I have a confession to make: I’m t h a t one Mom that is constantly comparing my kids progress with other kids.

There, I said it! Phew.

When motherhood becomes you, I feel like that is the one thing no mom ever wants to admit but it’s the underlying reason as to why they do the things that they do. It’s the reason why you saw your friends kid with that one cute dress the other day, so you made sure when you got home that you squeeze in time tomorrow to stop by at Old Navy to look for a ‘similar’ dress. It’s the reason why you come home after hanging out with your ‘mommy friends’ and immediately browse Pinterest because you want to find the latest DIY style to make cute headbands for your baby. It’s the reason why you ‘force’ your kid(s) to suddenly learn his/her ABC’S; numbers; colors and shapes. It’s the reason why you don’t feel bad at all for spending $60 at H&M at the kids section, yet you shudder to think what a waste of money it would be if you had to buy something nice for yourself.

You see, they don’t tell you these things when you’re a mother [or maybe it’s just me], but it’s definitely the unspoken rule we’re never allowed to admit. It’s the [modern] epidemic disease most mothers suffer from these days.

 

Well, don’t fret! The good news is that – it only seems to affect your first child because you quickly realize that kids grow out of clothes at a rapidly fast rate and believe it or not, so does your wallet! You get so excited about his first pair of Jordan’s and after just wearing it about three times [because Heaven forbid, you would never let your kid wear the same shoes with the same outfit every time!] you realize it doesn’t fit him anymore. And for a person that sucked at mathematics, you somehow can quickly calculate that if your kid is only 9 months now and he’s grown out of most of his shoes, you have to spend about $1,000 more just to keep up with the latest Jordan’s to fit his growing feet.

Let me tell you, when that second, third or fourth child comes along – you will no longer care about what kind of Jordan’s he has on his feet, nor will you care whether he/she is just turning three and doesn’t know his ABC’s just yet. If you’re like me and you’re the second child, you’ll suddenly understand why you always got your sister’s hand-me downs. lol And back then when your Mom handed you your sister’s dress that she outgrew, you threw a fit and thought, ‘Gosh, my parents hate me! The whole world hates me! Life sucks, I never get any nice things… when I grow up and have kids I’m NEVER letting them feel like this…’ [and you never think out loud of course! because it’s either you’re handed the dress or the laying on of hands… lol]

This morning, when we took the kids to the park to play, my son immediately started making friends with all the children at the park. My husband walked over and said, “your son seems to make friends easily with all the kids here…” [insert major mommy heart explosion] That right there is what being a Mommy is all about. It encapsulates everything for me… that, “we[I] need to care less about whether our[my] children are academically gifted & more about whether they sit with the lonely kid in the cafeteria.”