Last year around this time, on a Sunday morning, with coffee in hand, I sat down at the kitchen table and asked my son about valentines: 1) We could use construction paper to cut, glue, and decorate using whatever materials we had at home, or 2) We could buy some valentines from the food store later -- with cars or superheroes on them.
The store-bought valentines were perfectly fine by me, but he decided he would rather make them from scratch, excited for the cutting and glueing. We got started right away. We spent almost an hour doing the cutting, then he worked on them for a couple hours in the afternoon with his dad, decorating with glitter glue and signing his name.
I loved seeing my son so proud of the work he put into these valentines. He put in a great deal of time and effort for a young kid, and having chosen the activity himself, he was invested in the outcome. He needed a little bit of help and encouragement, but for the most part he was able to complete these independently.
I was proud of myself for not getting overwhelmed when I looked at valentine ideas on Pinterest boards a week earlier. They were all just so, well, good and awesome-looking, and frankly, at that point in my life, seeing the images of perfection displayed all over social media sites like Pinterest, Instagram and Facebook only led me to feel overwhelmed, inadequate, and tired. I know there are mothers who genuinely enjoy these activities (which is wonderful, for them), but I was not one of them. After looking on Pinterest, I was leaning toward store-bought valentines.
That morning, I was able to move out of the space of "not good enough" and into the space of "I am enough." I had been trying to get out of my head, be more present with my kids, take my cues from them and just go with the flow of things. I sat down at the table, without a phone in hand or an agenda in mind. My son made the decision for homemade valentines, and in spite of the little voice in my head telling me they might not turn out "good enough," we did them anyway, and it was fun, and they came out looking pretty nice. Sometimes children really do know best.
Nelson Mandela said, "It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another."
The ingredients were simple: construction paper, scissors, glue -- glitter glue and a lesson on "symmetry" optional. Although not "Pinterest-worthy," we made the best of what we had around the house, and although Nelson Mandela probably did not intend his quote to be taken so literally, the activity did serve as a good reminder that what we have already is usually enough. Who I am, as a mother, is already enough. My child, with his imperfect cutting and writing skills, is most certainly enough.
Realizing "I am enough" is one step closer to where I want to be. As I look back a year later, I can see I have come a long way in my journey toward self-acceptance. For the first few years of motherhood, seeing everyone else's perfect lives on social media was not easy. (See my piece "Accepting Imperfection in a Social Media World" for more on my struggle). Now I realize that everyone struggles, because being a parent is just hard, and even the mother posting perfect pictures of perfect valentines probably has at least one kid screaming in the background.
As Valentine's Day approaches this year, I have no clue what project we will be doing, if any at all. I plan to sit down with my kids (now I have two preparing valentines for their classmates!), ask them what they would like to do, and go from there. I will probably have to remind myself that whatever we decide, it will be enough.
