Monday, December 27, 2010

I AM NOT PERFECT. I AM NOT PERFECT. I AM NOT PERFECT. I AM NOT PERFECT. I AM NOT PREFECT.....funny that I typed that word incorrectly. It's true. That was a mistake. My own mistake. I was typing perfect and prefect showed up.

I have known this for quite some time. Others may be well aware of this fact. Certainly, the cat was out of the bag when Biff and I began dating....it was important for me to have him know me...the real me...with no secrets. Talk about scary! 

The good news is that he loved me because of my imperfections. He also loved me because of my honesty.Thankfully, he was just as honest....and he actually had some imperfections as well. Phew!

I know this may come as a surprise to you, but there was a time in my life that I believed it better to work at hiding my little idiosyncrasies and peccadilloes and imperfections and faults and blemishes.

While I shared self deprecating comments with many friends, co workers and acquaintances, I truly believed it was better to hide my flaws. Believe me, that was a full time job...with not many benefits.

Benefits....was there any benefit to donning the hat of perfection. Really? I believe it was once I had children that I no longer felt the need to try to be perfect. It came to me slowly. One imperfect moment at a time. Sure, I could have worked at presenting that perfect image for all of the other moms in playgroup, the other members of The Junior League of Boston, The Newcomers Club members, my college alumnae board and many more. Tempting to pose as perfect, to know it all, to be one of the perceived elite few who know that secret.

Thankfully my beautiful children taught me my greatest lesson of my life. It came to me via simple life moments:
We actually had tired/cranky/sick babies from time to time
Our babies spit up on our favorite clothing en route to a party
We had children with their own personalities who didn't behave like our puppets on display
Our children did not perform on demand
I had a baby at home with mom, Biff, Grace and the fire department
I had planned photo shoots with headstrong toddlers 
We had toddlers who slathered Desitin on other toddlers followed by baby powder which had the affect of being tarred and feathered.
While we had babies who loved church, they did cry.
We had babies who had tantrums, mostly in front of others.
Our babies blew rasberries in church.
Our children liked being barefoot in the snow!
We had children who didn't always warm up to everybody we liked
Sometimes, our children were shy
Our kids went through a phase of avoiding a hair brush.

That's only a snapshot of the things I hadn't been prepared for as a new mom. Until we had our own children, I only had the dream niece that was returned after a day or a weekend.

Surprise. At a certain point I realized I could keep those grosgrain bows tightly affixed in my preschooler's hair or I could let her wear her tiara and be happy. Grace allowed me to choose happy.

With T.J., it was his "wed wubber boots" that changed my outlook on life. He wanted to wear those boots to the pool and to the beach. T.J. helped me to see my soul more clearly....with his soles.

Grace loved wearing her beautiful Christmas dresses.....with her adorable tights and red high top sneakers! She also wore her floral knit Hanna Andersson tights under her bathing suit to the beach mid summer.Some of my greatest memories.

T.J. wore his Red Sox baseball cap everywhere...even to church. Thankfully, the monsignor liked the Red Sox and always worked that hat into his sermon on Sundays. 

Grace wore her purple sequined flapper dress to Montessori on her 5th birthday.

Since T.J. didn't love the barber and had such blonde fluffy curls, we had a friend approach us in church and say, " Look at that head, it's like a flock of gulls!" 

Thankfully. Thankfully and honestly. What freedom! What a gift to be freed from those who want to portray perfect. They bore us! I am so grateful that my sense of humor got me through some of my less than perfect moments. Biff and I are thrilled to be real. One of the greatest gifts in life...being real and being true to ourselves....and our family! Thankfully.




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