Calling All Mommas!

Ever since my Mother's Day post, where I got almost 1000 hits in a 2 day period (Thanks, moms! Nice to know you're out there!), I started thinking about what it's like to really be a mom in real life. None of this Hallmark shit. 


I was flipping through the channels today and noticed that the moms that are on TV, the supposed "reality" moms, are unbelievable, their lifestyles are completely unattainable, and frankly they're full of shit. 


Let us take Michelle Duggar, for instance. The woman with the cast iron uterus. I heard her say one time that "having too many children is like having too many flowers". I really like Michelle. I think she's a genuinely kind person and I think that she really loves her husband and her kids, but let's be serious. The average twentysomething to thirtysomething mother would sooner sew her labia together than pop out more than three kids at most. Let alone have all those kids AND be able to keep up a pretty high maintenance mullet, whereby the back is permed and the front is blown dry.  Michelle, you are one in a million, which is probably why there is a show about you. 


If there was a show about me, it would go something like this: I wake up in the morning when either my baby cries or when my 60lb dog takes up so much of the bed that I am forced into the fetal position and my joints start to seize. I stagger into the ensuite, climbing over the bassinet that I have yet to remove from my bedroom because I have nowhere to put it, shuffle my way through the tampons that Avery scattered everywhere the day before, and enjoy one of the two pee breaks a day that do not have an audience (the second being before bed). I then retrieve my child, change her sogged diaper, and proceed down into my cluttered kitchen to feed her breakfast. I make myself an enormous coffee while I get her food ready, and gulp it as though it is a mug full of liquid heroin and I'm a recent rehab escapee. Avery quietly smears her breakfast over her face. Said breakfast will remain until bathvtime when she will be headlocked and scrubbed until she cries... seriously. This child hates getting her face washed.


After breakfast I wrestle Avery into some class of appropriate outfit (sometimes), and then reenter my own bedroom to choose which length of stretch pants I will wear for the day (full length or cropped). Avery tears into the tampons whilst I choose. I spend a solid five minutes coating my pits in deodorant, hoping that a few extra layers will hide the fact that I probably haven't showered in a couple of days and therefore probably have some pit stubble as well. 


I do not brush my hair and probably don't brush my teeth, depending on what kind of mood Avery is in and whether or not I will be leaving the house. Most times I forget and find myself at Walmart later in the afternoon having a little game of teeth-brush roulette and stuffing gum in my mouth if my teeth feel furry. 


The rest of my day depends on several things, mostly the length of time Avery naps and how clean my hair is. Bottom line, this is real life. Not the happy, energetic, Baby's First Day crap that is aired over and over again, all day long. 


Real life moms make bad decisions every day, but are still amazing every day. They stuff food in their mouths as they go, and they are probably dirty. 


Real life kids have meltdowns in the supermarket. Sometimes they have a big dump right before they fall asleep, and if they are dozing off when this happens, that might fester in there for a little while because real life moms would rather risk diaper rash than an overtired baby. 


All of this real life has brought me to create a facebook group, for moms who do things that they can't believe they did. You know why? Because we are not alone in our mistakes, so it's not fair to feel that we are. It's a place where we can put it out there and find comfort and solace in each other. We can laugh at our shitty situations, and see that other moms have done the same thing! 


If you want to join, just search A Guide to Surviving Surprise Parenthood on facebook. I'm sure it will be worth your time, and you might even get a little chuckle out of it! :) Hope to see you there, mommas!