Wine over Water and Other Transgressions

Social media is at it again with its irrational monikers of the "you can do it all" bit that apparently is getting old only to me.  I've slowly pulled myself out of the reading blogosphere of mamas I respect, but who perhaps unwittingly, propagate the nefarious notion that women can and are expected to meet every standard ever created.

I want to be one of those people who makes their bed in the morning.  I do.  I really do.  Trouble is, I can't really find my bed most of the time under the laundry piles and counting bears and disney princesses hiding with their bony hands underneath the sheets.  No "ten minute frenzy" at the end of the day is going to eliminate Mount Vesuvius.  Believe me.

I want to be the woman with the shiny bathroom sparkling with homemade, all natural products instead of the woman who has to call out to guests on their way up the stairs to please wash their hands in the tub, there's a clog in our sink that we can't seem to locate or dislodge.

I'd love to post an instagram of my leather-bound Bible perfectly fanned out over my autumnal tablecloth with a few falling dahlia leaves fluttering over my Irish Breakfast Tea with clever statuses like, "Just having breakfast with the King" , but I'm actually too busy trying to convince my kid that if she doesn't take at least two bites of egg before I drop her off at school she will pass out on the playground and will be unable to enter a Disney store for up to year, as per their no- fainting policy.  This is affective.

I want to be the woman who prefers water with lemon over a nice Cote du Rhone and who doesn't gag at the idea of drinking a green smoothie for breakfast.

I do.

And yet.

Then I remember that the woman who made her bed in the morning would have been screwed an hour later after she fell back into it to watch Gilmore Girl reruns after she dropped her kid off to school.

That the reason my bathroom sink is PERPETUALLY clogged is because everyone and their mother comes over for dinner.  And brings friends.  And children.  And sometimes small animals.

My time spent with the Lord is in the car these days, crying along to a sermon on a podcast, sticking my fingers in my eyes to keep them open after ten p.m. if it's Rich's night for Ellie duty- oh because my kid still doesn't sleep, you see.  It's only been 3.5 years.  My mom said I was 5 before things turned around for me during the night.  Only a year and a half more of dreadful insomnia, night terrors, paranoia and separation anxiety.  Hand clap.

And there is nothing wrong with green smoothies.  Truly.  I just find it much more pleasant to keep the greens on my plate and out of my glass.

I will not feel guilty because I say shit sometimes (or a lot), that my kid told me she showed her undies to her classmates because they have a cool bunny on them and I snorted in laughter (and then explained why it's best not to show people your unders) or because I will on many occasion(s) choose a novel over picking up my living room.  Hell, finding my living room.

Nope, this is not one of those holier-than-thou posts about how I choose time with my family and time for myself because that's what will be worth it in the end blah blah blah.  It's just me being real with you.  I don't choose the "right" thing all the time.  I don't.  Sometimes it's purposeful and sometimes its not.  Sometimes I run around like a mad woman cleaning things from top to bottom, roasting chickens and mashing potatoes for dinner and sometimes I hide under my covers, hire a housekeeper and order a pizza.  Or two.

We can't do it all because it "all" means different things to each of us.  The only thing that is the same is that there is grace for us all.

Even when we repeatedly choose the wine over water.

Every. Time.