What Do Real Parents Look Like?

Things around our house have been a little crazy since baby Lucas joined us. Most days consist of coffee, breastfeeding, movies, dishes, spit up stained clothes, toys everywhere, constantly stepping on said toys, bad attitudes, sword fights, towers of laundry, nap time, and repeat. Our day isn't structured much beyond nap times. That might be because I count down until nap time sometimes... ok a lot of the time. Joel will come home from a trip and ask about our week. I always have countless stories to tell him about our silly boys, but it's usually not a lot of anything productive. Some days are more about surviving while Joel is away and other days we are adventurous and decide to go and have a play date. Most of the time, I'm completely satisfied with my days. I know this is a busy season for our growing family. We have three kids under four and life with them is chaotic. Then it happens... I go on Instagram or Facebook and see other moms. They snap a quick picture of their seemingly perfect lives and I stare at it for more time than I'd like to admit. I sit their thinking what a better mom they are than me, how perfect their house looks, how much fun it looks like their kids have, how put together the mom looks, how their husbands are always right their in the picture.. It's easy to start comparing myself to them. Why can't my life look like that?Wait. Why does it have to!? If you think about it, it's easy to take a peaceful picture of your beautiful living room, interesting book, and not let the viewer in on the fact that all of your children are screaming in the background. We are constantly showing the best glimpse possible into our lives on social media. I'm guilty of doing it too! Why do we do it? Well, I know I'm the one that does it to say, "Look at my perfect life." I want to show off how great it can be sometimes. I want to prove that I'm doing a good job. While it's not bad to be grateful for the blessings in our life, we need to be happy regardless of how perfect our day is. We need to be happy in the midst of chaos and in the peace and quiet. Life as a parent is a compilation of different seasons. You have the newborn season, the crawling and getting into everything season, the send them off to school my house is empty season, the oh my gosh when did my kids get smarter than me season, the wow my kiddo is my best friend season, the why won't my kid remember how cool I am season, and all of those can be great. I challenge all of you to share a real picture of your day on Instagram and use the hashtag #RealParents. Beautiful you in the middle of a messy house, with your dinner burning, and all. Ok. Well, hopefully your dinner won't be burning, but you know what I mean. It's so encouraging to see other parents in the midst of it all. We can be there and encourage each other on those draining days and jump up and down together on the great days.