(Baby hostas, my new blueberry bush, crocuses Saoirse and I planted last fall, and mystery sprouts, which are probably coneflowers)

Today was for catching up on linen pants orders (just two left) and ripping more ivy and forsythia from the garden. I could really just do that all day.

Ian has been working super overtime, which means I didn’t get my usual weekend bedtime duty break, but we are reading Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban so I don’t mind too much. I did, however break my self-imposed no-eating-out-this-week rule and order dinner both nights of this weekend. I can’t actually do everything, and I’m probably going to be ok with that eventually.

I am trying to take it easier on myself, at least as far as the messages I ingest from the wider world and the messages I tell myself. Mom guilt is a huge bummer. We do things differently than most of our friends and peers, what with being different people with different interests, circumstances and resources. We do a pretty amazing job, actually. It’s only when I start looking at us through the imagined (and sometimes shared) viewpoints of others that I start to feel like I’m not doing enough, or worse, that I am not enough.

It’s all nonsense. I could make it all look perfect for Instagram if that was my goal, and probably unintentionally bum a bunch of other mothers out. I do worry about appearing lazy, which is wild when I think about what I do in a day. I need to remind myself that behind the scenes are often nannies and babysitters, housekeepers, tutors, etc. Full disclosure: I have the door dash app, and I’m not always afraid to use it. None of us can do all of the things all of the time. Watch me grow, alongside these seedlings and these children, into someone who can allow myself that truth.