Brooklyn’s asleep, my husband’s next to me, and Benjamin’s sitting on the couch watching Moana on his iPad. I can’t help but chuckle a little bit at the sight of it all, knowing it would give off the image that we’ve all had a wonderful, calm night. Like we all have our shite together. Such a cute insta-family aren’t we? Everyone’s content, relaxing, melting off the long day.
And here I am. Blogging.
Blogging because I seriously can’t wrap my head around what I was told today. “You really are such a great mom. You have a trick for everything.”
I keep mulling it over and over in my mind, because literally 10 minutes before my friend came over, I threw a fit about a rock being thrown into our fountain. One of those real straw-breaking-the-camel’s-back type of fits. Any other day a simple “can we please not do that” would’ve sufficed, but not today.
Today we woke up early. My sweet husband made us all a veggie scramble, and we all sat down at the table to enjoy our smooth morning together. Hot coffee and everything. Then came the terrible mistake. My son never eats his breakfast without excessive ‘encouragement’ so my husband and I decided he needed to finish his breakfast before he could drink his milk (AKA everything that is holy to him). All I could get out of my mouth was “you can have your milk after…” when the meltdown ensued. Long gone was our peaceful morning, long gone were our plans to leave early for the pumpkin patch, and little to my knowledge, long gone was our peaceful mood for the whole day. We had officially set the stage for our entire day. With. One. Little. Sentence.
Fast forward passed two kids with missed naps and 29,349 small meltdowns later, we get to the fountain. I’ve elaborated on that enough as it is, but MY GOODNESS. The day was long. The patience was short.
Then my friend walked through the door, shortly after my son said I was being a mean mom (which is not a phrase he’s ever said so talk about getting hit by a 20lb hammer), and everything fell back into place (well, sort of). The kids were rambunctious, but happy, which leads me back to the start of this blog.
““You really are such a great mom. You have a trick for everything.”
Ba. Ha. Ha. I wing it. All day, everyday. If anything I do ever leads you to this conclusion, please don’t believe it for a second. Momming is hard. Something I feel we all know, but don’t let ourselves off the hook for enough. If you ever speak to me in person, I will let you know this every second of every story I ever tell, but I could see how the adorable pictures of my kids could give mixed signals. So let me be clear, whether you have one kid, two kids, or five kids. I am with you. In the trenches. Trying to get sleep. Racking my brain every night about all the things I could’ve done better, promising to do it the next day, ending the next day in failure, again.
Parenting is such a trip. Here we are, planning pumpkin patch trips, buying ice cream for cute movie nights, only to have our kids get mad they couldn’t have a bigger pumpkin or fight with their sibling over the movie (since you obviously bought two different ice cream quarts so there wouldn’t be any fighting that night.)
Well, to all you self-doubting, try-hard moms, doing your best every day to make your kids happy, just know—after previously getting called a mean mom, I was told tonight that today was the most amazing-est day ever, got a big fat kiss, and a hug that would melt your socks off. So you know what? We’re doing something right. And not that I wouldn’t have preferred a flawless day, God does it feel good to know those little crazies love you even when you feel you don’t deserve it.
Mom and a Half 