I am a mom. I am a mom with thoughts and a mom with feelings. I am a mom who goes through a variety of emotions in a days time. I am a mom who prays often & prays hard. I am a mom who shares in her children’s happiness & I am a mom who disciplines her children as I see fit. I am a mom who takes advice from other moms and a mom who marches to the beat of her own drum. I am a mom with one leg and a mom who would run a marathon for her children. I am a mom who would give up her last breath so my kids can breath one more. I am a mom who loves her children’s father as fiercely as I know how and a mom who dreams each of my children find a love like I did one day. I am a mom who cusses like a sailor and a mom who knows every single word to every single song in the movie Moana. I am a mom who can have a tea party and a dragon battle at the exact same time and a mom who can snuggle a baby just right that they fall asleep within minutes. But most importantly, I am a mom.

Being a mom is hard. You can have one kid, ten kids or no kids and know the love & loss of a mother. You do your very best to do what you think is right for your kids only to have what seems to be a thousand other moms tell you you are doing it all wrong. When the truth is, being a mom doesn’t fit into a perfectly square box. Actually most moms are probably like the gift bag that’s sitting inside another bigger gift bag that’s been reused & regifted like 10 times. (We all know moms do that). There are moms that vaccinate & there are moms that do not. There are moms that spank & there are moms that do time outs. There are moms who have never carried a baby in their belly & there are moms who do what’s best for their baby and give them up for adoption. And the list goes on. But as long as the very center of your box (or reused gift bag or whatever) shows how much you love your kids, then I think you are doing ok. We live in a world where we want to empower women but not moms. Where moms try their very best & it’s still not good enough in someone else’s eyes. And that’s not right. Because moms are women that have an extra title & an extra little reason to go the extra mile.

So I’m leaving you today with this final thought. Do you. Don’t do what that snooty mom on your mom Facebook group told you to do for your kids that she has never met. Don’t worry about the chocolate that is covering your kids from head to toe when you take that picture & then hesitate to post to social media because you don’t want to feel the hate because you gave your kids processed sugar. Pardon my French, but screw them. No one ever grew up and said “remember that one time when we were eating wheat germ around the Holographic campfire? Yah that was great!”. This post is 100% not meant to slam the parents that are into healthier alternatives. I get it. I’d rather my kids eat carrots over a marshmallow. But if they do choose a marshmallow, I’m not going to lose any sleep over it. And if the kid next to me chooses the carrot, I’m not going to slam the mom & tell her to let her kids live a little either. And you know why not? Because we are both moms. And being a mom is hard. So let’s support the gift bag reusing, trying to make it through the day without dropping the F bomb in front of the kids, loving their little monsters with all their might kind of moms. No scratch that. Let’s support ALL moms. Because we all could use a little extra confidence sometimes & karma has a funny way of making its way back to us. Let’s make sure it is good when it comes full circle.

#TheOneLeggedMommy #MomsSupportingOtherMoms #Amputee #DoYou #Amputation #GiftBagReuser #Guilty #NecrotizingFasciitis #Karma