The pros and cons of Mom Blogs

My Mom told me about a lovely blog she reads called The Gypsy Mama, so I decided to begin reading it as well.  The writer recently had a baby, and blogs a lot about various motherly escapades, so I knew I would relate to her topics.  (I particularly enjoyed her recent post about her 8 weeks of maternity leave.)

But today's Gypsy Mama post almost made me swear off Mom Blogs forever.  Oh yes, it's absolutely gorgeous -- gorgeous subject matter, incredibly well-written, that tugs at the heart strings and carries a very worthwhile message.  There's absolutely nothing wrong with it whatsoever.  It's truly lovely.

However, while today the Gypsy Mama wrote about how beautiful her unexpected time was with her sons in the middle of the night, I recalled my own night last night when my 2-year-old kept getting up out of bed (over and over and over and over and over) and how angry and frustrated and not beautiful I was dealing with the whole thing.  Bedtime is bedtime, not lets-get-back-out-of-bed-for-fun time.  And trying to deal with this from 2:30 - 6:00am tries my patience to the limit.

So then comes the wave of guilt.  The Gypsy Mama can see God in her children's middle-of-the-night visits.  All I see is a 2-year-old keeping me from getting a solid three hours of sleep in between the newborn's feedings.  I'm a terrible mother.  What's wrong with me.  Poor Caroline deserves better.  And so on.  All you mothers out there know the drill.  Like we need any help feeling guilty, at any point, ever.

That's the risk one Mom takes in reading other Moms' blogs, I suppose.  There are moments of absolute understanding and connection, those "Wow, other kids do that crazy stuff too?" moments.  But then there are also those "Wow, that person is a waaay better Mom than me" moments, and those we will have to fight to keep us from feeling guilty, because it isn't worth it.

But I had a hard time with that today.