All Flesh

It turns out that I’m human and not perfect. It also turns out that I mess up as a mom just like I did before, but perhaps I’m hyper aware now because I’m raising smaller versions of myself apparently, and well, kids like to point out the obvious- so there’s that too. But what I realized in messing up, was that my mistakes are just as much of a learning opportunity for my children as they are for me. But I'll get real here for a sec, this is something I only really understood fairly recently. I had to check my ego once my daughter Ava was old enough to understand that there’s something beautiful in not getting it right every time. But even more so, it’s been in raising my youngest daughter that has really changed me and brought out a whole lot of flesh in the process. When I wrote about Olive in the past it has been about how her near death experiences did that, and trust me, they absolutely did but those experiences weren't the only way.

Let me start by saying that my oldest made me look like a textbook parent. Which I feel is a classic rookie move by the way. The trickery needed sometimes when on the fence of adding more children into the mix. Ava was the easiest baby, then toddler, and now kindergartner. She defiantly plays the part of oldest daughter, sometimes mother, and only stubborn when it counts. She's a people pleaser and perfectionist by nature and being raised by one. Now picture my youngest as everything her sister is not. There's a reason why she survived in the womb against all odds. But as much as this little human has CEO potential it is equal parts terrifying and exhausting when we're not even three years in. Olive is everything I am not. I used to feel so crappy admitting that it bugged me she wasn't different and easy going, but after feeling stretched beyond my limits and then getting help, it feels okay saying it out loud now. It was during my parenting class that I realized that much of my parenting, especially when it came to discipline and handling hard moments, had a lot of room for improvement. And had I not had Olive who challenged everything about what I knew as a parent, I would of never sought out help. I think what I am trying to get across is that nothing good comes easy. I will look back and be thankful (someday) for all the ways Olive forced me not to take the easy way out and to see challenges as ways to get better- for the both of us. As Angel Chernoff says, "It is far better to be exhausted from lots of effort and learning than to be tired of doing nothing." That quote leaves me thinking, that without Olive in my life I would be searching for really who she is and the person she will grow up to be, and that Ava would have had to settle for a textbook parent instead of this beautiful imperfect one.