Celebrate your Masterpiece!

I painted a work of art this past Saturday night!  I had never taken a formal painting class before, I had no idea what to expect, but I jumped right in and gave it my all.  And you know what?  I think I did a pretty good job.  Yes, there were others who probably had better shadowing, and maybe their water looked a little more realistic than mine, but my stars and moon rocked!  As it is with anything in life, it doesn't matter how good you are at something, as long as you give it your very best effort.  NONE of us are well-rehearsed in parenting before it happens.  You don't get a trial run before it's your turn to parent, and you better believe there will be parts of being a parent that others do better than you.  On the other hand, there will be areas where you tend to do better than most.  It is the constantly evolving, learning experience that helps us craft our "masterpiece" of parenting.  Consider the word, masterpiece.  It's not called a master-whole, it's a master-piece.  You craft your ability to parent, one piece at a time, putting together the things that work and trying to weed out the things that don't.  You learn from your mistakes, correct yourself when you take a wrong turn, and consider every failure a new opportunity to give it another try.  Don't expect perfection...it will only lead to disappointment.  Instead, strive to be the best you can be, understand there will be times you fail, but even with its imperfections, learn to embrace YOUR masterpiece!