No superman...

Today I was having a conversation with the army recruiter that comes to our school, he stops by our office about once a week, so we have a pretty good working relationship. Today I said something to the other counselor that made him realize I wasn't married, I guess he had just assumed, as most people do when you have a one year old, that I was. He has two kids himself, and was just shocked that I had been raising Hadley alone. That had to be really hard he said. Without any thought, I responded, not really.

On my drive home I really started thinking about this conversation and similar ones I've had in the past. People seem to want to give me more credit than I deserve. While my situation is by no means ideal, I am really simply a mom, just like others. All moms quickly learn that when it comes to parenting, you just do what you have to do; that's all it is. I've never known what is like to have a husband at home with me with a newborn, so really I never knew any different. Being a mom in any situation is hard, it's just the nature of the job.

So what it boils down to is this; yes, I have had to "go through a lot" this year, I had to deal with drama on top of juggling the day to day. I simply survived several months at a time. Looking back on it, isn't a pretty picture- I've yelled and screamed, said hurtful things out of anger, I wasn't always the bigger person, I stressed and cried over things that in long run were trivial, there were more times than I care to admit that I was downright embarrassed with how I reacted to and handled the worst moments of doing it alone ( but mostly in interactions with people who did not deserve a moment of my thoughts, much less the chance to kick me when I was down). It's a struggle for me to have self control of what I say, especially if I am hurt or angered, and this past year has really shown me that. That has been a hard lesson learned!

Why am I saying all this? Because I think outsiders and even my friends are quick to say things like, " I don't know how you do it." or "Wow, that has to be hard!" Really though I don't deserve that, I'm just a mom with a responsibility to raise my daughter the best I can, just like ANY mom would do. I don't know how any of us do it, really- but we do what we have to do!

Watching Parenthood and Teen Mom 2 tonight on my DVR really just completely echoed what I just said, it's like this is something I am really convicted to share!