Perfectionism + Motherhood = Dangerous

Over there on my other blog, I'm talking about letting go of perfectionism. I use a picture of one my girls playing dead.

Yes, playing dead.

I used the picture that looks most real. Here, I show you the same one, but with a smile on her face. I showed her these pictures today and she wanted me to print out the one with the smile.

Just goes to show that she found the whole playing dead thing funny.

I didn't find it so humorous. Our girls go to an inner city preschool. My guess is that death and guns and dying comes up a bit more there than say your average suburban child care center. I don't know. No one has died in our house but our pet fish. A family member's dog died and, well, they talked about that for years it seemed.

I am not comfortable with talking about death. This is something I have to work on.

But I tried hard not to tell them that. I just tried to change the subject when I thought their play had gone a bit overboard. They never actually kill anyone, just pretend to be dead. Whew, what a relief.

So many things that happen on a daily basis are things I never anticipated having to deal with, especially with girls, but especially because of how we try to raise our girls.

I didn't realize, of course, that they are smarter than we are and they go with their instincts and gut and natural reactions rather than what is popular or "right."

I let go of trying to be the perfect mom a while ago. But, now and then, she does pop up and I have to shush her like a crying child. Go away. You're not wanted here. These children are perfect just the way they are. They were born that way and there's not much more I can do but just keep them alive.

Yes, keep them alive.