Learning to accept myself

A watermelon is 91% water and 6% sugar.    There's your random fact for the day, which was spurred by my 6 year old's question yesterday.   "Why is a watermelon called a watermelon?"


In this family, we are known for being random.    Questions such as the above on are asked every day, all day long.   I've often thought of keeping a tally of how many questions we are asked on a daily basis but I usually make it to around 30 in the first 5 minutes I'm awake and decide to try again another day.   Cycle repeats.    Toys bought for holidays are played with a few days then tossed into a pile of Rubbermaid tubs in the corner of the room.   Tablets have new apps downloaded every five minutes because the oldest child has more of an interest in working a computer than playing anything on it.   Middle child plays pretend ALL. DAY.     I mean it, all day.   We've had an imaginary pet, Wilbert, for over a year now and he has had 20 babies, some of which are named Mushroom, Muffin, Blaster, Tiki, and CeeCee.   Just today I've been the sidekick to "waitress", "news reporter", "beauty salon", "mailman", driving in a pillow car, been on a picnic in the hallway, and I'm sure I'm leaving a few out that I wasn't only partially conscious of because my brain started to shut her voice out while I dreamed of a hot bath and bedtime.   My youngest is 20 months and on a hitting streak, drew on my hardwood floor with a black marker and crumbled up pop tart throughout the entire house.  Let's be honest.   8 years ago I would have been horrified by the way a house like mine functions.   Now, here I am in this moment and in this moment I realize that I need to embrace who we are and not who I imagined we would be. 

Something has been happening to me over the past few months and I cant quite put my finger on the cause of it.   I'm almost 30 so is this maturity that comes with age?   Am I finally finding my place in the world and less concerned about the thoughts of others?   Am I so tired from being the mom of three amazingly smart, energetic, intense children that I don't have the energy to worry about what people think of me?   I'm guessing it's a little bit of all of those things wrapped up in a package that I feel like showed up as easy as a package on my doorstep does.    One morning I opened the door, felt the fresh air on my face and a peace come over me while an inner voice spoke to me.   "You are just fine the way you are.  Stop hiding your uniqueness just to blend into the crowd so people won't look at you.   The only person suffering from that is yourself.   How can you teach your children to accept and appreciate the differences in people if you can't accept your own?"    I suppose that's what they mean when they talk about finding yourself and I have to say it's been a long time coming and it feels pretty amazing.    The qualities and traits I absolutely love about my children are some of my very own yet I feel embarrassed about them coming from myself.  One of my biggest goals of parenting is to teach my kiddos how to love who they are from a very early age and here I am almost 30 and can't even do it myself.  

So, this year for my "teach myself something new for my birthday" idea, I'm going to work on loving myself.    I have a lot of work to do but this is a start.    So what if I am random and can't stay on a topic longer than five minutes?   Does it really matter that I like to paint every room in my house at least once a year, sometimes more than 5 times?   Who cares that I get so bored I can't really repeat a craft I've done more than a few times because it's not a challenge after that?   These are the things that make me, ME and I need to celebrate them rather than hide them because after this many years of friendships there is one thing that is for certain---you cannot change who you are.    You can hide it to fit in, but you sure can't change it.    You are blessed with the children you have and they probably won't be anything like the picture you used to see when you closed your eyes and dreamed of your family sitting around a table, eating dinner together, napkins on laps and everybody using the correct fork for their salad.   Life rarely goes as planned----thank goodness.  :)