Revelations of a #basicmom

   Forgiveness

A few years ago I had a brilliant idea to take my 5 year old to Disney.  It was the end of August, I was 33 weeks pregnant with an IVF pregnancy, getting weekly injections to keep the baby in and honestly, an emotional disaster.  Naturally, it seemed like the perfect time to take on this endeavor. 

It was everything you would think Disney would be at the end of August.  900 degrees every day, high humidity, insane crowds and if you put my legs next to an elephant, mine would have definitely won for being the biggest due to all the swelling.

We went all out this trip, stayed a Disney resort (the value ones of course), booked our character meals, had the best fast passes.  My hope was to soak in this time with our son before my daughter was born.  To be honest, my son was amazing the whole trip.  I will not deny that if anyone had moments of melting down, it was me. 

One of the days we were back in our hotel recovering from a park.  My son had one small moment where he “acted out” and I lost my mind.  I flipped out, put him in time out (mind you, he’s 5 and probably hadn’t been in time out since he was 3) and gave him the “you need to learn to be grateful speech.”  I knew while I was doing it that I was being overreacting and he did not deserve this response. 

Since our trip 3 years ago, he has brought up this incident a few times.  It was one (of many) of my mom fails.  I cringe every single time I think about it. 

Something I’ve learned being a mom over the past 8 years, is that my kids always forgive my failures. In my mind, I am constantly failing them.  I fail them with my time, my patience, my attention, my energy, with providing the exact amount of fruits and vegetables.  If that’s all not enough, I even fail them with clean laundry, lunch at school, cereal for dinner, a movie that I probably should have read the reviews on, but now they watched it and keep having nightmares.  I have showed them anger when they needed grace, frustration when they needed patience, annoyance when they needed love.  But through all of this…without fail, my kids continue to forgive.  They continue to wrap their little arms around me and show me grace instead of anger, patience instead of frustration and love instead of being annoyed. 

When your kids see you, they don’t see a failure or even failed moments.  They see a love without limits.  They see someone they admire, someone they trust and depend on.  They see a parent who is trying their best, who is tired and just human.  So give yourself grace.  Know that you are doing the best you can.  Leave those “failed” moments in the past.

 What a world we would have if we could forgive the way our kids forgive.  Love the way our kids love and somehow continue to see the best in people in spite of our failures.