Picture Perfect Life

i have gotten so many comments from people that i have never met saying things like, "i just love how perfect you are" or "you and your husband seem like the perfect couple." or 

"I want a perfect family like yours."

wow. that's all i can say about that. 

wow.

let's clear things up...

I'M NOT PERFECT!

i'm nowhere near perfect! this goes back to one of my previous blog posts, "Remember, You're A Good Mom". 

When posting things on Instagram or Facebook, you naturally post your "best" moments. you post photos of kissing your significant other, or having a picnic in the park. sometimes you even post a status of something embarrassingly funny you did... but something YOU can laugh about too. 

you would never dare post a photo of you when you're in a deep sleep with your mouth hanging open and drool on your pillow. or a video of you yelling at your child to shut up. or a status of the time when you forgot to wear a pad/tampon and it leaked through your pants so you poured ketchup on your chair so people would think that you sat in ketchup. (sorry men, girl moment.)

why wouldn't you want to tell the whole world about that? 

CUZ IT'S FREAKING EMBARRASSING!!

we all want everyone to think we have a perfect life. i mean, isn't that why we #hashtag our photos? so other people would see it? we post a photo of us sleeping, cuddled up with our baby (posed, of course. you would NEVER post a photo of you ACTUALLY sleeping. besides, its a selfie... how would you take it anyway?) we tag it with #sleeping #cute #adorable #peaceful. 

when in all actuality, if your toddler sleeps in your bed with you, you know very well that it's not a peaceful, cuddle time for 12 hours. no, it's getting kicked in the ribs and punched in the face every five minutes. it's waking up every time your baby breathes funny or snores. it's not peaceful at ALL.

but we want it to seem like that to everyone else.

now guess what, to all the people who think i'm so "perfect"... everything listed above are things that have personally happened to ME!

this was a recent comment i got from a follower.

this one was SOOOO sweet, but it got me thinking, people are only seeing my "highlight-reel".

yes, i love to post pretty, edited photos. my Instagram is my artistic photo album. I edit all my photos, crop them, brighten the colours. i make my life look pretty darn perfect. but... it's not.

i have been married for almost three years. My husband and i have a baby boy (not really a baby anymore, he's 15 months old.) and from the outside, i have the american dream. i am a stay at home mom, i take care of our pretty little apartment and raise our beautiful boy. my husband goes to work full-time then comes home to love on us. he is also a pastor at our church and i am the worship leader.

ISN'T OUR LIFE PERFECT??

wrong.

what i failed to mention is that when i wake up, i wake up to a screaming toddler in the next room. instead of getting up right away to see his beautiful baby face, i turn down the monitor, roll over and try to get a few more minutes of sleep. 

when i finally groan and force my body out of bed and drag myself into the baby room, all i really want to do is yell at my child saying "SHUT UP" but i don't. (not every time anyways. ha.)

feeding my son is always a struggle, half the time it all ends up on the floor and i have to step out of the room to breath so i won't curse at a 15 month old. 

when my husband comes home from work, there is rarely dinner ready for him. no, it's normally him calling me on his way home saying "what can i pick up for us to eat tonight? pizza?"

i hear all the time, "i love how devoted your family is to God and your church."

well... that IS true...kinda. 

i love doing worship. worship is my REAL way of connecting with God. and i adore music. however, normally an hour before our worship practice on Thursday, i am lying in bed ready to punch someone cuz i do NOT want to go. it's not that i don't love serving God, or worshiping Him, i just would rather lay my lazy butt in bed and hibernate for three months. 

to those of you who are "jealous" of my perfect life and wonderful family... well SO AM I!

i only wish i had that perfect little life that i seem to portray online. 

my husband and i fight. quite a bit actually. we get pissed off and storm out of the room. i get mad at my son. sometimes i have to leave him in his playroom just because i don't want to see him. (if you don't have kids, don't judge me. if you DO have kids...then you'll understand this very well.) 

i'm not always happy. in fact, i take depression medication because i cry all day long without it. my hair is rarely done when i stay home. i have acne. i photoshop my pictures. i have an anger problem. i was bullied in high school. i'm not popular. i am incredibly shy. people think i'm mean when they meet me, cuz i'm shy. Michael and i disagree a lot. we don't always have a good sex life. i'm insecure. i don't have enough patience for my husband and my baby. i embarrass myself daily. sometimes i want to run away. 

