I Want To Be Fabulously Ordinary

Not to mention the mothers closer to home. The mother up the street who volunteers at a local jail, and the mother who is doing a segment on a local television show.

Some days, when I allow my views to be focused too much on other mothers,  I can’t help but look at myself and wonder, “Why don’t I do anything fabulous?”

Which of course I do. We all do, but we don’t recognize it. Why? Because our fabulousness and greatness is often, very ordinary.

This morning I sat on the family room floor with my two youngest children banging on pots and pans while singing a song. We ended up singing much longer than planned, as I made up verses to appease my children’s begs of “one more verse.”

Fabulous or ordinary?

As I type this, I’m sitting on a couch cuddling with a 3-year-old who wants his back scratched, and next to a 5-year-old who really wanted me to do my work on the computer in the same room as him while he played.

Fabulous or ordinary?

The reality is, very few of us will ever do anything that will be noticed by hundreds of people at a time. Most of us will be ordinary, everyday, type people that the world will pay little attention to. We will never make the headlines and our names will never be known by thousands.

Yet it seems there is a polarized desire among mothers to do and be more. And just as we settle into those times in our lives when we think we’re okay the way we are, we hear about someone else who’s doing something different (read: different, NOT better) than what we’re doing and we’re right back to where we started. Thinking we’re ordinary, while someone else is fabulous.

In my own recent unsettled feelings to be more important or to do grander things, my mind went to two women I dearly love.

Both are mothers of grown children. One of these mothers has fed and welcomed more people into her home over the years than I could possibly count. Her children knew they were always welcome, as were their friends, to everything in her kitchen and fridge. She has spent more hours in the kitchen preparing dinners and desserts for guests than anyone I know. The other mother I thought of has spent quite possibly thousands of hours huddled into a very modest home raising six children in a house that many would consider too small for even two children. Her family has grown to include in-law children and grandchildren who enjoy each other’s company nearly every week, gathered in that same modest house, sitting around the kitchen table she has likely had for decades.

Neither of these women are curbing world hunger, neither have ever been on a television show, and neither of them have ever invented a successful new product. They do not have big bank accounts, have probably never driven a new car, and certainly their homes would never be in a decorating magazine.

These women’s accomplishments will never make newspaper headlines, nor will news of their deaths preempt regular television scheduling. Yet hands down, they are two of the most fabulous mothers I know. Or should I say ordinary?

How would you describe yourself?

Perhaps you have never been involved in ending world hunger, but how many hungry mouths did you feed last week or how many sack lunches have you made?

Fabulous or ordinary?

Perhaps you haven’t contributed much to the establishment of world peace. But how many temper tantrums have you thwarted?

Fabulous or Ordinary?

Maybe you haven’t found a cure to a horrible disease, but how many times have you placed a hand to a fevered forehead or covered an owie with a bandaid?

Fabulous or ordinary?

I bet your picture has never graced the front of a glossy magazine, but how many times have you been drawn by your loving children – as a stick figure or with a big round circle tummy?

Fabulous or Ordinary?

What do we want our children to think of us?

Ask your children right now something they think is fabulous about you. I’ll bet their answer is something really quite ordinary. In fact, I did just that. I  just asked my 5-year-old, “What is something fabulous about me?” His answer, “You tuck me in bed at night.”

Fabulous or Ordinary?

By the proverbial standards of the world, it’s easy to classify the majority of mothers, by virtue of what we do, day in and day out, as ordinary. But make sure you don’t forget to use the word ‘fabulous’ in front of that description.

Here’s to being fabulously ordinary!

Challenge: Ask your children to tell you something they think is fabulous about you. Write it down and place it somewhere you can see often.