleep….I mean they are sweet and all when they are awake and loud but…something about a sleeping angel makes this heart stop!

 Some family rollerskating time…I did not die 🙂

 Yeh, I’m a great chaperone. Um..Your kid is falling Andrea..stop hammin’ it up for the camera!
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The flowers are already starting to wilt.

The Hallmark cards are stored away (or thrown away as we all know people do this).

The Elmer’s glue has dried on the sweet hand-made priceless bit of treasure your kids couldn’t wait to hand to you.

The family visits have been achieved and promises to see each other more often have been made (ouch).

The pleasant memories of May 6th, Mother’s Day, are not nestled into our hearts and souls to be recalled with -hopefully- some fondness over the next many years.

So.

We Moms woke up this morning…and found life staring us back in the face. Actually, it wasn’t just staring it was peeved as we’d taken a day off.

Life was mad that the laundry got piled or, gasp, ignored. 

Life yelled at us this morning that we didn’t get the lunches packed for school Sunday night, as we were to busy re-reading our cards and smelling our flowers, so this morning was going to be a brown bag nightmare.

Life just wanted to let us know that we were back to “just being a Mom”. 

Given that millions take a day to celebrate Motherhood, it goes to say that the other 364 days go without Hallmark cards, lazy breakfasts, and fresh flowers because we are “just being a Mom” and only one day a year is needed to celebrate Motherhood. 

Life, you are kinda mean.

But. Life. Ya know what?  BRING.IT.

PLEASE let me remind ‘you’ that I am, in fact, “A MOM”. The word “just” just doesn’t apply.

“Life”…PLEASE remind me that I “only” get to watch the transformation of a life from chubby baby kisses to kissing my daughter as she walks down the aisle..eventually…(as in 30 years from now).

“Life“…PLEASE remind me that I “only” get to be one of the most formative persons in another person’s life. 

Dang. The word “JUST” is starting to seem a bit diminutive isn’t it?

So why do we hear the phrase “Oh I’m just a Mom” so often?!

I was watching “The Amazing Race” season finale with my kids two weeks ago.

If you are not familiar, it is a reality show where pairs race ‘around the world” for 12 weeks. This is done with the hopes of being the last ‘pair’ standing. If they are then they are on the receiving end of a lot of PRE-tax money (which means, in reality, they receive no where near what they think they are getting once Uncle Sam comes to the after-show party).

Anyways, one of the runner-ups was a pair of “Moms”. They did have some outside hobbies such as roller derby leagues and such but they were there to “represent Moms”.

Well, I almost threw a shoe through the TV during their “exit” interview. 

If they said they were “just Moms” once then they said it a hundred times.  

They referenced themselves as “just Moms” when referencing how far they’d gotten in the race…for example [paraphrasing] 

“Well, we are JUST MOMS so getting this far is great. Our kids are going to be so proud of us.”

You get my point.  Somehow being “just a Mom” turned into martyrdom. 

uh, when did that happen? 

I just pinched myself. I am alive. 

I also just looked around. I am definitely a Mom. The empty ice cream bowl(s) all around our family floor was my proof.

So. Take a step back Jack….er Jane.

I am NOT a martyr and I AM a Mom.  

I am also NOT ‘JUST’ a MOM.  (though I am far from diminutive)… I am simply “A MOM”!  

And that seriously, truly, take-my-breath-away dominates anything else I could POSSIBLY be doing with my life…even if there are other pretty hot dang amazing things I’m doing with my life besides raising little humans.

MOMS! WHY DO WE DISCOUNT OURSELVES??!!!

We rock!  So you are a “Mom”?  Well – you are awesome then!

 (I heard you…“I am not a good Mom. I have messed up. I have a history. I don’t spend enough time with them.”  STOP THAT RIGHT NOW. STOP. You are a M-O-M. You are blessed. The rest is a work is progress. Show me someone who IS NOT a work in progress and you will be showing me a stone statue of a human.)

So then….

Are we going to put parameters around each other, us Moms??

Oh mercy help me NO!

I get green around the gills when us Mommas start putting each other into boxes. 

