To quote our president, "Let me be clear."

I went to a MOPS meeting at church this morning, and our speaker was fabulous.  She reminds me a lot of my own mom, in that she really seems to get it.  She has the wisdom and perspective that years of motherhood provide, but she in no way pretends to be an expert sprinkling her vast understanding on those of us who are too stupid to know things already.  

Something she said today, though, made me think about the way I have presented myself and my family on this blog lately.  She cautioned us to be careful about bragging on our children because the very trait you are so proud of may be something another mom is insecure about in her own child.  And since my very last post here was about how brilliant I think Ben is (and since I hate hate HATE the silent competition that seems to exist between moms), I just want to clear the air:

Yes, Ben is very verbal.  That's just where he excels.  But he is thirteen months old, and I don't think he'll be walking any time soon. 

And he is still way more clingy than a kid his age probably should be.  He cries A LOT every time I drop him off at the church nursery.  Sometimes he's still crying when I pick him up.  He usually wants me or Daniel close by even at home.  

He really doesn't like to be told "no."  If he doesn't flat-out ignore me, then he throws a fit about it.  There is a lot of crying in our house.  And I'm not even very good about sticking to my guns every time I tell him "no."

His sleeping is somewhat inconsistent.  Sometimes he wakes up at 8:30 in the morning, and sometimes he wakes up at 6:30.  I got so tired of guessing every day whether he would take good naps that I only put him down for an afternoon nap now.  He probably still needs the morning nap some days, but I know he'll be exhausted by the time 1:30 rolls around, and I can count on two hours of peace.  So in case I make myself seem like I have it all together on this blog, you can rest assured that I don't.

In fact, motherhood makes me feel more incompetent than anything else I have ever done.  And that includes teaching middle school, which I will freely admit kicked my butt.

I care way too much about what other people think of my mothering, too.  I come home from church crying most Sundays because of some off-hand comment that I took personally (Ben isn't walking because I carry him too much, I shouldn't be weaning him already, his crying makes the other kids in the nursery cry, I need to suck it up and stop worrying about him in the nursery, and on and on).  I wish I weren't so sensitive, but I am SO SENSITIVE about the job I'm doing as Ben's mom.

And sometimes I'm legitimately not doing a good job.  Like the times I forget to change his diaper for hours at a time and he ends up with diaper rash.  And I have to let him run around naked and he pees on things.

And maybe you missed it a couple of posts ago when I had to take him to the hospital because I let him play with a Tylenol bottle.  That should clear up any misconceptions that the Wiginton household is running like a dream.

I usually choose to post about the fun, happy things that happen around here because this blog is closest I'm ever going to get to a scrapbook (there's another area where I don't have it together).  Also, my natural tendency in life is to focus on the negative, so this blog helps me remind myself what an incredible gift it is to be Ben's mom.

So I hope you'll understand that what I post here is only part of our lives -- usually just the better part.