"You're a Good Mom" Guilt

So lately I've been having a lot of "you're a good mom" guilt. What's that? Well, it's when people tell me I'm such a good mom and I feel guilty because I don't feel like it. Sure, I do super awesome things with her, I've given her more experiences already than most people have in a lifetime, and she really is a pretty well behaved little girl. Here lately though, it seems like she wants nothing more than to terrorize her mama. Let me be honest right here and say my four year old has turned into a teenager. It's constant tears, disobedience, and so much more lately... but only for mama. When I asked her teacher at school, she said, she's doing great and gives hugs to everyone. Luckily, I have a good support team that helps me put her on track when she's being a little too sassy. But seriously, every morning there's tears for a variety of reasons... she doesn't want to wear the outfit (we picked out together the night before), I pulled her hair too hard (with hair like hers, it's bound to happen), the seam on her sock doesn't match up, I put the sock on the outside of her pants and not the inside, I put the sock on the inside of her pants and not the outside, she doesn't want to go to school, babysitter's, gymnastics, etc... it's like she finds every possible thing to complain about and rolls it all into one giant fit of tears first thing in the morning as we're trying to walk out the door. 

*deep breath* 

Okay, I know we've been through a LOT the past year... divorce, death, friends/neighbors moving, etc... but my little girl is a smart one, she knows how to play you. I battle between empathy and apathy, hard love and tender love, and all I know is that being a good mom is hard stuff! There's no manual that comes with a baby that tells you how to handle these things. Sure, there's 999 thousand articles on the Internet to read plus 999 thousand people who want to give you your advice but the best advice I've ever gotten and that I try to only give is, it's your kiddo, you know what's best so follow your gut but sometimes I'm just simple like WTH am I doing? 

And it's not just her giving me a hard time, it's the world, the people out there. Some people are really cruel whether they mean it or not. One kid asked AR why she didn't have a little sister and it broke both her and my heart. That is just an innocent example. Here's an example of a cruel stranger that infuriated me and I felt like I failed AR. I took AR to get her nails done because she was going to the Daddy~Daughter Dance. She was finished and I wasn't yet so she was sitting in the kid chairs and talking to John, the store owner who was doing a pedicure for another lady. She wasn't speaking loudly or interrupting, just asking John questions. Out of nowhere, this old lady yells at AR, "Knock it off!" I caught the tail end of it and told AR to come over to me. I asked if the lady was talking to her and what she had been doing. She said yes, the lady was talking to her and she'd just been talking to John. I wasn't really sure what had happened but I was confident that my daughter hadn't done anything to deserve to be talked to like that. Trust me, if my daughter is in the wrong, I'm the first one to get on to her and make her apologize. My mom always gets on me for being too hard on her but I'm trying my best to raise a respectful, well-mannered young lady. My blood was BOILING and luckily, we had a friend with us that talked me down from saying anything. The whole situation was just bizarre and I still wasn't even sure that the lady was entirely talking to her when we left. A couple hours later, I get a phone call from John apologizing for the lady speaking to AR that way and he wanted to make sure she was okay. I asked him if AR had been doing anything she shouldn't have and he confirmed that she was just talking to him and that he lady didn't really have a reason to yell at her like that. It made me feel better that AR wasn't out of line but I really regretted not saying something to that lady now. Either way, I thought it was above and beyond for the store owner to call us and apologize for something out of his control. I'm just glad that AR didn't seem too upset by it because the lady's need to yell at my child to knock it off could've easily ruined a very special day for her. And what was she wanting her to knock off? Being friendly? Being inquisitive? Being a child? I kind of feel like I failed AR by not saying something to that lady. 

*deep breath*

Some days I feel like I really rock the whole mom thing and others I feel like I'm failing miserably. At the end of the day though, my girl always asks to cuddle and love with me before bed. And that, my friends, is how I know I'm a good mom. I might be screwing up everything else, fighting over socks on the inside or out, destining her for hours and hours of therapy when she's older but when my baby girl looks at me and says she loves me, I know I'm doing something right.