One of my favorite parts of being a blogger is how it gives me the motivation to be constantly improving. By continuously creating unique content, I’m already becoming more creative and ambitious in every area of my life. I love how becoming a blogger has motivated me to improve my personal style, my home, my health…..myself. But in the spirit of creating this online image of perfection, I can already feel myself starting to loose patience with myself on bad days. I’m only saying this because I always want to show you my full, unedited story. As a blogger, I get more views, more followers, and therefore, more money by providing you with this image that is often unrealistic. I love the motivation running this blog has given me to be constantly, almost aggressively improving my world, but I don’t want you to ever think everything is always put together.
So in light of complete transparency, I wanted to share a little glimpse of my real-life yesterday:
As most of you know, I got a puppy for my daughter’s birthday last week. Milo has wanted a dog for years and years. When we would ask her what she wanted, she would reply, “Ya know…. I’d really love a puppy. I know we’re not ready for one yet so I guess I’d just like some books?” She has always been my most responsible child thus far and helps out around the house so much I genuinely think she would help with a dog a lot. She’s the kind of kid who would legitimately clean up the poop without me having to nag her and would love teaching the dog new tricks. After several years of thinking about it, me and Jon bit the bullet and bought her a dog for her eighth birthday.
Right now, Coco is just 7 weeks old, never sleeps at night, chews constantly, has diarrhea from switching puppy foods, and pees on everything. He has the sweetest heart and the kids love him but honestly…….. He’s kind of nightmare right now. I used to wake up before the kids to do yoga, write in my gratitude journal, and meditate first thing in the morning. Now I wake up even earlier to take the dog out in the freezing cold and stand there in a bathrobe while I wait for him to decide to pee…… which feels like a standoff that I often loose and he pees within seconds of coming back inside. From there, I clean up accidents until the kids wake up and I get them ready for school. I know- my life is super glamorous right now.
Anyways, while Zoe was sitting at the table eating her snack yesterday she started to gag on a cracker. This is so unlike her so I started freaking out, patting her back, removing her from the booster to get her a Heimlich position etc.. and she began to vomit. The puppy immediately rushed to the floor below her booster and started lapping up the throw up. Zoe was still vomiting while I was rubbing her back and trying to kick the dog away. She recovered, hugged me awhile, finished her snack, and then went down for a nap.
I had been up all night with the dog the night before (Who knew a puppy would keep you up more than your real babies ever did?) so I snuggled the puppy on the couch to take a quick 20 minute nap before the rest of the kids got home from school. I woke up ten minutes later to the puppy heaving and gagging and throwing up the baby’s vomit onto the pillow I was sleeping on.
Parenting can be damn hard and is absolutely not for the faint of heart. As moms, we do things every day that my teenage-self would have never dreamed of. I catch used gum out of kid’s mouths, wash the baby poop off my hands, forget to pack kid’s school lunches, and step on Legos just as much as anyone, and want to be sure that is blog is always an honest, transparent window to my life- even though I’ll often only show you the creative or helpful aspects.
We are all just learning and improving the best we can. No parent truly has it all together and nobody’s life is perfect, even though we wish it was.
So as you follow my blog and read through my posts, remember that each room doesn’t always look like this, I don’t always have time to put on makeup- let alone brush my hair some days and I do a lot of DIY projects that never make it online because they fail so miserably. While I promise to keep Lip Stain & Legos 100% honest, I also want to be sure to remain inspiring and positive for you guys.
Last confession of the day: I’m writing this while wearing a robe at noon in bed with the new puppy curled up next to me. On days like today, I may just pick my son up from school while wearing this robe but be photo-ready tomorrow by 9 am. I won’t post pictures today, but you’ll likely see my outfit tomorrow. 🙂
