Good Enough.

It fell right off - this blog, I mean - right off my plate!

Somewhere between Tucker's baptism and 1st birthday, Thanksgiving and Maisy's Advent program, Christmas shopping and house guests and everyday life...

I looked at my laptop at the end of a long day and I thought: I'll blog about it tomorrow.  For about 12 days, apparently.  

Welcome to tomorrow!  

Technically, it is Day 32 of the Keep-Your-Cool 30-Day Challenge.  So...

Was I more patient, especially with Maisy?

Did I show more self-control when angry words wanted to fly out of my head?

Am I officially a perfect mom now?  (Haha)

Here's my answer: Good enough.  

It was good enough.  

This is a time of year when it's easy for me to remember a couple of special "big kids" who lived with us for what we thought would be forever, and what turned out to be just awhile.  

At times anger has burned inside of me for the injustice of it all - the injustice of babies and small children who grow up not knowing whether they would be fed that day, or whether their diapers would be changed, or whether things would be seen that could never be unseen, or whether cries would be met with comfort, anger, or Nothing. At. All.  And the injustice of Fetal Alcohol, stacked right on top. It burns inside of me - the anger, the sadness.  

And I wish we could have been the answer for those two kids... but we weren't.  I wish awhile could have been forever... but it wasn't.  Other parents get to be their answers and their forevers, and I'm a little jealous of those parents, in a way that maybe only people who have been in my shoes could understand.  Maybe more than anything, I wish I could have turned back the clocks and been their mom right from birth, however strange and impossible that may sound.  More than once I have wished I could have been their imperfect, good enough mom right from the start.  But impossible it is. 

 

My point is, when I look back at these last 32 days and beyond, I know that even though it hasn't always been great, it's been good enough.  My two lucky children are safe and fed and loved and cared for and they always have been.  

I fed them when they were new babies, hungry in the night.  I changed the 12th dirty diaper in a day and calmed raging diaper rashes.  I tucked them under warm blankets on cold nights.  I held their small hands in busy parking lots.  

And if I lose my temper sometimes, or make plenty of parenting mistakes along the way, I still know it's good enough.  

My children are growing up loved in this often messy, sometimes hectic, never perfect home, and it's good enough.