Confessions of a Scary Mommy: An Honest and Irreverent Look at Motherhood: The Good, the Bad, and the Scary (19 page)
Authors: Jill Smokler
Tags: #Parenting, #Humor, #Motherhood, #Marriage & Family, #General, #Topic, #Family & Relationships
Mothers constantly fight to one-up each other, in an effort to feel better about our own parenting. It starts as soon as those two lines appear on the pregnancy test. “You’re only five months along,” the competitive mom will balk. “
I
looked like you do now when I delivered my baby,
and,
the day before, I participated in a triathlon.” You’ll hear how she gained only twenty-five pounds, remained stretch mark–free, and quelled every pregnancy craving
by drinking spinach and blueberry smoothies. Her baby was miles ahead of every baby before he’d even been born, having listened to Mozart and Bach in utero. His future circumcision and vaccinations would set him up for success, and a spot at Harvard was being held for him already.
Once the baby is born, the Baby Olympics commence. When did he or she roll over? Smile? Sit up? Sleep through the night? Crawl? Walk? Run? Of course, when and how he did all of this is clearly a reflection on you, the mother, rather than just his natural course of development.
What you put into your baby is suddenly completely open for public scrutiny. Not having breast-fed my children, I was tempted to carry a sign stating, “Breast is best but I’m using formula. You win.” It never ceased to amaze me the way complete strangers thought they had any right to tell me what to do with my own baby. “You’re just not trying hard enough,” I heard from friends and family, when they had no idea the number of hours I spent agonizing over my lack of milk production. One even had the balls to tell me I was basically feeding my baby airplane fuel. I still can’t figure out how she got there.
When the kids were old enough for solids, the sign could have been altered for organic, free-range, unprocessed foods. Sure, that stuff is best for
all
of us, but a Goldfish cracker certainly never killed anyone. Making all of my own food from scratch, however, just might kill me. McDonald’s once in a while isn’t going to forever clog their intestines, and a few nights of too much candy around Halloween will leave no permanent scars. So, why say anything when I give my kid a sandwich on—gasp—white bread? Yours can have his lean turkey and veggies on double whole wheat and mine can have his peanut
butter and jelly. They’re both fed and happy and we’ve done our jobs.
The decision about returning to work is another one that’s always sure to ignite competition. Personally, I feel like I’ve hit the jackpot being able to work from home on my own schedule and still spend afternoons with my children. I tried being solely at home with the kids and was unfulfilled and depressed. Working full-time from home was an even less desirable situation, leaving me downright miserable, and the mere thought of going back to an office right now makes me want to cry. So I’m home, working on and off throughout the day and night, while taking care of the kids. It’s the solution I’ve found that works for me, but that doesn’t mean it will or should work for anyone else. The stay-at-home mom versus working mom is one of the most fiercely debated issues, each side convinced that they are choosing the right way. The thing is, there’s no right way for everyone. Do what’s right for you. Period.
But I do get it. Deeming someone else a bad mother
can,
indeed, make you feel like a better one yourself. It’s not right, it’s not productive, and it’s not beneficial, but it seems to be the way we’re built. Shouldn’t we be secure enough in our own parenting, though, that comparing ourselves to others becomes obsolete? There are moments when I am an exceptional mother and moments when I am a complete and utter failure, all in the span of a few minutes. While I certainly would prefer to be caught only in those moments of goodness, I’ll also admit to the others. I wasn’t a perfect person before I had kids and I’m certainly not a perfect person now that I have them. Neither are you. (But don’t worry, I won’t tell.)
Last year, I was eating out alone with my kids. They were
wild and disobedient and I was wondering why on earth I ever even bother to take them out of the house, for anything,
ever
. As I was about to bury my head in my hands and cry out of pure exhaustion and desperation, a woman in her eighties passed by the table. I was expecting a lecture on how my unruly children ruined her meal, or some tips on getting them to eat anything other than french fries on their plate. Her advice, however, was far more important. “Enjoy these days,” she sadly warned. “They’ll be over in a heartbeat and you’ll miss them for the rest for your life.”
I may not have appreciated the sentiment at the moment, with my pounding headache and ketchup-stained shirt, but I know that she was right. The days may last forever, but the years pass by in a blink; the secret to survival is actually remembering to take a deep breath every now and then and enjoy ourselves along the way.
And,
that’s
the only way to win the mommy race.
MORE MOMMY CONFESSIONS
• I hide things in empty tampon boxes. I know my teenage son and husband wouldn’t go near one.
• I think I have the most annoying seven-year-old on the planet. Will she ever stop talking? Food literally falls out of her mouth because she can’t shut up long enough to eat.
• I cheat at board games to make them end faster.
• Last night I changed all the clocks in the house to an hour and a half later and sent DS to bed. It was awesome.
