Our time is generally split between commitments, like soccer games and church, fun things with the magazine, like festivals around town, trips to the circus or a theme park, or spending time with friends and families.
Facebook friends sometimes comment, “You’re a great mom – you’re always doing fun things with your kids!” And after a few of those well-meaning remarks, I stopped posting so many of our family adventures because, one, it started to feel an awful lot like bragging rather than sharing pictures with the grandparents, and two, it made me feel like a big, fat fraud. I would usually read one of these comments while I was ignoring my kids by spending too much time on social media (paying too much attention to my friends’ kids). Or I was reading those comments about what a great mom I was while my kids were spending their millionth straight hour playing Minecraft in front of the TV and simultaneously eating ice cream from the carton. Not exactly great mom material. A mom who is constantly struggling to find the balance and keep all of the plates spinning is more like it. And in my travels through social media, posts about the struggles of parenthood are clearly the ones that resonate with other moms and dads, the ones that garner the most real, true commentary. One of the blogs I most enjoy that I catch via Facebook is Katherine Wintsch’s, In All Honesty. You may remember Katherine from our profile on work-and-family balance in last month’s issue, and you might have seen her around town during her time as the 2015 Richmond Christmas Mother. Her writings often speak of her struggles to hold it all together – a successful career, a household, and being a good wife and mother. We asked her if she’d be game to share some of our favorites in RFM, and we’re so happy she thought it was a great idea. Check out our first installment (but not her first!), the one that got me hooked, on page 12, and read her frank thoughts on those spinning plates.
In the meantime, I’ll tell you about one of my favorite weekends of late. I took my older son to soccer practice on Friday evening, then the four of us spent some fun time at a bonfire with a few neighbors. That was the last interaction we had with anyone outside of our house the rest of the weekend. No, we weren’t all down with the flu, we were just chilling at home in our PJs. Looking at the calendar, I knew it was the only foreseeable weekend without a soccer game, birthday party, magazine event, or other commitment. But I hadn’t exactly planned to spend the entire weekend in my pajamas with no makeup on. There would be no Facebook posts about these two days. But after lots of family time, we were all four recharged, ready to face the busy week ahead, and I felt like a better mom than any festival-going and fun-having could have made me (with more precious memories, too!).
That being said, you won’t be able to keep us away from Rassawek Spring Jubilee this month, one of our favorite RVA family festivals. Maybe we’ll spend one day getting tired and having fun there, and the next day in our jammies reminiscing about it all.
