Ya gotta have faith, faith, faith...

*A small rant:

So I already screwed up NaBloPoMo. Who gives a rat's ass? Not me.

The above rant was totally unrelated to this post. Chris just said to me (about another unrelated thing) from the other room, "Intention is so different from reality." And yes, Chris, it is. And the reality is that I just don't have the effin' time to just sit around and blog all day.

And now, back to your regularly scheduled programming...*

Last night I received a phone call from a very good friend who is the mom of an almost-6-month-old baby. She had had a rough Monday and needed an ear and maybe some encouragement. She often lends both of those to me, so I was more than willing to listen to her. I have been very grateful to have her as a friend since we had our children so close together and we see eye to eye on many issues, parenting and beyond.

She's been having the same problems that I've been having since the birth of her baby...she worries about everything and thinks that everything she does, says, etc. will screw up her kid. Hey longtime moms out there...DOES THIS EVER END?? Her little girl is almost 6 months old. And she still thinks she's screwing her up and worrying about everything under the sun. Oy. I can see that I have a long road ahead of me.

I've always had high self-esteem. I've always had alot of self-confidence. When I begin something (and here's the fatal flaw, people) I either succeed beyond belief or quit. Yes, quit. If I'm not good at something, I don't do it. As Banky says in Chasing Amy, "My mother always told me that if you can't do something well, don't do it at all." I live by that philosophy. Well, parenting is different. I can't quit. It's been the lesson of a lifetime. Motherhood has stolen both my self-esteem and my self-confidence. Not all the time. They do make cameo appearances when Jayna smiles at me or puts her own sucky back in her mouth or shakes her rattle and is proud of herself or notices her own cute little face in the mirror. But there have been times...and I'm sure there will be many more...when I've lost all faith in myself. And my friend has these moments also.

I do worry about Jayna all the time. I worry if she's eating enough, if giving her a vitamin supplement is the right thing to do, if what I'm eating is causing her to spit up, if her only having one dirty diaper a week is really okay, if letting her stare at her toy with the blinking lights too long is going to cause her some sort of permanent damage, if my dogs are going to step on her...the list goes on and on. And it probably always will. I'm a worrier. That's what I do. And that's what my friend does.

On one hand, I'm glad to know that I'm not alone. I see how happy and healthy my friend's little girl is and I know that she is a good mom...even though she thinks she's screwing up all the time. I'm glad to know that even though I'm a pretty confident person that I can screw up (or think I am) and still be a good mom. I can make mistakes like letting my kid sleep all night with her sucky inside her pajamas in the middle of her back and still have faith in myself that I can do this...and will be GOOD at it.

The single most important thing that I've learned in the last 10.5 weeks is that we, as mothers, MUST have faith in ourselves. We MUST believe that we can do this and be good at it. We MUST trust our own judgments and know that we will make the decisions that need to be made. We MUST believe that we are capable of raising happy, healthy and self-reliant children. We MUST stand by one another and cheer one another on. We MUST believe it before we can even begin to see it. We MUST MUST MUST. Without this very important faith in ourselves, what do we have?