• I get ridiculously excited to do our taxes every year. It’s the only thing my MBA has proved useful for as a stay-at-home mom.
• I punctuate the answer to 90 percent of my kids’ questions with a nice big “DUH” . . . said under my breath, of course, but I think sometimes they hear. And I am glad.
• I hate being a stay-at-home mom. I know others would kill for the chance, but I get tired of being Mommy all the damn time.
• I hide my hairbrush in my underwear drawer. If this makes no sense to you . . . then you obviously don’t have a ten-year-old daughter.
• Some days I love my life. I truly love my husband and my kids. They are everything to me. But sometimes I look around my life and it doesn’t feel like it is mine and I wonder what the hell I am doing here.
• Hubby got all grossed out because a little breast milk touched him. I’m devising a plan to sneak it into his food.
• I think my kid has oppositional defiance disorder. I’m about to cure it with some mommy-gone-psycho disorder. My son mouthed off to me, so he is now scrubbing the toilets. If they’re going to be fresh little brats, I will make their punishment work for ME!
• Sometimes I wipe my child’s face slightly hard to get him back for being a fussy, whining eater.
• You know it’s bad when the baby tries to nurse a fat roll instead of a boob. My number one reason for not wanting to have a third baby is that I pee my pants pretty much every day since my second was born two years ago. At this rate my kids will soon be more potty-trained than I am.
• I like sex as much or more than the next person, but after a particularly passionate encounter, one of my first thoughts is, “Whew, this ought to carry us over for a while.”
• I love my daughter and my grandkids, but I have to put limits on my
time with them or I would have no life of my own at all. I raised my kids, now sometimes I’m selfish and want “me” time.
• I regret being too scared to tell anyone about my postpartum depression.
• My teenage son’s curly mop is COMPLETELY out of control. I fantasize about shearing him like a sheep.
• I’ve been a SAHM for twelve years. I’m exhausted. I want a paycheck. I want days off. I want an office that doesn’t look like a bomb went off in it. I want everything I used to have.
• I put vodka in my orange juice this morning.
• I hope my kids never catch on to the fact that I have NO IDEA what the hell I’m doing.
• I have a crush on Eugene from
Tangled
. Yes, he’s a cartoon character. I’ve reached a new low.
• I’m terrified that my baby will love her new day care providers more than me.
• I might have to pawn some jewelry to pay for day care. Totally worth it.
• My teenage son has psoriasis. I know it’s not contagious, but sometimes I don’t want to sit next to him.
• I ate the rest of my kids’ Easter chocolate last year while PMSing and when they asked what happened to it, I told them the dog ate it.
• When my kids need to be comforted I send them to their grandma.
• I know I’m way too old for this but . . . I’m actually really sad that I’ll never be a princess.
• The best time of day for me is bedtime.
• My son has removed his diaper and is beating me with it. Think that’s my wake-up call that it’s time to be productive today?
• I’m so drained right now that my kids could ask for a pet rattlesnake that would sleep in my bed and I’d be like, “Fine, whatever . . .”
• I would like, for just a moment, to feel like I did when I was a careless teen.
• I keep a steady supply of M&M’s in my purse to fend off temper tantrums at Target.
• My girls and I had donuts for dinner.
• Some days I count down the months until my teen daughter leaves for college. She is amazing and I love her, but she is emotionally exhausting and I can’t wait until I have my life back.
• Just caught my three-year-old trying really really hard to put his own weenie in his mouth. Oh. My. Many men before you have tried and failed to live the dream, son. Many men.
• When my MIL dies, I’m going to do the biggest happy dance of my life. On her gravestone.
• I bought myself a pretty pair of lilac-colored satin pajamas with a lacy camisole top that I thought DF would find sexy. I put them on and tried to make a sexy entrance into the bedroom. He said I looked like Barney.
• I’m embarrassingly excited for the new
iCarly
episode.
• I had no idea how much of parenting is just bullshitting your way through while hoping the kids don’t call your bluff. I’m full of it.
• I believe in ghosts and I’m terrified of the dark.
• I wish my friends would either (a) get divorced or (b) stop calling me for venting/mediation purposes. I am not a shrink.
• My three-year-old has a TV in his room, only hooked up to a DVD player so he can watch
Sesame Street
videos at night and so I can get a break.
• I would rather pull out my own teeth than go to PTA meetings.
• My son has a poopy diaper. I just sent him upstairs and told him to sit on DH’s face. Serves my husband right for sleeping so late.
• To the little shit that punched my eleven-year-old DD for no reason and bruised her arm: You’re lucky I’m old and you’re faster than me. To his parents: Pray we don’t run into each other any time soon.
• I constantly forget to brush my one- and two-year-old’s teeth. I am not sure why it’s so hard for me to remember, but it’s a good thing that these teeth will fall out.
