Little Mountain Momma: Living The Staged Life

I've spent the last 5 days on my knees scrubbing baseboards, packing boxes of clutter and rearranging furniture like a mad woman. Meanwhile my husband has been patching holes, touching up paint and steam cleaning carpets. All this done in an effort to stage and prep our home to go on the market. Last night after a long awaited meeting with our realtor, I finally sunk into bed and just lost it. All of the stress of staging our home and the calls to and from our lender finally just broke me. I cried one of those ridiculous messy cries where you feel like every tear is carrying the weight of what you've been holding within you.

Today I woke up feeling so much better and ready to move forward but it definitely got me thinking. How often am I trying to "stage" my life so that it appears to be one way when it really isn't? For as much as I feel like my heart is for openness and transparency I know that there's still an insecurity deep within me that holds me back from sharing openly with other mommas about how messy life can be at times.

Last night Mackenzie's first soccer practice was canceled due to forecasted bad weather but we didn't find this out until after having arrived at the field. We decided we would unload the kids and kick the ball around as a family for a while. I took dozens of pictures of the kids underneath that big ominous sky. The clouds were thick and heavy but the blue peeking through made it a beautiful Colorado evening. Somewhere far in the background you could even spot the Denver skyline. I was planning to post the pictures and share a blog post capturing the innocence of my kids on that green field, interacting as siblings and sharing the exchanged smiles and giggles between the two.

But that blog post would only share half the picture. If I was really sharing the unstaged part of my life, I would share that Levi is at a really tough age. He's unbelievably fussy most days unless he's being held and he's started to throw temper tantrums in an effort to communicate. Last night on that field was no exception. I could choose to only post pictures of the smiles I captured from him on that field but the truth is, I dried more tears and put out more temper tantrum fires than I did actually capturing smiles.

If I was really sharing the unstaged part of my life I would tell you that, had practice not been canceled, we would have been 15 minutes late because we couldn't seem to make it out the door on time.

I would share that Mackenzie ended up with two "time outs" while kicking the ball around because she's started repeating things she's been hearing from the boys at school.

If you were to take a look at my instagram account, you would see mostly staged pictures. The pictures I've captured of my kids playing happily together on the beach, pictures of my husband and I hiking our first 14er together. There are ones of Mack and Levi playing in their giant pirate ship pool in the backyard and pictures of Mack sitting all smiles behind her 5th birthday cake.

What you don't see are the pictures of Levi eating hand fulls of sand and then crying hysterically as I try and dig it out of his mouth. What's not posted of our mountain climbing experience are the pictures showcasing our frustration over not being able to make it to the top. You don't see pictures of how angry I was after finding out that our dog chewed a hole into a part of the pirate ship pool. And you don't see the pictures of Mack's 5th birthday cake face down on the floor after it fell out of the fridge.

I'm tired of staging my life. I'm tired of fakeness between other mommas and of hiding the reality. The reality which is that being a mom is tough. Being a wife is tough. Most of the time money is tight and most of the time I hate my dog. There. I said it. Sorry, Miya.

So in an effort to encourage openness, honesty and transparency among mommas, I'm starting a movement. I'm not sure if I can really call a hashtag movement a movement, but I'll give it a try.

Every day for the next 30 days I'm going to openly share a picture of a messy, unstaged part of my day. I'm even going to unlock my account so other mommas can see it using the hashtag #letsgetrealmoms. Maybe it will be a picture of how messy my home looks after a long day with the kids. Maybe it will be a picture of one of my son's many epic tantrums. Maybe I'll post something that to others might be hilariously funny but makes me want to curl up in a ball in a corner.

Mostly I'll just post pictures that are real and relateable. Who wants to join me? Use the hashtag #letsgetrealmoms, tag some friends to encourage them to do the same. Lets show other mommas that it's okay to live an unstaged life! Here we go!