Imperfect Parents

I am not the perfect parent. No one is. Although, some people think they are and others appear to be. Personally, I have found there to be two main types of parents.

1. Those who judge other parents
2. Those who support other parents

Sending ******HUGS****** to all the supportive parents out there!

Parenting is really a series of decisions made from love. Sometimes, it's easy to know what a good decision is. Other times, it's hard. I think most of the time it falls in the middle. Almost all of us are doing the best we can.

Zach will be 8 next week. We took a big step. We let him walk all the way home by himself. He used to meet me along the way home. But, he's been showing signs of responsibility. I believe in rewarding responsibility with freedom. So we gave it a try.

That was actually an easy decision. Because of the route. He also has been extra responsible in recent months. We had the "stranger danger" talk and put our trust in God. I also put a prayer request on that facebook group I blogged about.

It's not so easy when there was a bear sighting in town over the weekend. On Tuesday, his first day with the full walk, I called the police department. When and where was the bear last seen? Two days earlier heading away from our part of town towards my parent's part of town. Should we let him walk?

After hours of back and forth we decided to do it. Because there had been a whole day since the bear was seen. We never got a "don't walk" message from the town. It seemed safe. He arrived home 12 minutes after school let out...........SAFE!!! We had made the right decision!!! But, we didn't know until he was home.

No parent is perfect. Sometimes, we yell at our kids when we are stressed out and they have bad timing. Sometimes, we give them a bag of goldfish crackers instead of cutting up apple slices and cheese. Sometimes, we let them stay up late to watch the end of a game.

But, we apologize when we yell and work on not doing it so much. We give them veggies with dinner. And, we try not to let them stay up late too often. Because we still want the best for our kids.

It's unclear to me how one can actual be a perfect parent anyway. By perfect parent I mean following to the letter every recommendation about parenting. I failed that test with PBS at 6 months!!! Sometimes, Elmo is the only way to get chores done.

9 months

10 months

11 months



To me, being a perfect parent is like Barbie's body. It's literally not possible to look exactly like Barbie to the exact proportions and all. Some come close. But, are imperfect replicas. Even Pediatricians are imperfect parents. Their kids are vaccinated, but a newborn with an older sibling will be leaving the house for more then a doctor's appointment before six weeks!

Every year at this time I look at Zach and ask myself............am I a good parent? He's smart, empathetic, supportive, responsible, healthy and happy. I might not be a perfect parent. But, maybe Elmo at 6 months wasn't such a bad decision.

I love him so much!!!

Baseball field at the Elementary School I went too. Zach had an awesome game on it two weeks ago!!!