I hesitated on writing this post due to the risk of offending, but screw it. It's my blog.
I'm just going to throw this out there-
Will someone please tell Kelle Hampton that it's ok to have a bad day and that life isn't full of rainbows, unicorns and fairy dust everyday? Please?? Am I just cynical? I'm all for being a "positive outlook" type of person and finding/creating happiness in most situations, but for the love of plastic Jesus, is life really as simple as Kelle makes it out to be? I'll answer that: NO, it isn't...unless there is some fabulous, magical medication that I'm unaware of.

I have been following Kelle since I read her birth story in January 2010. I fell in love with her writing, her story of birthing a special needs child, and her pictures. I think the whole universe has read her birth story. That story was powerful and honest, tear jerking and heart wrenching. She has been featured in magazines, countless other blogs, CNN, and God only knows where else. Her story seemed to touch the world and really bring some reality to many of us who birthed healthy children.

In the months following that birth story, I enthusiastically clicked the link to her blog every time I saw that she had a new post. I would read through her recreations of vacations, day trips, girls' nights out, elaborate birthday parties for her family members, days at the beach, lazy days at home with her girls...it soon occurred to me- this chick never has a bad day. She spends her days writing, photographing, and swooning over her girls. Life seems pretty simple in her world. Or at least that's how she portrays it in words and pictures.

Having a single child is difficult. Having two kids seems slightly more difficult to me. She has two children, one with special needs. There has to be bad days involved. That's just reality.

So, I then realized that she just doesn't air her grievances over the interwebs, like some of us :::cough cough:::me::::cough::: She prefers to stay positive and light-hearted. I get that. But here's the thing...in my world, I appreciate honesty and a healthy dose of realism. That's how I work. I ran across a bunch of Kelles in my world, pre-Lily, that blew smoke up my ass about motherhood. When I arrived here and realized that it can be hell on earth in certain moments, imagine my dismay and the feelings of being a terrible mother who has absolutely no instinct to be a nurturer. Honesty would have been much appreciated ahead of time. Fair warning, is what I believe it's called.

Perhaps I am just a different type of mother than most and most identify with Kelle, not me. As I've posted about before, I never dreamed a being a mother my whole life. I didn't coo at babies or aim for the stay-at-home-mom status. I simply fell in love with a man which ignited feelings of wanting to see his eyes on our child and experience that type of love.  I also wanted to avoid weird, old cat woman status, but that's a whole other story. Point being, maybe I'm not a natural nurturer and this is more work for me than others. I'm not sure, but I do know that those moms who have shared with me that they have had feelings of wanting to run away from time to time or that they mourn their previous lives once in awhile are the moms that I have identified with.

Do I still read Kelle's blog? Absolutely, I do. She is an amazing writer and photographer. But do I buy into her idealistic posts? No. I know she has bad days, bad moments, and probably even argues with her husband from time to time :::gasp::::. I just know that what made me fall in love with her originally was her honesty of how difficult it was to come to terms with her child having Down Syndrome. It was true emotion. I miss that in her posts now. I just hope she is being true to herself away from the internet and acknowledges that life is, in fact, not perfect.

/randomness