Things No Decent Mother Would Do

There are a lot of things I have done in my 7.5 years as a mother that I’m not proud of. Like the time my daughter spilled Cheerios all over the gym floor at her sister’s volleyball practice and instead of picking them up, I just stepped to the side so it wasn’t immediately clear she was my kid and let her eat them. Or maybe all of the times I convinced my toddler to play “hair stylist” with me so I could take a nap while she brushed my hair, the most pampering I’ve had done in years. And there definitely was that one time I thought about just completely giving up on life when I tried to be the creative mom who let her kids paint on the porch in the bright summer morning and the little shits painted our siding instead.

But I’ll tell you a few things I haven’t done as a mom.

None of these things, that’s for darn sure:

– Pretended not hear the baby waking up in the morning while I slept in.

– Locked myself in the bathroom and turned the fan on so I couldn’t hear the kids screaming.

– Caught one child literally attempting to gouge her sister’s eyeballs out. And almost succeeding.

– Forgotten to tell someone to pick the kids up from the babysitters.

– Held both children on my lap while I took a poop.

– Told the kids they couldn’t have ice cream before dinner, but then sneaked some bites when they weren’t looking.

– Mourned the loss of the gelatinous mass that is now my belly.

– Held a brand-new baby and instead of raving over its preciousness, thought, “Thank God it’s not me.”

– Let my kids run around in their underwear, simply because I was too tired to get them dressed.

– Walked in the door after working and honestly felt relief that I’d missed the tantrums and tears of the day.

– Watched as my child picked out only the marshmallows from their cereal – and not cared.

– Woke up in the morning and thought, “I can’t do this today…” while holding the covers over my head and crying a literal tear of pity for myself.

– Been forced to sit in the bathroom with my toddler while he took an actual 20-minute dump and envisioned a life that could have been spent doing anything but cleaning up poop constantly.

– Had four children crying all at the same time and simply turned my back because what else can you do?

– Talked myself into putting a forced smile on my face when all I wanted to do was go back to bed.

– Binge-read blogs with seemingly perfect women who can wear bikinis after birth while breastfeeding at one in the morning because my baby is a human piranha and wondered why I wasn’t married to The Perfect Man and mourned the fact that I have never even been to a dinner party, let alone hosted one. Also: crafts suck.

– Second-guessed trying to work and have kids at the same time because maybe it really is impossible.

– Been wracked with guilt when my husband came home and fought the urge to burst into tears when he said, “Honey, it’s OK, you are doing enough…”

– Been so touched-out by the end of the night that I literally cringed when my husband reached for me in bed.

– Turned up the volume in my mom vehicle so as to drown out the sound of bickering children in the backseat.

– Felt totally disgruntled for absolutely no reason.

– Wished that I too lived in Stars Hollow with endless access to free cups of coffee.

– Wondered if someday when my kids are teenagers I would no longer be able to hide the fact that I have absolutely no idea what I am doing.

What’s that you say? You’ve never done any of these things?

OK, good. Me neither.