• For dinner tonight I have slaved over three bowls of the finest cereal our pantry has to offer, with the rarest of milks from the fridge to complement its exquisite flavors. Dig in, kids.
• Pretty sure as the mom I’m supposed to kill the spiders for my kids and not go screaming down the hallway WITH them.
• Finally, as a mother of five, I have come to the realization that my own mother had no clue what the hell she was doing. Neither do I.
• My kids were acting like lunatics, so I sent them to their rooms. While they were up there, I ate all their Swedish fish.
• Haven’t spoken to MIL directly for months, and yet she still finds ways to work herself into my happy place . . .
• I read once that if you start acting like a crazy gorilla in the middle of your child’s temper tantrum, she’ll stop screaming to watch you . . . it didn’t work and now I feel like an ass.
• I thank God that my kid’s favorite foods are mac and cheese, ramen noodles, and cheap-ass hot dogs!
• Even though I have worked steadily since I was fifteen years old, I sometimes just want to be taken care of.
• I take the long way home to enjoy the relaxation of everyone safely buckled in their car seat and not trying to crawl up me.
• I strategically clean up the crap battery-operated toys before my husband comes home, but leave out all the puzzles and books my children and I play with during the day for my husband to see.
• I came home from a weekend away on business and my kids were wearing the same pajamas I had left them in. My daughter informed me Daddy had dubbed it “Lazy Weekend.” WTF?
• I want to get pregnant again. But I’m afraid of getting a boy. I don’t want a boy.
• I don’t have insomnia . . . I choose to stay up and sleep less hours just so I can have a glass of wine and the remote at the same time.
• Helping DD7 study for spelling test, explaining that Christmas is spelled as such because we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. Then had to explain, “No, that’s not a bad word. Mommy just says it when she’s angry. A lot.”
• There is a special place in hell for people who cut in line at school pickup lines. There are freaking signs everywhere! Get a clue!
• When we were kids, my sister showed me how spraying furniture polish in the air while they were out would make our parents comment on how nice the house looked when they got home. Turns out it works for husbands, too.
• I put twenty boxes of condoms on my baby shower registry. No one found it as funny as I did.
• I knew my daughter had lice and I sent her to school anyway because I didn’t want to cancel my hair appointment.
• I throw candy wrappers behind the couch and then blame the kids when my husband finds them.
• My MIL is bringing yet another load of “treasures” to our house tomorrow. When she leaves, I’m loading up my car and going to Goodwill.
• I became an alcoholic when I became a SAHM. I can’t go through one day of this boring life without the buzz.
• I think I’m ruining my children. I only hope it doesn’t start to show until they move out of the house. Then I can blame someone else.
• I continue co-sleeping with my four-month-old (even though I know I am setting up bad sleep habits) just because I want to hold on to the time a little bit longer.
• I use sports tape wrapped completely around my two-year-old’s diapers at nap and nighttime so he doesn’t strip and piss all over the pillow, creating more laundry.
• I buy store-made muffins and pass them off as my own for bake sales.
• A tab broke on my son’s diaper and instead of getting a new one, I wrapped him in packing tape. We have twins; there’s no room for wastefulness.
• I give my kids all the crunchy pointy french fries from McDonald’s and keep the good ones for myself.
• I miss my pre-kids stomach so much it hurts.
• I was using three types of birth control (pill, condom with spermicide, diaphragm) and I still ended up pregnant. WTF was God thinking?
• I only take my two-year-old to the pool so that I can work on my tan.
• I let my daughter stay home from school because I missed her.
• Three-and-a-half-year-old proudly announced that he pooped on the potty and wiped his own butt. When I told him he needed to wash his hands he said, “I already did. In the potty.”
• When did weekends become the same as every other sucky day of the week and summers the same as every other uneventful, stressful season?
• I send homemade baked goods to the teaching staff twice a month so they’ll be nice to my challenging son.
• Is a smoking-hot OB reason enough to get pregnant again? I’m leaning towards yes.
• My boyfriend and I had hot sex in the shower tonight. Loud, steamy, amazing, wonderful sex. It was all ruined, though, when we walked out of the bathroom to see my four-year-old with a little boner standing outside the door. SHIT.
• I laugh when moms struggle with the terrible twos. You think two is bad? Snort. Try the teenage years.
• I’ve gained more weight since my last son was born than I did during both pregnancies combined.
• Whenever my son is given a really annoying toy, I make sure that he accidentally “loses” it. Overnight. When he’s sound asleep.
• I eat healthy all day and exercise . . . but then get home and raid the kids’ snacks.
• At the end of the day, all I really want is simple: to be able to shit in peace and quiet.
• They make my life hectic and dirty and exhausting, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Being their mother is the best part of my life, hands down.