I read a lot of blogs.  The internet is like one huge magazine I don’t have to pay for, and at night after Jude has gone to bed, it’s often the way I choose to wind down and relax.  I’ve received so many ideas I wouldn’t have thought about otherwise and some valuable inspiration in the kitchen and the home. So earlier this week, I was thinking about what I wanted to spend my monthly budgeted “me money” on, and I remembered a book that was recommended on a high-profile blog that I read often.  So I googled, and in the process of looking for an answer to my book question, I discovered a host of hater blogs out there devoted to certain bloggers.  These are women who write entries slamming other women and explaining why xyz blogger is terrible.   This was a new phenomenon to me as I usually just head straight to a site or find something through another site’s blogroll, etc.  But really.  They’re out there.  Women who spend time and energy posting about how much they hate other people they don’t even know who have web journals of their own lives that don’t even affect anyone else.  And among the things these women loathe and make fun of excessively is the mother who posts lots of photos and writes about how surprisingly fulfilling motherhood is and how much she loves and cherishes this role.

Oops.

That pretty much describes this little journal.

I’m sappy at times.  I’m emotional at moments.  But I’m honest as well, and I like my job.  I really do.  I fully understand that this is a season of my life that doesn’t last forever, and that I will be moving on to other moments and other challenges sooner than I realize, but for now, I love my daily life.  And I sometimes write about it and take photos of it and share it with some of you, and you can read it or not read it.  I love the sense of community the internet offers which is why I’m not scribbling all of this in some handwritten journal somewhere, but I’m just not really interested in the pointless negativity.

And truth be told, this is just one more facet of The Mommy Wars.  She doesn’t do things they way I do?  Let me tell you why she sucks and I am so much better.  I don’t even have to go through the list of controversial motherhood topics because we all know what they are.  But just for today can we put all that aside?  (Hater bloggers and competitors in the Mommy Olympics, I’m talking to you.)

I think last Mother’s Day was the first time I really got it, the first time I really understood what the day was about.  For me, it’s a time to celebrate with my little family and feel grateful for the precious role I have and what I get to learn in that life.  But it’s also a time to say to other mamas, “I get it.”  It’s hard and it’s lovely and it’s lonely and it’s beautiful and it’s scary, and it’s all those things at the same time.  And every step of the way, you are just praying that you make the right decisions.  I get it, and we are the same.  Because whether you use breast or bottle, whether you co-sleep or sleep train, whether you spank or not, whether you openly gush about your personal fulfillment or count down the minutes to bedtime (who hasn’t done that one?), you love a little person with a crazy fierce, gut-pulling, bigger-than-anything kind of emotion, and that’s where we are all the same.

It’s not always fun.  It’s often messy.  And it’s never easy.  But when you look past the rough patches, it’s a good gig.  Am I right mamas?

Happy Mother’s Day!  And to my own Mom and my sweet Grandmother, every time my heart swells with love for Jude, it swells with gratitude for you as well.  I get it now.  And I love it.