We are MOMS. We have different ways about it that’s a fact…but…WE.ARE.MOMS. (EEE! We are MOMS! How did we get so blessed?! )

I do not care if you are a Momma to one or twenty; if you work outside the home as CEO of the biggiest XYZ Corporation or if you stay home everyday working within your own walls; 

if you birthed your babies with pain medicine or without; if you got on a daggone plane to find your baby;

if you are a single Momma or not;if parent a child with delays;  if your kids eat all organic; if you feed your kids fast food more often than not;

if you dress your kids in designer clothes or if your kids think the word designer is only for Heidi Klum to say during the show “Project Runway”; 

if your kid struggles to maintain a D average in school or if you have a kid who is years ahead in his education; if you are the Mom whose kid runs around outside in their underwears *when they were toddlers…NOT teens*;

if you are a Mom with a kid whose special needs you understand; if you let your 6 year old wear makeup *who does that though? oh.yah.me*; if you wear sweatpants every livelong day of the year; if you wear heels to the grocery store; 

if you are the Mom who brings store-bought cupcakes to the school Valentine Party [notice THOSE are the cupcakes that get eaten though]; 

if you are you the Mom who embroiders your kid’s name into the label of their boxers for summer camp; if you are just happy if you kid has boxers on; 

if you have your kids closets organized by size, color, season, and use; if you are the Mom who think closets are over-rated. 

WHO CARES?! We think the rest of “us” do.   PPssssttt…. WE DON’T !!!!!!!  

Let’s erase these little, weird boxes we put each other in and simply relax and revel in the fact that we are MOMS.


WE. ARE. MORE. THAN. “JUST”. ANYTHING.

Yes, Monday morning came today. Maybe it kicked your butt. Maybe you wondered where the love of yesterday had gone?

Well, the love is in the “normal” isn’t it? You know I’m preaching to myself now because I am not one to be super fond of “routine”…but…

There is A LOT of routine, repetitive, and not so glamorous components of being a “MOM” in the real world.

Laundry is NOT ‘lovely’ [dang..that’s the truth]…….but maybe it is when you are emptying pockets and you find a crumpled piece of paper that is a little “Mother’s Day” love note that your son forgot to give to you. 

That’s sorta crazy loveable. And it wasn’t even Mother’s Day. It’s just a day now. But lovely nonetheless.

Maybe the dishes are not oh-so-lovely…oh heck are they SO far from magical that you sorta wanna throw a dish or two against the wall on Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays? 

BUT…..stay with me here….without dirty dishes (or towers of paper plates in the trashcan…coughcough…)that would mean there had been no food to make the dishes dirty.

Suddenly, gritty, greasy, dried-up bits of casserole on a dish can become symbolic of your love towards your child. You nurtured them.

Now that’s some crazy great lovin’ there….

So.

I REFUSE to ever utter the phrase “I am just a Mom” EVER again. 

Sure, have a career, be a superstar, be the President, be a Starbucks barrista (just threw that in there…doesn’t that sound fun to do?!) ….. BUT …. You are “A MOM” along with all the other.

What truly defines you the most?  

You would never say, “I am JUST a neurologist”. 

“I am JUST an orphanage director”.  

“I am JUST a realtor.”  

So why would we EVER say we are “JUST MOMS”? 

Wanna agree to do our part to remove the “JUST” from all of this and to elevate the status of “MOM” to where it should be? 

AT the TOP … no matter what other occupation, hobby, talent, or even dream you have?

Being a MOM is quite sufficient …. It is a ROLE that CHANGES THE FUTURE. 

We, MOMS, are more than “just” anything. 

We are honored…even in the valleys, even the days when we feel like we are getting gruel shoved down our throats [dang that was vivid?!], even when the days of extreme confusion/sadness/questioning/hurt occur…..

None of that “yuk” of parenting takes us down to “JUST MOMS”.  We are still honored women.

The mere fact that we Moms can walk through, run through, cut through, hold on, pray it out in the times of “bleak” speaks volumes for the ‘vocation’ of “MOM” as being of the HIGHEST ranking way to spend our time.  

Let’s be MOMS this week…even though the flowers are wilted, the chocolates are gone, you forgot to mail your Grandma’s Mother’s Day card, and even though you may have really wanted a necklace and not a “Dremmel” power tool as a Mother’s Day present….let’s take Monday…and now Tuesday..and then Wednesday….

Let’s take the days by the horn and show this world a “A MOM” can do. 

Let’s just “LEAN IN” (eyeroll) and do this Mom thing …. together without parameters that we stick each other in.

You are powerful and called to this. You are MUCH bigger than “Just” anything …..

All my heart,
Andrea,
Occupation:  Mother   (sure, I do other things, but what defines me? How I am raising my kids defines my occupation because that is *truly* what I am defined by….because I am a Mom. )