these are just a FEW honest details of my life. 

ironically enough, even though i'm writing this, i still won't post the nasty little details of my life online. but i DO want to remind all of you that you're not the only weird one in life. 

i don't have a perfect life, but i do have a happy one. 

i love my life. i love my family. i love my church. i love my Jesus. 

i would love to hear your thoughts on this topic. 

what do you think of all this?

 do you ever judge yourself by what you see other people posting online? 

do you feel insecure or "lowly" by what the people you follow post?

do you feel like you're not popular because of the number of your followers or views on your blog?

do you judge your worth based on how many likes on your photos?

do you try to make your life look better online than it really is?

well if so...Welcome to the club!

tell me about it. i'd love to hear your thoughts. Comment. Facebook me. tell me YOUR story.

Lots of love,

Open Your Eyes -The Reality Our Girls Face

This is a poem i wrote. it's a little sloppy but it gets the point across.



Open Your Eyes
By: Abigail Kelley



Natural is flawless.

To cover up is to hide

Too fat, too thin, too in-between

Is perfect in His eyes.



Starvation is not a third world problem

Self-harming is now a religion

Depression results in the mausoleum

Although we’ve been forgiven




The media is our guide

To what life should be like

We nip and tuck and cut, cut, cut

Till our blood has run dry




Hollywood is paradise,

Models are the gods

The magazine is the new bible

In which we base our life on




Running our world

Around a fake façade

The imagery and false skin

Is what we desperately try to be in




Knowing it’s false

Knowing the truth

We swallow the lies

And preach it to our youth.




It’s time to open our eyes

What’s inside of our young girls

It’s time to realize

It’s not just about the prettiest curls




It’s a fight to the death

The death to oneself

Who can eat the least

To be the prettiest on the shelf




Open your mind

See what’s infecting

Your precious daughters

That the grave is collecting




Tell them they’re beautiful

Say that they’re perfect

Get into their lives

And tell them they’re worth it




Perfection is a disease

That’s infecting the souls

Of our perfect daughters

And flawless girls




The media lies

Beauty is within

Tell them to be comfortable

In their skin




For they were wonderfully made

By the hand of God

If you tell them they’re perfect

You might be the only one.

This is something i constantly try to stress to people. as a woman who, as a teenager, struggled a LOT with self harm, depression and bad body image, this os something that weighs heavy on my heart. being depressed and having low self esteem is not just "teen angst" or "hormones." it's real. it's something almost ALL women and girls struggle with.

If you've read my last post you will know my thoughts and where i stand on the whole "Thinspo" thing and bad body image. we constantly compare ourselves to what we see in the media. to the false portrayal on what we are supposed to look like. the media, the models, the photoshop experts... they're deceiving each and every one of us, saying that if you don't look like this, you're not beautiful.

however, as stated in my last post, you can see that the photos are fake. they're photoshopped. thighs are trimmed. waists are thinned. bottom is tightened...etc. not even the models look like what they want to. and if they do, they are starving themselves to achieve it.

our girls today are doing the same thing. go in Instagram and look up #skinny or #thin or #thinspo. you'll see the horrific images that young girls are posting. here are just a few.

This is the real world.

the end of my poem says it all.
tell her she is beautiful, because you might be the only one in her life to ever say it.

When You're With Them, Be WITH Them.

"This has got to be one of the hardest habits for me to break."

let me start off by saying, i love my son more than anything. he is my world. but being 10 months old, sometimes he's not all that "exciting" to be around. I'm not the kind of mom who sits and plays with her baby all day long, 24/7. he has his alone playtime, and i have mine. but when i AM playing with him, i am noticing more and more that I'm not actually WITH him. This has got to be one of the hardest habits for me to break.

Computers, Social Media, iPhones, TV's... yes, we love all of these things and sometimes, being a SAHM these things mean our sanity. but how often are we using these things when we should be with our children?

i am SO guilty of this! When I'm playing with Oliver and he's not being the best "entertainer," i find myself pulling my phone out of my pocket and going on Instagram or checking my Facebook. i figure, "Well I'm still in the room; I'm still sitting on the floor next to him; that works for our "together time."

