The messy middle: things I've accepted about parenting ✌🏻

Or, lots of snacks and lots of feelings

Overall, I’m not great with acceptance. As a stubborn idealist and perfectionist, I see how something could be in its optimal form, and then I will strive for that, come hell or high water.

I have quickly realized, though, that in its optimal form, parenting young kids is messy, in every sense of the word. Like most things that matter, it is equal parts rewarding and challenging.

So given that parenting resists optimization, here are a few things that I have come to accept about this eternal messy middle:

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Things I have accepted in my ~parenting small children~ era

1. The cleanest my house will ever be is sort of clean.

2. As a gal who likes things orderly, I will spend a lot of time picking up toys and crumbs.

3. Dinners will often make a stop on my kids’ plates before being dumped into the trash.

4. Snacks. Snacks. Snacks. Snacks. Snacks.

5. There will constantly be stains on my clothes that I will discover far too late in the day.

6. Leaving the house is an ordeal.

7. Getting back home is also an ordeal.

8. We will always be late. (I will never begin the leaving-the-house ordeal early enough.)

9. Sometimes, I will start to feel like I’ve got things figured out. This will never last long.

And on the topic of feelings:

10. Feeling deeply bored yet overstimulated at the same time.

11. Followed by feeling a love so intense that it hurts and fills me with worry.

12. Followed by being asked for a snack (again).

Easter jelly bean tea party

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