It's all gonna be okay.

Mom guilt. It's an ever-present theme in my life and I'm willing to bet you might have a touch of it, too from time to time. We all want what is best for our kids, but it's difficult to always know exactly what that is. We avoided sickness for most of the winter, but for the last two weeks we've passed it around a time or two. My kids have missed preschool because of this and weekly speech appointments as well. If my house was cleaner or ....if their immune systems were better from eating more nutritious meals....if I was more of a helicopter parent then maybe they wouldn't be sick and having to miss school. Or if I think they're well enough to venture out, what if I expose the other kids to my kids' germs? Enter mom guilt again. It's just never ending. Today, my kids missed school and their Valentine's parties because it snowed and I thought they would probably be called out of school by the time I got everyone up and ready to go. I'm so glad I spent the evening preparing extra Valentines for one of the kids to take and crafting lunch inspired by red, pink, and hearts! What a great use of my time. I could have been binge eating chocolate while watching the season premier of Grey's Anatomy. I digress.

It's just that I'm often feeling as if I don't measure up. I've met some incredible people throughout this process with Abel. There are wonderful parents out there who diligently never miss an opportunity to take their kid(s) with hearing loss to therapy. They never stop questioning if they're doing enough, pushing for what their kid needs, or changing their lifestyles to accommodate their child. I want to be that constant for Abel, but most days I feel as if I'm barely getting by. He's such a wild card. Being three years old and significantly behind his peers is completely draining for me. I'm proud of his progress and I know it is slow for most people with cochlear implants so I try to keep my head up, but the last few weeks I've had extra time around him to think about it all. What I see is a mom trying to clean the kitchen instead of sitting down to read with him. I see a mom trying to take care of herself and the baby growing inside of her who deposits her children into the gym childcare for an hour or so every day. I see the pregnant woman with three small children at her feet all day and what she really wants to do is just sit down on the couch and curl up in a ball. Playing speech therapist all day long doesn't always happen for me and I feel like I'm dropping the ball.

But we've all got something, right? There's always that one thought in the back of our minds that creeps up every now and then and says, "You're not good enough." The truth is, I'm not good enough at many things, but I'm doing a great job with the other things. Everyone is struggling with something and for me, it's always the three year old, hearing or not. I always have a toddler/preschooler. Every year I seem to have one of those...sometimes multiple ones...and the Terrible Twos (and Threes) is a real thing, y'all. I'm just trying to keep putting one foot in front of the other and realizing that time is flying and one day I'll forget how awful my days can be. All I'll remember are the sweet smiling photos I capture of my little kids and the times when they were happy. I'll remember the time Kinley said, "Mom, guess what? I'm so happy because Daddy made me so many paper airplanes!" or "Thank you so much for the heart sandwich, Mom. I love it!" I'll remember tucking Abel into bed and him not protesting as I took off his ear and he signed "I love you" to me. I'll recall little Merit running into a room, arms outstretched with a toothy smile on his face saying, "HEYYYY!" It's all gonna be okay.