Now usually,  I regard myself as a pretty balanced mom. My weekdays are planned to a T because,  well, they have to be. I have 2 school age kids and too many jobs so the days better be planned.  What that means for me is that I don’t answer calls on Sundays. Why? because mornings are for church,  followed by copious amounts of cooking,  meal prepping   for all our lunches and dinners.  Weekday breakfasts are on the go if you can grab something before the car starts. Clothes are picked out and lined on the rack because there’s no time for indecisiveness on a Wednesday morning. Can you sense the chaos?

But life’s not always like that, is it?..last week, we came home from summer vacation to discover that my house plant had died (*insert a sob face emoji*). Why is this a particularly important factor? Because the plant was 80 dollars at home depot and I was determined to perfect my last remaining goal, a green thumb. So with this knowledge,you can imagine how upset I was, or maybe I was also really tired from traveling with kids across the oceans and back, I don’t know.  All I know is that I mourned the death of my majesty palm more than necessary.

Being that I was already at rock bottom in the efficiency department,  I decided to wallow there for a while.

These are the moments when prepackaged lunchables are perfectly appropriate for lunch, and dinner arrives promptly at the door by your second glass of wine.  Thank God for uber eats huh? do these people know motherhood or what?. By our fourth Chinese delivery, I could tell the kids were longingly looking at the untouched cold stove in the kitchen. Things escalated to the point where any doorbell chime was followed by the kids yelling “mom, dinner is here”. Were there moments when I felt I should throw in an apple for good measure?, yes. Did I? No. Did the kids and my beloved complain? Not once. (Says silent prayer of gratitude).

Now I know what you’ll say, I should find healthy outlets for my stress, like go out for a run or exercise . Especially since I’m raising very impressionable young lives that are watching how I deal with stress.

Under normal circumstances,  I would wholeheartedly agree, but these were dire times. Well, not real dire (I just came back from Africa so I dare not compare my first world problems to that) but still, my perspective was slightly warped given my jetlag and death of my house plant.

It’s been over a  week and I’m finally almost back to my center but I find that it is perfectly acceptable for mothers to sometimes just let it all fall apart and relax a little. There’s so much pressure for mothers ( especially from fellow women) to be perfect or do everything just right that Im afraid we’re setting an unrealistic picture for the very kids we’re raising.  No one gets it right all the time,  sometimes we lose, sometimes we get it together,  both times there are no days off from motherhood.

So the next time you get the urge to leave the dishes in the sink and those wet clothes in the washer, permission granted. Give yourself a break, the world will still be there once you pick yourself off the floor. You should absolutely make time for a breakdown so you can fix yourself back again, it’s part of selfcare, I checked. And just so you know,you’re doing everything you can, and that’s enough.

Afromomma says.