Parenting

I Dare You To Ask Me What The Hell Moms Do All Day

by Regan Long
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Originally Published: 
A mom wearing a white tank top and colorful pants, doing her makeup in the bathroom with her kid loo...
Jessie Casson / Getty Images

As my sweet husband walked through the door and took a look at me, our children, and our house, much to his dismay, we were a little more, well, unraveled than usual.

With big eyes and a disappointed tone, he calmly yet shockingly asked, “Honey. Wow. I mean, what happened here? What, I mean, what did you do today?”

Aw, he’s so sweet. I’m so glad he’s considerate enough to take the time to be concerned about what in Sweet Jesus’s name happened here today. But, oh yes, I told him. I didn’t want to be rude and avoid the question or leave anything out, so here is what I told him:

You’re absolutely right, honey. Truly, I’m still wondering the same thing myself. I think my body and mind are still in a state of shock from the past nine hours since you left for work. Ha, who the hell am I kidding? Maybe it’s from the past eight years of riding on the crazy train that we are holding onto by a thin, flipping thread.

Let’s see here, where to start? From the beginning or the most devastating? Chronological order makes sense, but maybe I should work my way backwards from the end of the complete disaster of a day that I just barely survived, praying to God I wouldn’t hurt the children before the time you walked in the door.

While I was unclogging the toilet that our daughter put about 457 rolls of toilet paper into, I heard a strangling sound coming from the playroom. Don’t worry though — it was just one of the kids’ balloons that got tangled in the fan for the seventh time in the past 48 hours. When I get a second to grab the stool, I will try to untangle it without having my hand swiped as the kids think it’s funny to turn the fan back on, like they did last time.

As I was getting the kids their mac and cheese and peanut butter sandwiches, our son decided to rip open a new bag of Goldfish while in the den. And by rip open, I mean that he had the entire bag explode through the entire room. As I tried to scoop some of those up with the broom, the mac and cheese boiled over, and praise God, the baby was chewing my cellphone cord that was plugged in on the other side of the kitchen. Phew, she didn’t get burned with the boiling water, but wait, I suppose chewing on the plugged in charger wasn’t that safe either?

As I began to serve lunch, the kids threw all of my folded sheets and towels all over the dog hair covering the floor, right where I picked lice out of the girls’ hair. So even though I had only four loads of laundry left to do today, I now have about seven, maybe eight, give or take, as I have to redo everything that was just rewashed in hot water for the fifth time this week.

Speaking of the girls’ hair, I only had to pick out about 50 or 60 nits out of their hair this morning. Maybe once the baby lies down for her nap, if she cooperates, I can use what is normally my “pee break” to pick out some more nits that I’m sure I missed earlier. And don’t worry, I didn’t really need to pee anyway. I’m sure once dinnertime rolls around I can sneak to the bathroom while everyone is devouring food as if they haven’t eaten for weeks, that will just need cleaning up four minutes after they’ve shoved it down their throats.

Speaking of food, I’ve swept the wood floors about three times today. Although it doesn’t look like that or feel like that, I’m sure you’ll be half-sickened to walk across them as there are still spots of the baby’s crushed Nutri-Grain bar and the crunched Cheerios from breakfast that she wanted to throw at me instead of eat.

I decided to get dressed for the day while the baby was having fun throwing Cheerios, and despite being happy for the 20 seconds walking down the stairs, after after I picked her up from her high chair, our sweet little love had diarrhea leaking from her diaper that was dripping down the front of me.

Seriously. Screw showers and screw trying to look nice. It just… it just doesn’t even matter. Maybe in four years I can look like a normal persona again.

I got our son off to kindergarten camp with 30 seconds to spare before he was his normal late, and the girls and I ran into the store to get the few necessities we needed that have been sitting on the list on the counter for the past couple days. I didn’t realize until we were halfway through the store that our one daughter had on only underwear (yeah, you heard me) and another one of our girls didn’t have on shoes.

Pssh. Who the hell needs clothes or shoes? I don’t know why we continue paying money for our children’s shoes and clothing. They don’t wear them anyway.

As I continued on through my day, just another glorious day in paradise, my double vision started turning into to triple vision as my headache worsened. Today, no one napped, the dog got loose, and when I was trying to take half-a-blessed minute to get the balloon untwined from the fan, the baby crawled out of her walker and started walking up the stairs, which she then fell down.

Don’t worry though. You know me, always have these things under control. I iced her precious little bump on her forehead down, but then that’s when two of our children decided to sneak out back with shampoo and play “Let’s squirt as much shampoo all over each other as we can to see how much we can fire Mommy up!” They’re so cute when they’re so, hmm, adventurous with their creative play. Don’t you agree?

Despite knowing I’m the worst cook on the planet, I decided to try to attempt to cook dinner and got some chicken in the oven. I know it’s one of your favorites. Although something at the bottom of the oven started to burn which sent mass amounts of smoke through the house, setting our alarms off, which made the kids start screaming, and a neighbor came over to make sure we all weren’t being held hostage, tied up, as our house burned down.

When our neighbor came over, I was just in a bra and underwear, because after I changed from the baby’s mess leaking on me earlier, she threw up on me two hours later, so I figured, what the hell? If the kids don’t need clothes, then I sure as hell don’t need them either. So yeah, our neighbor and I will never look at each other the same way again.

So, what did I do today? (Insert massive chuckle here, as I have tears rolling down my face and am almost pissing my pants from laughing so hysterically.)

What did I do today?

Oh, honey. I dare you. Ask me again. Just one more time.

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