It's a Mad, Mad World.

I have been a member of an online community for moms for over two years now. It's definitely the website that I frequent the most and I have actually made friends online that I speak to on the phone and consider to be some of the best friends that I have. I have also learned a lot. If it were not for this community I would not be a cloth diapering mom and I would not know nearly as much as I do about breastfeeding, circumcision, natural living, vaccines, co-sleeping, home birthing, and many other parenting related topics. I am very grateful for having been pointed in the right direction on all of these topics.

However, as a member of said online community I have learned that mothers can be the most judgmental jerks in the entire universe. No parent is perfect and any one who claims to me is being pretentious. We all make mistakes as parents and we all do the best that we can. I know that 'we all' is very broad and that there are exceptions, but I am choosing to be general. I know some parents do what they are told, they sometimes are called sheep because they follow the herd. I know that some parents read multiple books on each individual topic before making any decisions at all. Some consult their own parents or peers.

The fact is, we all make millions of decisions from the moment that we find out that we are going to become parents. Some decisions are, in fact, better than others. Some decisions are unsafe, but when we know better we do better. Some decisions are a bit lazy and the decision is made to cater more to the wants of the parent than the best interest of the child. Sometimes there are decisions that are misguided, we choose to do things based off of false information, outdated information, or the opinion of great grandma Esther who thinks that she is the only person who 100% knows how to properly raise a child. None of us are perfect parents, we have all made one or two bad decisions as a parent.

The fact that I know that; a) mothers are super judgmental, b) there are millions of decisions to be made as a parent, and c) each of us will, at some point, make the decision that is not the best, seems to have brought me to a point of clarity and enlightenment to which it seems a great many of my online cohorts have not come. I am going to capitalize and bold this point so that it stands out. IT TAKES MORE THAN ONE BAD DECISION TO MAKE A BAD PARENT.

Sheesh. Getting that off of my chest made me feel a lot better. I am really tired of constantly seeing statements such as, "People who do not vaccinate are selfish parents," or "Spanking is shameful," or "Letting your kids watch TV is utterly lazy and loathsome." One of the main reasons that I am tired of seeing is that usually the person saying (read-typing) it has previously posted about doing at least one thing that I think is lazy, selfish, shameful, misguided, etc. None of us is perfect in the eyes of every other parent. That is just the way that it is. The important thing is to be confident in the decisions we all make as parents and to make them to the best of our abilities. The best parent is the parent who does his/ her best. Period.

*note to readers-this logic can really be applied to anything. For example: One fashion mistake does not a bad dresser make, One misguided joke does not make someone an asshole, and so on and so forth.*

Stepping BACK up.

Prior to becoming pregnant, I had been making a concerned effort to work out and lose weight. Of course, the moment those two little lines appeared, that went right out the window. But now, I am back in the game. I am watching what I eat and I went to the gym tonight. I am pretty sure I am going to make going to the gym our after nap routine every day, Sunday-Thursday. I will take the same days off of the gym as Dave takes from work.

I would really love it if Dave would work out with me, but he doesn't seem to be interested. I spent a long time saying that I was going to wait for Dave, lose weight with Dave, or that I was failing because I was doing it without his support. I know now that I was setting myself up to fail by depending on him. Dave doesn't see anything wrong with his diet, he does not really have the desire to work out, and he is perfectly fine with the way that he looks. I realized that he doesn't do things to sabotage me at all. He does them because they are right for him and he doesn't understand why they aren't right for me. And that's fine. But it does mean that I need to take matters into my own hands. So, to the gym I will go, without him. Declining food I will do, when he cooks it. Order salad I will, when he goes to a fast food joint.

I am truly ready to get back down to a presentable weight. I want to be able to go out and buy jeans. I want to go somewhere and feel like I look good. I want to be happy with myself. My goal is to look like a mega hottie next year at the annual XXX-Mas Party. I want people to be like,"Damn. Dave's wife is a pretty girl." But mostly, I just want to be a mom that my kids can be proud of. I want them to see me as an example of what to be rather than what not to be. And that goes as far as health and fitness as well.