Misconceptions of Motherhood

Danielle is a SAHM to 3 kids under the age of 6. She’s the first to admit that she is less like a Domestic Diva and more like a Tight Rope Artist, walking the line, trying to survive the daily balancing act. Her stories and sometimes frighteningly honest accounts of motherhood can be found at My Life in Jenga.

Before I became a mom, I had no idea what to expect. Would it be like the Brady Bunch, but with less kids or Married With Children? Would it be easy and serene? Would I always be in this happy motherhood place? Or would I be pulling my hair out, begging for a dark room?

I found it’s somewhere in between.

Her are my top five misconceptions of motherhood:

1.Your motherhood instinct kicks in right after birth. My didn’t kick in. It was gradual, very gradual. I loved my first born but was horrified. He cried and I started to sweat. He pooped, I gagged. He slept through the middle of the night and I wondered why he was sleeping so much, something must be wrong. He woke up in the middle of the night and I wondered why he wasn’t sleeping…something must be wrong.

2. Mother’s like their kids all the time. Let me first say, I always love my kids, but sometimes, strongly dislike my kids. them. Sometimes, I think their existence and bad attitudes are some sort of sick pay backs for how I acted as a child. I think they may have been switched at birth and this is some mean joke. Sometimes they make me want to lock myself in the closet and throw away the key. And then of course they do that thing, like kiss you, hug your or tell you you’re pretty (only because daddy told them too, but still…) and then you like them again, only to get let down 5 minutes later.

3. Their daily schedule will revolve around and be convenient to yours. Right. Try going somewhere right in the middle of nap time even if it is a grocery store emergency. You wait it out. You let them sleep. Going somewhere later is a lot better than going somewhere and risking a total meltdown, theirs and eventually yours. Even though you are dying to get out of the house, you’re going to cancel the play date, the trip to the mall, and any other public place you want to go it they haven’t napped or have thrown a temper tantrum within minutes of your intention to leave the house. Even though you are the boss and you set the schedule, they literally have the schedule by the balls.

4. You already have two kids, you might as well, have another one. I curse the people that told me this. 3 is an entirely different ball game. My third can’t even walk yet and the dynamics are already way out of the ball park. Imagine 3 temper tantrums and 3 kids crying at the same time. My 3 year old gets the baby going, and then my 5 year old cries because the baby isn’t giving him attention. Then the baby quickly crawls away, stops, turns around, and gives a little laugh and smirk to the 3 year old who comes chasing after him. And it’s literally a game of cat and mouse through the house. Seriously. I’m in it deep with this one. Not only am I out numbered, I can be voted out off the island by three little monsters on a sugar high, delirious, devil induced temper tantrum. They are their own little clan and at a moments time, without notice, they can gang up on me, attitudes a blazin’.

5. Girls are easier to potty train then boys. Girls want to do it sooner. Yes. Shortly after my daughter turned 2, she started using the potty because she wanted to to wear underwear. Pretty, lacy, princess underwear. But then she saw how happy I was she used the potty and took it, and held it my head like the Staples easy button. My daughter never wet her pants but when I put her in time out, she peed on the step and then blamed it on me because I told her not to move. Once I put her in her crib for time out and she pooped her pants and then spread it all over herself and the crib. When I came up to find this nice surprise, she told me, time out was over. That’s power. That’s pay backs. That’s premeditated planning. With boys, you have to get them interested in using the potty, with girls the interest is there, but you have to show them who’s boss.

These are some of the things they should tell you when you walk into the Ob/Gyn and announce happily that you are trying to get pregnant. I’m am not sure anyone tried to tell me these and if they did, I was probably in that new mommy cloud, didn’t listen, turned my back and brushed it off my shoulder as easy as a Jay Z song.

What misconception about motherhood did you brush off?

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