"It's cheaper than a therapist."

In our quest to teach our children resilience and self reliance I find it's a constant balancing act.  I've mentioned before that I hadn't realized how much "hovering" I did as a parent.  Let me tell you folks, I hovered.  So now, I feel in some ways that I'm in parenting 101.  In fact I mentioned to someone the other day that I felt like I knew what I was doing for the first 20 years and all of a sudden I'm not so sure...I mean heaven help you if you are the unlucky friend who runs into me in the Target baking aisle after a long day of me questioning my parenting approach.  (Apologies Michelle but you are considerably cheaper than a therapist.)

Now, don't get me wrong.  Even with some of the "stuff" we have going on at the Morgan household I still feel like we did pretty well. I mean, I was 20 years old when Jordan was born!  20 people!  I was a baby--a baby I tell you!  But there's always room for improvement.  I mean, you're talking to the mom who apparently didn't read the whole section on newborns in her parenting guidebook where it says that it might be a bad idea to put your baby to sleep on the same side every time.  Poor Jordan--it took two years for that kid's melon head to even out.  (But he did do a pretty decent impression of a pirate with his "aye matey" squinty look.)

Now I realize that hindsight is 20/20 so I'm not beating myself up too much but I do want to be better.  So I find myself questioning my approach to lots of things at the moment.  Do I remind my children to do their chores each day?  If so, how many times do I remind them?  At what point does "reminding" cross over into "helicopter mom nagging" territory?  Do I pick up their mess or leave it there for 8 hours until they come home from work?  If I leave it there, how do I keep from going crazy looking at it?

If there was anyone left out there that thought I have my act together this should make it pretty clear that I don't.  And you know what?  I'm kind of ok with that because that means there is room for improvement.  I think that too often we're afraid to "let it all hang out there" because we feel like  everyone else is better at "this" (whatever "this" is) than we are. But I tell you what.  These last few months have shown me that we ALL have things that we struggle with.  None of us are perfect--it's just enough to keep trying.  And besides which if I'm going too crazy Target's right down the street and law of averages suggests  SOMEONE I know is bound to be there.  Hey Michelle--you have any baking to do???