[photo credit: image from tumbler.com, quote from Charlie Brown/Charles Schulz]

My biggest fear is that people will think:

Author about motherhood = Expert on motherhood

Promise me you don’t/won’t think that.

Just in the last 24 hours, I almost cried when I walked around my house and realized that all the hard work I did with my children a couple days ago has been completely undone, and probably made worse than when we started.

My status today on Facebook was: This morning I made my three children repeat together three times, “Yes Mother, right away.” I figure if it works in North Korea, I should give it a try.

And in an email to a dear friend, I wrote this: The kids are always hilarious. Unfortunately they are also completely unresponsive to any of my wishes, which seriously led me to consider running away at about 7:53 pm last night, but then I realized it would be incredibly embarrassing to publish a book on motherhood and then promote it while in exile.

So, yeah. I’m just trying to be as real as I possibly can. Some days I feel like a fraud, and then my (bad) inner voice says, “Who do you think you are? You’re a mess!”

And then I think about President Uchtdorf when he said, “Stop It!,” and then he said,

“We simply have to stop judging others [ourselves] and replace judgmental thoughts and feelings with a heart full of love for God and His children.”

So that’s what I’m working on today. That, and gratitude, because really, being thankful is a huge healer that can cover whatever seems wrong (and there is so much to be grateful for).

What are you working on today?