the struggle

I sat down at my desk right now intending to write about motherhood.  As we go into Mother's Day weekend, I had intentions of sharing how thankful I am to be a mom and of thanking my mom and mother in law for the mothering they have done to help grow Ben and me into the people we have become. As I try to write, though, I am unable to concentrate. Kate and Drew CAN NOT get along today. I can't seem to get thirty seconds of quiet. How fitting, right? I am unable to write about the blessing of being a mother because my "blessings" are needing 110% of my energy and attention.

I want to be able to write from a calm and grateful place right now and share my thoughts on motherhood, but the truth is, I am feeling so annoyed by the arguing, whistling, complaining, and whining that seems to be the soundtrack of this afternoon that my intended blog post will wait for a different time. Just keeping it real.

Oh, there is such a fine balance I strive for when aiming to keep it real on this little blog. I don't want to let it ever be a place where I just collect my frustrations because that is certainly not what I want to remember of this stage of life when I look back years from now. Just as importantly, I don't want to paint a picture of a life that is not authentic to who we are because what would be the point of keeping a blog that is not authentic?

I want this blog to be a place where I share our truths. The truth is this- life with an eleven, ten, six, and almost-four year old, a workaholic husband, and a six month old energetic puppy has a way of draining me some weeks. Some weeks the laundry and dishes alone make me feel like I am fighting a neverending battle.  But the truth is also this- I LOVE my life and the people I am lucky enough to share it with. I am proud beyond proud of my family. This blog should reflect both of these truths in order to be authentic. It should show our real life.

I want to blog it all- the great and the hard- and I want to do it without wondering how it will be received.

I want to be able to write about an almost four year old whose behavior lately has me a little fearful of four. Where did the sweet go?

I want to be able to write about how hard it is to keep up with everything going on at the end of the school year and how I feel overwhelmed at times with (this week alone) daily and themed Teacher Appreciation Week gifts, ball practices and games, committee meetings, PTO meetings, a preschool Mother's Tea, play dates, and a seemingly never-ending pile of forms and requests to complete.

I want to be able to share that I am struggling to make sure that the kids are helping around the house and not being the kinds of kids who let their mom do all of the housework. Sometimes we are pretty good at this. Lately is not that sometime.

I want to share that it sucked that on Katie's Mother's Tea questionnaire, her response to "My mom's job is ______" was "nothing."

I want to share that I am envious of people who have families in town to help with kid activities. What would that even be like to be able to just pick up the phone and have extra adults to help when life gets busy?

I want to share that when my husband casually mentions anything at all about a possible new position in the company, my mind starts to race for hours because of the fear of the stress of another relocation.

But I don't always share these sorts of things because I don't want to come across as ungrateful for this wonderful little life I was blessed with. I have it good. I know that.  I have a happy marriage with a husband who is good to me and to the kids and works really hard to give us a comfortable life. I have four healthy kids that I am insanely crazy about. I have family and friends to support me and love me.

On the other hand... I sometimes hesitate to share some of the good parts of our world too. I worry about bragging or making it seem as if everything in the Hedenberg family is smooth and rosy. When the kids are sweet beyond words or Gracie is seated first chair in band or Luke's science fair project wins a blue ribbon at the city-wide science fair or Drew's teacher says at conferences that she "has never had a kindergarten student quite like Drew" and that he is reading at a third grade level or Katie's teachers tell me that she is so good at making friends and that she always shows kindness to her classmates..... these are the things that a proud mama wants to record somewhere and although this blog would seem like a logical place, I still worry about some imaginary reader having thoughts like, "Oh my gosh... here she goes again bragging about those kids. Who does she think she is?"

So in lies the struggle- can I write about the hard parts of our life too without coming across as ungrateful or looking for attention? Can I write about the good things without coming across as bragging?