Acknowledging my limits: Super Woman doesn’t live here

Super Woman doesn't live here

I’ve been busy here. Very busy. I’ve been busy learning exactly what all I cannot do, what is beyond me, what I don’t have time for, what needs to change. What a start to the new year! While most are acknowledging their potential, I’m starting the year by acknowledging my limits.

On one particularly hair-raising day, I was loading the dishwasher and trying to catch up in the kitchen while wrestling Littlest out of the dishwasher and answering one of Oldest’s “how does this work” questions. My daughter came into the chaos with a broken toy she wanted me to fix but which was beyond fixing. When I broke the news to her, she asked me why I couldn’t fix it. And in exasperation I exclaimed, “Because I’m not SuperWoman, believe it or not!”

To which my ever-so-knowledgeable-almost-seven-year-old replied, “I think it’s WonderWoman, Mom.”

Yeah, I’m not her either.

I’m openly acknowledging my limits here, folks. There are things I simply can’t do. There are things I’m failing at. There are things that will just have to wait.

One of the things I tried and then quit over the Christmas break was potty-training Littlest. The other two were trained by 18 months, so in my mind I’ve really felt guilty and “behind” for not having even started with Littlest while his 2 year birthday looms only a month and a half away. So we gave it a try with one week to get it going before I headed back into our homeschool routine. Big mistake. Totally set myself up to fail. And by our first day of trying to homeschool and potty train, I knew it, too. I acknowledged my limits and put the Little Stinker back into his diaper—with a huge sigh of relief from both of us.

Our homeschool curricula and schedule is another area I’m acknowledging my limits. (More details to come.) But suffice it to say that I’m not SuperWoman, or WonderWoman, or whoever she is. I’m only human after all. And I suppose, it’s about time I realized it.