You Know You’re a Mom When…
Being a mom changes you. In some ways, it’s absolutely beautiful. You love more, play more, and laugh harder. In other ways, being a mom breaks down your pride, modesty, self-confidence, and intellect into its most basic elements.
You learn to function with no sleep, negotiate with pint-sized hostage takers (their hostage, by the way, is you), and act excited over the most mundane of accomplishments. Yay! We got the living room clean… except for that Lego and toy car and coat…Yay!We almost got the living room clean.
But you definitely know you’re a mom when…
1. You leave the house with your pants on backward.
They might be sweat pants or yoga pants but, either way, you’ve left the house and didn’t realize until dinner time that they were on backward. You’re not sure whether to be upset that people saw you like that or that your front and backside are close enough in size that you didn’t notice.
2. “Dressed” is relative.
If I put on anything other than the clothes I slept in, I’m dressed. End of story.
3. “Clean” is relative.
Are the kids clean? Well, they don’t have food on their face or in their hair. There’s a little on their clothes and I can’t remember when they last took a bath so…yeah, they’re clean.
Is the house clean? That depends, cleaner than what? Cleaner than a garage sale, sure it’s clean. Cleaner than a cheap restaurant, yes. Clean enough to take a picture – no.
4. Your ‘me’ time is you locked in the bathroom.
There’s nowhere else to hide. You’re alone and, if you turn the fan on, it’s quiet enough that you can’t hear the chaos on the other side of the door.
5. You don’t know what you did all day but, when people ask, you’re exhausted.
I hate that question, “So what do you do all day?” Are you kidding? There was some screaming, eating, pooping, crying, and maybe even biting. I have no idea what else happened but I kept some little people alive so I’m going to say that’s what I did all day.
6. You check poop.
Those same little people that you kept alive all day, you check their poop. You check it to see if they are getting enough fiber, water, too many fruit snacks (neon green folks), or to see if they are over their latest illness. You even dare to pull open the back of their diaper with your fingers to check for poop. Why do you do that? Nine times out of ten, you come out with poop under your fingernails.
It’s not pretty, but it’s real.
7. Sleep is a thing of the past.
I pretty much don’t plan on getting more than 5 hours of sleep a night for the rest of my life. Even when they don’t wake me, throw up on me, or wet the bed, I’m always ready and listening for it. When not listening for the above problems, I wake up early in a vain attempt to accomplish something before the littles wake up.
8. You forget what you were saying in the middle of a sentence.
This might be because of the sleep thing, but most likely it’s because you have too much to remember – too many schedules, too many appointments, too many bills to pay, too many little voices vying for your attention at once.
Either way, it’s an accomplishment to put together a coherent sentence.
9. You know you embarrass your kids and you don’t care.
I used to think I would be that mom that didn’t embarrass her kids. Then I was told by, then, 5-year-old daughter on the day that I was going to be volunteering in her class, “Could you…you know…brush your hair before you come to my class?”
Little did she know I’d blown it dry and straightened it that morning. She was looking at my A game.
I’m that embarrassing mom that shows up to the track meets in my work clothes (by work clothes I mean covered in dirt and mud) complete with rain boots and gloves hanging out of her back pocket. I sing while I shop for groceries and sometimes dance if the music has a good beat.
10. The best part of your day involves twiggy arms.
You take the poop, the sleepless nights, the quiet moments hiding in the bathroom and they are only passing discomforts. Being a mom is accepting the bad with the good. The sticky little kisses that leave blue sucker on your cheek, the hug from twiggy arms, a soft whispered ‘I love you’, the great big innocent eyes pleading for you to read a story.
You know you’re a mom and, despite the awful stuff, you can’t imagine being anything else.
I wrote this post in response to a writer’s workshop link party from mamakatslosinit.com. Check out the other great posts there. Be sure to look at #4 on Kat’s list.
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