It’s Really Not How It Seems

Here comes a bigggg truth bomb. 

I hear it a lot... Heather I have no idea how you do it. You’re super mom. You’re an inspiration to me. You make me feel so motivated.

Honestly though... that’s you putting yourself down because you’re comparing yourself to me. So. I’m going to just let the truth run wild so you all know I’m the furthest from having my shit together. 

I’m the mom who goes into the laundry room and shuts the door and turns on an empty dryer and has mascara running because I have tears streaming down my face while I drink from a full bottle of wine because I cannot hear the word “mommy” anymore. 

I’m the mom who has all these grand plans of spending the day making my home Clorox clean while all my kids are in school and then I wake up to one kid with pink eye, another who needs something dropped off at school because they forgot it after I reminded them 7 times, and also needs to spontaneously go to Verizon because my phone refuses to work, for them to tell me my phone needs to be replaced by Apple, and then I go to Apple with a pink eyed two year old that makes the energizer bunny look like the sloth from DMV scene in Zootopia only to be told I needed an appointment and need to come back in an hour and a half which means I need to find something to do with the pink eyed two year old while I wait for my “appointment” which by the way is really just a fuck you word for “waiting.”

Good news on that example, I made it home in time for the aforementioned two year old to get a nap in before I picked the others up from school. Even if that nap was 20 minutes I’m taking it as a small win. 

I’m the mom who every day knows I could do better. I’m the mom who loves my children with everything I have however most days I don’t like them. I’m the mom who loves to cook healthy and work out but usually ends up eating chicken nuggets from McDonalds or pizza and having my only workout be the million times I run to and from the bathroom to help my “potty trained” 3 year old wipe herself. 

I’m the mom who lives paycheck to paycheck and depends on overtime to buy groceries and put gas in my car yet can always find the money or work more in order to spoil my kids too much with things they’ll just end up breaking or get taken away as punishment when they talk back to me for the 19th time in one hour. 

I’m the mom who tries to do special things and make moments that will build good memories for my kids only to have them ruin them by fighting with each other or them not being grateful and then me getting mad and ruining it more and throwing my hands in the air and screaming “Why do I even bother?”

I could go on and on. But we all live this. We all think we aren’t doing a good enough job. Is 4 too much? Yup. Would 3 have been enough? Nope. So it’s time to re-evaluate my so-called self-defining fails. 

Me in the laundry room... pathetic to some. When I look at it I realize I spared my kids from feeling bad about whatever I was stressed and mad about to the point of needing to put myself in time out. 

Pink eye ridden two year old at Apple after the pediatricians office... did it suck I got nothing accomplished on my to-do list? Absolutely. However. No one else in my family got pink eye and I have an operational new phone for free and 20 minutes of quiet time where I literally sat in silence. That never happens. So what my list didn’t get done. I got other things accomplished. And let’s be honest. My Clorox clean house would have looked like I never cleaned it 10 minutes after the Fierce Four got home. 

Knowing I could do better by not inhaling chicken nuggets and getting to an actual gym... at least everyone in the house likes chicken nuggets and I didn’t have to make 5 different meals for 6 different people because the Fierce Four refuse to eat my healthy meals... and at least she is “potty trained” even if she does need my help wiping. 

Paycheck to paycheck... well. Can’t take it with me when I die. And they have food. And do have nice things (even if they break them). And we do go on vacations. So. Maybe the stress is worth it. 

Those failed special moments... it’s still time spent with my kids. And yeah maybe we don’t like each other enough to sit through a full game of monopoly but we do love when we get smacked in the face with pie. And the time spent together is still the memory. 

But at the end of the day, after the perfectionist Instagram and Facebook posts and perfectly filtered selfies, we all are just surviving. That’s the truth. That’s the inspiration.