
By Toni Hammer for The Huffington Post.
Hey you. You, with a toddler hanging off of you while you wipe spit-up off your shirt. You, with the two-minute shower routine perfected. You, sitting at the table fighting with your kids about doing their homework. You, who are so exhausted at the end of every day and so overwhelmed with the idea of having to do it all over again tomorrow. I want to tell you something.
You’re doing a good job.
Let me say that again. Allow it to sink in.
You’re doing a good job.
I know it doesn’t feel like it when your baby is crying and you have done EVERYTHING to make the squalor stop, to no avail. You’ve sung and bounced and rocked and shushed and burped and changed and still that baby won’t calm down. You may think to yourself that you’re obviously not doing this motherhood thing right because, if you were, your baby would be smiling and cooing. But let me tell you that you’re doing a good job. You are devoting yourself and your time and your energy to doing everything you can think of to make your baby happy, and that is commendable.

It may not seem like you're doing a good job when your days are jam-packed with toddler tantrums and screams and misunderstandings and weighing the pros and cons between doing another puzzle with your 3-year-old or running away screaming. You make their favorite food, only to be told it's yucky. You announce it's time to play and they want nothing to do with you. You try to do some housework and they suddenly are under your feet. It's hard. You want to cry. And that's OK, because you're doing a good job.