SeleneByMarialyn

The start of school is bittersweet. I will miss my sweet girl tremendously, but holy moly, these kids needed a degree of separation from one another.

I tend to forget how much the constant bickering wears me down. They can melt my heart one moment with their super-sweet sibling moments and make me feel like I’m an absolute rockstar of a mother—and then spend the next three to five business days humbling me with the nitpicking and instigation of bullshit, for lack of better words.

I was really struggling with the summer countdown. I felt emotional that summer flew by. We weren’t done with our bucket list. I had more adventures I wanted to take with them, more things I wanted us to squeeze in before the school year started.

Then the relentless petty warfare was causing too many casualties .  

Suddenly, I was very at peace with the approaching start date—for both my sanity and my ears. Because let me tell you, my youngest shrieks like a banshee flying straight out of hell, and the sound can startle you to the brink of an out-of-body experience.

So, you know. Bittersweet.

After returning from a beach vacation, rolling straight into birthday party prep/execution and hosting a girls’ night, I was struggling to find my normal pep in my party step.

I’m sure you’ve experienced it at one point or another. Those grand ideas that swirl in your head with your very best intentions, but taking them from ideas to actualization feels hard. I wanted to make the morning celebratory. I just didn’t have my usual energy to make it happen.

So I did my best.

And shockingly my best was good enough. Crazy, right?

The mantra that got me through was: “It doesn’t have to be perfect. You just have to show up. She’ll love it.” And that was motivation enough to push through the tiredness.

The back-to-school morning setup was not without its hiccups. I’ve found that when I’m tired, it’s genuinely harder for me to be creative.

My first banner? I HATED it.  I’m not being overly self-critical. It sucked. I tried making it oversized, I didn’t have my normal brown craft paper, my paint markers were giving me a massive middle finger, and I damn near quit.

Instead, I pivoted.

I scaled everything down and tried again. And while I wasn’t entirely in love with the final product, it was good enough.

That became the overarching theme of the morning:  Good enough. And you know what? Phoenix was thrilled with good enough.

She thought her breakfast setup was the best thing ever. She didn’t see the banner that left me giving it the stank eye. She didn’t care that the version in my head was grander than the one displayed. She just knew that I made a big deal about her first day of school.

And ultimately, that was my entire goal. Hype my girl up.

Because it’s hard being a little human. They’re expected to walk into a room full of people they don’t know, with an adult they’ve met for maybe ten minutes, and then spend seven hours a day for the next nine months in what is essentially one giant social experiment.

That’s a pretty big leap of faith when you really think about it.

So I was bound and determined to send my girl through those doors feeling loved, celebrated, confident, and ready to kick ass.

I didn’t need the perfect banner to do it. I didn’t need an elaborate version I had planned  in my head. I didn’t need more energy or more decorations. I needed to show up. Because she doesn’t want perfection. 

She wants a mom in her corner, making a little fuss over her and reminding her that she is ready and capable.

And that?

I can do!

And you may be wondering, what about Sebastian? Don’t worry, he’ll get his setup too—he starts school in two weeks. His time is coming. I’m positive I’ll have more antics for you by then.

Til next time, be okay with being okay