Honesty, Guilt and Eyeballs

I have a friend who blogs regularly, and I really enjoy reading this blog. She has vowed to always be honest, which makes her posts interesting, clever, and funny. I have often thought to myself, I should blog like that. But when the time comes, I just can't. I have no problem being totally honest about where I fall short, but I struggle when it comes to things that might be less than perfect about my kids. (By the way, I'm not saying that my friend's "honesty" means that she sits and gripes about her kids all day long. I'm just saying that she's honest about everything. And it got me thinking.)

Last week during a play date, I found myself saying something to my girlfriends about my wonderful son that was less than flattering. (I did so when he could not hear me.) It wasn't an awful thing to say, it just wasn't positive. I have been plagued with guilt ever since, wishing I could take it back and just not say it. I keep thinking... do they know him well enough to know the funny, creative, smart, charming and so lovable parts of him... those things that make my statement of the not-as-positive pale in comparison?

I know that my kids are not perfect, but when I voice the things that they do that proves that I know this, I feel so guilty. I mean, what's the point of saying anything but positive, glowing statements about small children?

But then again, part of me knows that if all moms only ever say positive things about their kids to other moms, then how guilty would we all feel when we inevitable notice or have to deal with the imperfections? Wouldn't we all then feel bad about ourselves as moms or worse, about our kids, when it happens that our kids aren't as perfect as our friends' kids sound?

I don't know. But here's another part of this. Last week Sebastien went to his pediatric ophthalmologist. Before he was two years old, we noticed that one of his eyes was slightly wandering, so we took him in. His eye doctor wanted to watch it for six months to see if he would be one of the 30% of kids who naturally grows out of this. We took him in last week for this follow up appointment, and he has not grown out of it. It has, in fact, gotten a little worse. And so now, for one hour a day, he has to wear an eye patch. He prefers the pirate variety to the sticky adhesive, "band aide" ones. Is he the most adorable pirate ever, you ask? Yes.

But this relates to this honesty and guilt issue in that I have been reluctant to post about this. Sebastien is not perfect. He has a wandering eye. This is not the end of the world, it is a minor issue that will likely be resolved by this little bit of patching. But for me, I have not wanted to write about it because of this tendency to only want to talk about the positive things, to only focus on the good and not acknowledge the imperfections, or at least not out loud and publicly. But it's ok that he has a wandering eye. It's not shameful, it's not his fault, it's not even about his character, so why this desire to hide it?

I honestly don't know why I have an issue with this. But there it is. Honestly.

Here's a cute picture of my girls, just for good measure. At some point I will also blog about my issue with feeling that everything needs to be balanced, even and fair, lest I feel even more guilt. But that's for another day.