My mom showed me an entryway mat—large and navy blue—and asked me if I liked it for the space inside my front door. She said the last time she came through my front door the old mats smelled like cat pee, so she thought it would be best to just replace them.

Naturally, I was mildly horrified that her first impression upon walking into my house was the smell of cat pee. I hadn’t noticed the smell, I told her. We usually come in through the garage and don’t use the front door very often, so I’m rarely over by those mats. All true, but still I felt like I was just making lame excuses, to myself and to my mom, for the state of my house and for not paying enough attention to notice the smell of cat pee.

The old mats are out in the garage now, the cats have been scolded, and the new rug matches the living room curtains.

The rest of the room, however, is covered in toys I haven’t put away. The floor is collecting cat hair and dirt I haven’t vacuumed up. Two laundry baskets sit on the floor, full of laundry waiting for me to make good on my promise to fold it. Sometimes I think I truly don’t have enough time in my day to get everything done. Sometimes I think I’m just not doing enough with the time I do have.

I don’t remember my parents’ house being this messy when I was little. My husband says, “Of course you don’t remember. You were two years old when your parents were at this stage of life.”

Maybe it will be better when we’re able to get a bigger house with a little more storage space. That’s what I tell myself. But deep down I think maybe the house isn’t the problem—at least, not most of it. Maybe if I were more disciplined, or motivated, or if I had more time or energy, then maybe I could keep clutter off the floors and kitchen counters, and laundry would be folded on time, and I wouldn’t need my mom to tell me the cats had peed on the rug.

In the afternoons, after naptime and before I make dinner, I sit in the messy living room and watch my kids play. Phoebe, 8 months old, crawls around on the floor and pulls herself upright to cruise along the couch, the coffee table, the TV stand, anything.

Walter asks, “What should we do?”

My kids spend their mornings at my parents’ house, under Grandma’s supervision while I’m at work. At Grandma and Grandpa’s house, Walter sometimes plays with Play-Doh, builds a tunnel out of couch cushions, reads magazines and books, or gets one of his grandparents involved in a silly game he’s invented. Sometimes he helps Grandma cook or water plants. Sometimes he works with Grandpa in the workshop.

At home in the afternoon, sometimes the best I can come up with is, “You could build something with your Mega Blocks.”

I know it’s good for him to have some open-ended and independent playtime. It’s good for him to use his imagination to create games for himself. But maybe those are just convenient excuses when I don’t have enough patience (or counter space) to let him help me with the cooking. Maybe that’s just what I tell myself when I don’t get the crayons out because I have to go make dinner, which means I can’t watch him closely enough to make sure he’s only using them on paper and that Phoebe isn’t putting them in her mouth.

Maybe I’m just trying to avoid wondering if I should do more intentional and interactive activities with my toddler. I’m definitely trying to avoid wondering if my parents are doing more to raise my kids than I am.

Sometimes it’s 8:30 before I can sit down on the couch in the evenings. Walter is asleep in his bed (or rolling around on the floor next to it, looking at books,) and Phoebe is asleep in her crib, curled up in her cozy sleep sack. The cats are fed, leftovers from dinner are in the refrigerator, the dishwasher is loaded, and it still feels like I haven’t gotten anything done. Some days it feels like there’s not enough of me to go around when I have to tend to the kids, the house, the meals, the cats, the laundry, the marriage, and myself.

My husband reminds me I kept the kids alive and got dinner on the table (and dinner tasted good.)

I think of walking through the door to my parents’ house after work and how Phoebe’s face lights up when she sees me. Walter runs up to me for a hug. They both come to me for comfort when they get hurt. Phoebe grabs my fingers and makes me walk with her around the house while she babbles away. Walter snuggles up to me when I read to him before bed, then I lay down next to him and he tells me about his day.

Maybe the house isn’t as clean as I’d like it to be, and I’m still writing a mediocre blog post instead of folding those two baskets of laundry. Maybe the cats have peed on something else and someone will tell me about it later. Maybe I sat on the couch and watched my kids putter around the living room instead of sitting on the floor and facilitating some sort of unique interactive activity.

Many days are like this, when I sit down in the evening and think I haven’t done enough. But every day, no matter what I’ve done or not done or should have done, I’ve been a mother to my children. Sometimes just being “Mom” is enough.

This post is part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to view the next post in the series “Enough”.