It’s 4:01 P.M. and i’m waiting for my connecting flight to head to Phoenix for Showit United 2016 (though this post will go live once I’m already there), rocking out to Hamilton Radio on Pandora (SO GOOD!). I’ve come to the realization that I don’t know what it’s like to sit and relax. There’s about 11 people around me, including a lady with a 6 month old-looking baby. The baby, by the way, is adorable, and keeps squealing to get my attention. But the remaining people are just sitting there with their neck pillows, either sleeping or snacking on over-priced airport food. But I’m sitting here writing a blog post because I’m drinking a Monster and that makes me feel like superwoman who could write a bagillion of them. True story.

Here’s the mini-plane we rode from Pasco to Seattle. Smoothest landing EVER. I’m serious.

What do you know, it’s raining in Seattle…

MMMM.Qdoba.

I used to know how to relax. How to just enjoy the time I had to do nothing. I knew how to not feel bad when I just sat on the couch and didn’t do ANYTHING, but I also was childless and didn’t know what it was like to have a day planned around trying to get the most important things on my to-do list done during nap time. I didn’t know what it was like to not being able to get ANYTHING on that list done because of a child who was down-right refusing to nap. I was also working full-time during the week, and never felt like I wasn’t doing ENOUGH. I feel like now-a-days as a mom, unless we’re super-moms and manage to have everything ‘put together,’ we feel like we haven’t done enough. That’s SURELY not the truth.

Being a mom has been one of the most rewarding things I’ve done in my life. It also has been one of the most stressful, and heart-wrenching things as well.

Just earlier this week, Raylee had the stomach flu. My night of a full-nights sleep quickly turned into staying up with her all night, mostly making sure she didn’t puke all of every thing, but also to make sure she knew I was there for her. That was rough for both of us. At about 2 AM, she was laying on my chest and she kept saying “Sorry mommy. Sorry mommy. Sorry mommy.”  Then my heart broke into a million pieces and I told her that she didn’t have to be sorry.   I was there for her, and she didn’t need to be sorry about it.

Being a mom is funny that way. There’s day they drive you absolutely INSANE. Yesterday for example. We went to the mall, and Raylee decided she wanted to sit in her stroller with feet on the wheels after I told her it would hurt her feet. It did. And she was mad at ME! She screamed when I didn’t let her have all the makeup remotely close to her as we strolled through Sephora. I flicked her in the mouth at one point because she was SHRIEKING when I wouldn’t give her the sample $60 blush we walked by. Luckily, when I was at my wits end, a nice older man came by me and said “we have all been there.”

I wanted to cry. Not because it was a horrible moment. Or because I was embarrassed because it was quite the contrary. It was because it was just a simple thing to say, but we don’t seem to hear it enough. We all have parents, at some point, most of the time we get the opportunity to BE a parent, but it’s far too often that we let each other know that we’ve been there. We know what it’s like to almost-lose-it in public-most of the time. We know what it’s like to struggle, but we’re quick to judge when a baby is screaming on an airplane.

I think we need to remember that it’s not easy for any of us. We need to be there for each other. In a time that our nation is going to hell in a hand-basket, that’s the least we can do for each other.