sometimes things are never what they seem

I'll be honest and admit that sometimes I find it so hard to be a parent. I often dream about my time as being single, living in my little 2 bedroom flat, having so much freedom. I also had the body back then, could wear what ever i wanted and secretly knew I looked pretty good. I spent money on what ever I wanted to, went on holidays if i felt like it. I'm glad I had that time to experience and remember.
Then I fell pregnant. Wasn't exactly planned to say the least but not something I'd ever take back. EVERYTHING changed. I worked as a director in child care at the time and the expectation was so high. So many people said oh you're a natural you'll be fine. You work with kids you'll be a great parent. You have so much experience this will be second nature for you etc etc etc.Well to be honest I was so scared. Baby;s scared the daylights out of me. I never knew what to do with them. Being a parent is NOTHING like being a child care worker. I had such high expectations to live up to.
Even now I feel people expect more of me because of my child care back ground. I even expect more of me. I feel my kids should be better behaved, that i should always think of exciting things to do with them, that i should be able to teach them more how to write their names etc at an early age. But as it is none of that is the case. They are reasonably well behaved, sometimes I do exciting things with them but it's hard with 3 different age groups, and well I've tried getting them to trace their name and the alphabet but they had no interest.
so, fast forward a bit to the point of this blog as I have really rambled on more than what i was going to.....
Sometimes the mundaneness of parenting really sucks. Day in day out, same thing, same challenge, same fights, same washing basket, same saucepan etc. In the last 2 days I've spoke separately to 4 other women who have all felt this way. I didn't bring it up at all with them, they initiated the topic. The one that really got me was today. I rang my friend (N) today to see if she'd like a visitor. The conversation started as me : hi how are you ? N: hmmm just surviving my kids today. Conversation carried on and she said it was fine for me and bub to visit. I got off the phone and at her expense i felt normal. Her honesty was great. I've always felt N to be the mother who had it all in control, who ALWAYS did exciting things with her kids, who took her kids everywhere and never worried about it, and who would never have a bad day with her kids. So to hear this I thought wow, it's amazing how we always perceive things but they are never what they seem. We had a great chat about our feelings as mums and how we love the fact that we are so blessed to be at home with the kids but some days it'd be nice to just have that recognition, that thanks, that reassurance to know you are doing it all right.
Today I read someone else's blog and two things she was really spot on with for how i felt were...

1. Mothering is harder than it looks.
2. As bad as the moments can be with your kids, the worst moments are the ones where you face losing them. No matter how much they do your head in, the thought of a world without them is unbearable.

So maybe i should just lower my expectations of myself and be real about it all because even the people that look like they have it all together all the time don't necessarily.