Embracing the Imperfect Me on New Year's Eve

I am simply amazed at how quickly 2013 flew by!  Nothing too major happened, though Marc started a new job with better hours, albeit more travel.  The girls moved up in karate, my last child finally let go of diapers and I made great strides in my quest to yell less.  Nothing too terribly interesting, which quite frankly, is perfectly perfect to me.

I was doing a lot of thinking tonight about resolutions.  I don't know about you, but every year, I make a couple and by March, I've forgotten what I even set out to change.  I know I'm not perfect and that's actually what I resolve to do this year.

This year, I resolve not to put myself down.  It's not going to be easy, because it's second nature for me to look in a mirror and point out my imperfections. I get really mad at my girls when they do that to themselves, so it's time I stop doing it too, don'tcha think?  Plus, I made a comment about a picture of me that was in this past school year's yearbook and it came back to bite me in the tush when a few weeks ago, M repeated the comment to me (about me!). 

I went shopping with the girls yesterday and they came into the fitting room with me.  It took every ounce of oomph I had not to make disparaging remarks about how the clothes looked on me, especially with all three of them oohing and aahing over my selections.  

So, this year, I resolve to be a better role model for my girls.  I want to be the kind of Mom that they want to emulate as adults, not one they find themselves shunning.  I may be terrible at sending thank you notes (if you sent me a gift this year, thank you, thank you, thank you!  That was one of my resolutions last year. . . see how well it went?), I may not be the best housekeeper or laundress, but not being perfect in those areas are who I am.  I will try to be better at everything I'm not, but I'm going to try to embrace the imperfect me.  After 36 years of nitpicking (well, 30; I'd like to think that for my first 6 years I thought I was the best person on the planet), I think I owe that to myself.