This is the real me {coffee date}


There are days when I wish we really could sit down and have a cup of coffee together. Days where I could send you a last second text to say, "Hey my house is a disaster, but nothing that will kill you, so how about a cup of something. Anything you want, as long as we can sit and talk". Wouldn't that be so much fun? But fun isn't the only reason. I'd love for many of you to see me in real life to show you that this is me. One hundred percent me. I don't sit at the keyboard every day or every other day to write about another person's life. I sit here and write about my life. The one that I have grown into. The one that has changed me in so many good ways. I sit here and write about this life, the good, the bad, and the sometimes terribly ugly truths that pop up. 

Two minute dinners sponsored by Nitrates and Microwaves
A few weeks ago, I was challenged on this blog's authenticity. I was talking to a real life friend who told me that she finds it hard to read this blog, because "Absolute Mommy" isn't the Megan she knows. She confessed that she doesn't know the "Megan" who writes this blog. She feels that they are not the same person, or the same voice. This shocked me and hurt me in a really deep way. When I sat out to write this blog almost four years ago, my one and only rule was that I always be honest. That I always tell the truth about motherhood. In four years I've learned so many things about myself by living and breathing those truths. But for a few days I replayed that conversation. Am I the person I claim to be on this blog? Am I wholly authentic to my voice and my readers? Am I the person I claim to be?

Last nights make up is just a myth with the right Instagram filter

It took a few days. I looked at what I put out on Facebook and Instagram. I looked at my blog content. What posts were most popular? What did people respond to? For starters they liked my posts about microwaved dinners and wearing last nights make up to pick up breakfast at McDonald's. Readers have responded to posts about Poise pads and Brazilian waxing. People have responded to fights with my daughter, struggles with my temper, and my admittance that I may not be the best mother that ever lived. All things that I have wholeheartedly written with nothing but honesty and fear. Was I nervous to post about my Brazilian wax experience? Hell yes! Have I lingered over the publish button on posts about fighting with Caitlin? Absolutely. But that is my fear. Fear that I'm being too honest. That I'm sharing too much. But never a fear of being authentic. 

Wrestling with Daddy at eleven at night - what bedtime?

In defense of myself and this blog, I told my friend that I have changed so much in the last four years, but the truth is, I've changed so much in the last seven years. My friend is right in mentioning that I'm not the confident woman I once was. That confidence and that person were thrown out with the placenta the day my oldest was born. My confidence and self worth were shredded that day. I still don't have an answer to why, other than I was scared and realized that I was now "in charge" of an actual life. Motherhood took away the idea that I was perfect, infallible, and a quick study. Motherhood spun me and then left me waist high in a pile of dirty diapers and pacifiers. How could I not change? How could I not grow into someone new? Motherhood forces the best parts of you to rise to the occasion. After four years, I think that this blog is one of my best parts.

Against All Grain Real Deal Choco-chip Cookies for Dinner

This blog helped me find my confidence again. It allowed me to be honest with you, my readers, but also with myself. When a problem in my life arises, I try to spin it, maybe with humor, maybe with tears, but I will always share it here. This blog is two parts therapy and one part camaraderie. I share my problems and then I receive emails and comments on how I'm not effing up as bad as the next person. I'm not afraid to admit my short coming anymore. I'm not afraid to tell you that Caitlin sleeps in our bed, still at seven, once or twice a week. That I still crawl into bed with Mac when she night wakes. I'm not afraid to tell you that on some nights I forget dinner all together. That sometimes we skip baths on multiple days over the summer. That I let my girls watch episodes of Uncle Grandpa well after a reasonable bedtime, just so the Hubbs and I can have a conversation without interruption. I'm not afraid to admit to cookies for dinner and failed whole 30 challenges, and that I've started and stopped 5K training more times than I can count this summer. I'm not afraid of those things anymore. Because writing them down takes away their power. Admitting them out loud makes them seem insignificant. 

So yes, there are days when I wish I knew many of you in real life. I wish you could come to my house and see the American Girl/Monster High/Barbie Sharknado that has hit my house. I wish you could see the dishes in the sink, and the mail still on the counter from yesterday, and the bench covered with June's progress reports and school letters. I wish you could see how I look on a day I don't post an outfit of the day, what I look like with out the magical hair powder that covers my bald spot, without the concealer that hides my dark under eye circles. I wish you could see for just one moment that this is truly me. 

Yup, that's me!

It took me thirty three years to find my voice. All through high school and college I wondered what I'd really do with myself. Who was I going to be in this life? It took a husband, a marriage, and two beautiful girls to light a fire under my ass. It took becoming a mother to let go of all the fears I've ever had, the ones about being fat or ugly or not good enough. Motherhood forces you to live, it forces you to move on and get over it. Motherhood forced me to grow up and find out who I was, who I wanted to be. So here I am, Megan, who had to grow up and be Mommy. 

Who is now, so wonderfully and definitely Absolute Mommy.