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Welcome to Mom Motivation Mondays where weekly contributing writers share their motherhood experiences to encourage you to find the joy in being a mom.

{This week: Guest Post by Heather Hice-McCray}

It goes by so fast…

A school bus pulls up and slowly comes to a squeaky halt at the corner by our house. As it stops I hear a front door slam and out runs a little girl with a bob and newly pierced ears. She has on her backpack and her new school outfit. She is smiling and unsure all at the same time.

I look at her and smile.

She smiles back and grabs me in a big hug and says, “I love you mom” before running to get on the bus.

How is it possible I have a child in first grade and another in preschool?

They look like my children and act like my children, but there is no way those two fair haired girls are mine. They can’t be loading up big girl backpacks and eating lunch away from me every day. They most certainly aren’t old enough to take a bus or check out library books on their own. They can’t be meeting and making new friends without me by their side.

Yet, they are mine.

They are most certainly the little babies I held in my arms, although they have lost all their baby fat. They are the girls I chase around the house laughing while I pretend to be a monster. They are the girls I tuck in at bedtime and routinely check on nightly. They are the girls I talk with and cry with and snuggle with every day.

The funny thing is I remember a not so distant past. Moments of being a mom that were filled with diapers and crying (mine or the babies’, it’s hard to recall), spit up and bottles, naps and all-nighters. I remember this as if it were yesterday, and I remember many people telling me to enjoy it because it goes by too fast. I then remember plastering a smile on my face thinking to myself:

Enjoy this? They have got to be kidding me. I am simply surviving here. Changing diapers is not something to enjoy nor is getting thrown up on at 2 in the morning. If you miss it so much I could really use a hand. Here take the baby she naps at 9. I’m going to go lay down.

(Okay, I really didn’t hand my baby off to a stranger, but I kind of considered it-ha ha!)

What secret about being a mom did they know that I didn’t?

Mom Guilt

I used to feel guilty I wasn’t relishing the little, crazy moments I was enduring. I clearly wasn’t a good mother. I mean seriously, why couldn’t I see the silver lining when my daughter was drawing all over the walls? Why couldn’t I rejoice when both my daughters had the roto-virus while my husband was working out of town for a week? Why didn’t I jump for joy when my daughter directly disobeyed me? Why didn’t I just accept it when my kids didn’t pick up their toys?

What was wrong with me?

Was I not born with these special, relish all the moments of being a mom gene?

The Secret to Doing Your Best as A Mom

The truth is when you are truly in the thick of mothering, I mean the drag-out-dirty-job-that-no-one-wants-to-do-that-day-mothering, it is extremely difficult to enjoy it. It is difficult to relish the moments even when you know it is going by too fast because some days you are simply doing the best you can. You are working to take care of your children and you shouldn’t feel bad about that. The hard day (or days or years) will inevitably pass and you will come out of whatever situation a better, smarter and stronger mother.

The secret that all those people had was the (not so secret) element of time. It is easy to look back and think about how fast your kids are growing up, but when you are there in the middle of it the end is harder to see. When you are changing countless diapers, or trying to convince your daughter to stay in bed every single night, or repeating yourself for the hundredth time in one day, it can be quite impossible to enjoy it all.

You Don’t Have to Enjoy Every Moment

I am here to tell you it is alright to NOT relish those moments. It’s okay that you are exhausted. It’s completely acceptable that you want just a moment alone every once in a while. It’s 100 % understood when you get frustrated. You are human after all.

Don’t beat yourself up about it and don’t think there is something wrong with you. You too will get the chance to relish the baby moments and think that your babies grew up too fast. It just comes with time.

I guarantee all the mothers who told me to enjoy it gave that advice because at one time they too were unable to be exuberant about being a mom when their child was puking on them at 2 in the morning. To that woman I would offer my shoulder to lean on while they sighed or cried out of pure exhaustion. I would not tell her to relish the moment because I too know how hard that moment can be.

Heather lives in Florida with her husband, two girls and two pups. She is a lover of most things in life, too many to name here without scaring you, but a few include working out, learning new recipes, Pinterest, organizing (yes, it’s true!), home decor and learning to lead a more minimal and purposeful life.

At the end of 2014, she was feeling unhappy, burnt out and discouraged but couldn’t pinpoint exactly what was making her feel that way. She started Just Becoming Me as a venture to better understand herself and what will lead her towards a more fulfilling life. Her motto is: “We only have one life, and I want to learn to live mine in a way that gets me excited to jump out of bed.”

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Enjoy your time at home!