NO WAY!

when you're with you children, be WITH them.

this has been very hard for me to learn but it is SO important to remember.
it is extremely easy to turn on the TV for you or your child so it makes your playtime with them easier. or to sit your baby down on the floor and check your e-mail or Facebook.

sometimes i even find myself taking pictures of Oliver being cute (as usual) and it's totally harmless, but when i sit there for ten minutes editing the picture and posting it on my Instagram and then continuing to scroll through my news feed... that's when it becomes wrong.

one day i was feeding him his breakfast and he was taking forever to chew each bite (even though he has no teeth yet) so i pulled out my phone and started scrolling through my news feed to waste time while Oliver was chewing. he then grunted and took my phone out of my hands and threw it on the ground. MY 10 MONTH OLD!!

yeah, that hit me hard!

since i don't dedicate my ENTIRE day to playing with my son one on one, i OWE him my full attention for that one hour. at LEAST!

just some food for thought. i'm not saying get rid of your phones or TV, (those things come in HANDY when you're a parent.) I'm just saying to take an hour out of your day and leave your phone in another room and keep the TV off and just play with them. (or talk, if your kids are older)

Much Love
xoxo,

Remember: "You're A Good Mom"

I recently commented on a post from a dear Instagram mom friend. she basically feels like she isn't a good enough mom to her baby boy and that she constantly compares her life to other "super-moms" on Instagram saying, "I'm not good enough, I'm not as good of a mom..." and, me, having a lot to say on the matter, commented a novel to her. ha. 

well, here are my thoughts on that...

I think, if you're comparing your life to other mom's, you're a good parent. now, I'm not saying that it's GOOD to compare yourself, or that it's necessarily RIGHT; I'm just saying that if you are, then you must want to do better. and being a parent, you can always try to do and be better. Your children are worth it. they deserve to have the BEST version of you all the time. 

Though, comparing yourself isn't always a good thing. you can look at other moms and how they raise their children and aspire to be like them... but if you are constantly comparing yourself to them by means of cutting YOURSELF down, then i think that's detrimental to your self-esteem, your confidence in your parenthood an yourself as a person. you can aspire to be "like" someone else without getting down on yourself.

So don't "compare" your life to someone else's, but use them as an "inspiration" for you to do better. 

I find myself comparing my life and my style of parenting to other moms ALL the time. now, it's not just moms i know in person, but mostly moms i follow on sites like Facebook or Instagram. i see these photos or status updates they post and i think, "wow, their life is perfect!"

CRAP CRAP CRAP CRAP!!

yep, that's all crap.

no one's life is perfect. see, comparing my life to someones Instagram life is pointless. people only post the photos of the happy moments in their lives. or the pictures where mom and baby are smiling, or doing activities together or playing, etc. no one posts what actually happens in their home. that mom you so desperately want to be like, well she isn't going to stop to take a picture of the time she bangs her baby's head on the door jam. or the moments where she hides in the bathroom, leaving baby to fend for himself, praying he won't get into anything TOO dangerous. or when her and her husband are fighting and screaming profanities at each other. or even the times when she wasn't sure how to properly feed or take care of her baby. 

see, people only post photos of their "highlight-reel" of life. the moments that bring a smile or laugh to someone. not the knitty-gritty things you don't want anyone to know about. 

If you are someone who gets down on yourself for not being a "good enough mom" or not being able to be "like someone else," remember that the person you're trying to measure up to, has faults too. you just can't see them. (ESPECIALLY on social media.)

if you look at my Instagram feed, (located on my home page) you'd think my life is pretty perfect. but all those above things i mentioned... those are MY mom experiences. (some of the better ones. ha) i sugarcoat my life online just like anyone else. 

there is a VERY high possibility that the Instagram mom you wish you could measure up to, is most likely thinking the same thing about your "highlight-reel" and wishing she could have your perfect life. 

Just remember, you ARE a good enough mom. just do what you believe is right and try not to get down on yourself. if you're doing the best that YOU know how to do, then that's where you need to be. 

xoxo,