Just do your best and let that be enough (a response).

Today after getting home from a trip to the mall to scour items for our Father's day gift and do a little playing and eating in plastic cars, I transferred my sleeping tots from their carseats to their bed (or respectively the couch and my bed, ahem).  Then I laid down by my baby (20 months) and checked my e-mail.  There was a Blogher email with some of the latest posts and one in particular caught my eye about lies SAHMs believe.  "Hmm..." I pondered and I clicked it open.  I read it and thought about my intentions to join my sleeping babes in their nap and then decided to get up and work on marinating my chicken for dinner.

While I was marinating, I started thinking about what she had written... Moms should shower daily, Moms should keep a tidy (not immaculate house)... Moms should put 5-10 minutes into their appearance and wear clean clothes... Moms should not believe their job as a SAHM is stressful... etc.  And although it didn't bother me whilst reading the post, it started getting under my skin when I realized post marinating and pre-dishwasher loading I was only doing these dishes because this woman made me feel like my house was unkempt and I wasn't good enough.

And isn't that the way?  Every few weeks (or days) a new blog post hits the Internet and goes viral about how we're not good enough.  How we can do these 5 things (or 10 things) to make life better or more efficient or to feel better about ourselves.

Although I believe she was pure in her intentions of encouraging SAHMs to do better and try harder and coming from a genuine place, what the author did to me was take me from feeling very satisfied and confident in how I mothered and lived today and put my mind in a place of self-doubt.

So here's what I think...

If you feel good about what you're doing, you're doing a great job.  You're doing enough.

If you worked out during naptime today and didn't have time to shower before kids woke up, don't feel unsexy for not getting ready; be proud of that work out!

If you cooked dinner for your family but the kitchen is a wreck from all the dishes don't stay up after the kids go to bed and clean if that's when you need your down time; you did a good job!

If you took your kids out to the park or the pool or on a play date with friends and are dog tired from the wrangling of tinies and the following of the little people all around a playground, take a nap!  You deserve it, sister, because you spent great time with your kiddos!

The problem with these messages is that they require too much.  "Get ready. Take showers. Clean your house.  Have down time.  Work out.  Rest.  Can't do it all?  Why yes you can, your kids nap!"  But we ALL know naps are only so much time of the day and other things like hopping on a treadmill can be dangerous in the waking hours.  And cleaning in the waking hours?  I don't know about you but I sure try and some days it works out and others I clean a room, move on to the next one and hear my kids trashing the one I just finished.  "Don't be stressed?"  A toy box dumping in a room you JUST cleaned is stressful.  Especially when you have the weight of pressure to be perfect from other Moms.

So again I say just thrive.  Do your best.  Do what you can.  If I do it all in one day - the work out, the looking good, the errands, the cleaning-- my kids have NO time with me and are grumpy.  That's not worth it!  I try to split up my time and conquer certain things daily and other things when I can.  And I don't feel bad about it!  If my house is messy tonight because I took time to myself to write this post and cook an amazing dinner after a morning at the mall and a work out before that?  That's ok.  I did my best today and I'm happy.

Just do your best.  Let that be enough.