None of us are Perfect

• Jaime
• January 31, 2020
• Family, Juggling life, Life, Mindset, Parenting
• 4

It has taken me the whole month of January, but I think I’ve decided on my theme for the year: a reminder that none of us are perfect, and life happens. Life keeps us busy, kids don’t follow a set plan, and that’s okay!

I started this journey (officially) about a year ago. I called together a group of ladies I admire – each of them amazing moms, entrepreneurs, business owners, and go-getters in their respective fields. I had been wanting to do this for years, and I finally just said “you know what, why not?”

Kelly touched on some of this last week in her inaugural post about “Doing the thing,” and while we all have that voice in our heads that cautions us to wait, life is meant to be lived, and I want to encourage other moms out there that we’re all in this together.

Juggling Normal is about doing the thing, living life to the fullest, and helping each other be the best parents and the best versions of ourselves that we can be. Whether you are struggling to juggle it all as a new mom, entering into the crazy middle or high school years (and puberty!), or becoming an empty nester – our kids keep us on our toes, every day!

None of us are perfect. We all struggle with the day to day sometimes, or the big things crashing into our ordered, organized lives. Life happens.

How we deal with all of the chaos is what matters. Our kids look to us to have all the answers – as I referenced a couple of weeks ago when I opened my post about Mom Brain, we are all human. We have to give the best answers that we can give at the time, and sometimes, it’s ok to say that we don’t know and use it as a Teachable Moment to go and look up the answers with our kids.

Kristi writes a lot about living your best life. She has so much great advice about how to juggle it all – finding the right work/life balance for you, and making sure to take the time to work out, travel (including work travel) with your kids, and just embrace all that life has to offer. Her latest post, about MONEY, touches on one of those subjects that we just don’t talk about much. We all need it, but we don’t want it to run our lives – check it out to see what her advice is!

Life is expensive. Kids are expensive. So, how do you do all the things, and manage to afford it all? We all have to budget our priorities and figure out what is most important. I would argue that the most important thing is always time – giving your family the gift of your time and attention, no matter how busy everything else is, that is something they will (hopefully) remember forever.

How do we juggle it all? How do we do all the things? One day at a time!

None of us are perfect. Take each day as it comes.

How do you keep up with your day to day? How do you roll with the curves that come your way?

I often say that children bounce – they take everything in stride, they heal faster than adults, and they have the best, most straightforward perspective we can get. Sometimes, the best thing we can do is to look at life through the eyes of our kids. Remember, they will show us what is most important. They will boil everything down to the basic things – time and attention, sitting down for a meal together, playing cards or a board game.

What about your support system? All of us need someone to lean on – whether it is our spouse, parents, siblings, friends, or an online support group. None of us are perfect – and that is ok! It is okay to need someone to vent to, it is okay to accept help from a friend. You don’t have to do it all alone.

The ladies joining me in this venture are part of my support system, for sure. They are all women I consider friends, mentors, and sounding boards for my ideas. I also have super helpful parents – both my own and my husband’s – aunts and uncles, cousins, and a lot of other people I can call on when something comes up and I have to juggle the schedule around to get kid A to one practice or kid B to a game.

I’m so excited that we will have all our contributors up with content very soon. Sara has new content coming! More about traveling with kids, juggling life while working full time, bringing up kids to have manners and making time for what’s important. You can see her first post from last summer – highlighting her work and life travel with two little ones in Italy – in her post about Traveling vs. Vacation. I can’t wait for more! Lindsey and Courtney have posts in the works, also!

This group of ladies has so much to offer. We aren’t experts. We are moms, doing all the things, juggling life, taking one day at a time, having great days and not so great. We all have our own perspectives on it all, and we are happy to share with you, hopefully to give a little inspiration and remind everyone that none of us are perfect!