Perfect Motherhood: Animal House & Non-Perfect Mothers

As I stand here at my home “work station”, un-bathed with snarly hair, whiny children, and far too much work from my “real” job piling up, I have once again been annoyed by the illusion of mommy perfect.

Can we all lay off with criticizing the “frumpy” moms please?

Having one baby is so easy. Especially if he was anything like my first. My first child was a dream baby. He loved sleeping. He loved eating. He nursed voraciously and then would sleep for hours. My life didn’t change much for the most part. I could get a nearly full night of sleep, keep the apartment clean, and pack up my boy for a long stroller ride while I did three hours of cardio.(In my PRE-pregnancy clothing no less.)

I was so darned smug. I had that whole motherhood thing down pat. My husband and I would wryly smile at scatter brained parents who couldn’t seem to hack it and look at each other with self satisfaction because we were so awesome.

And then surprise of surprises, I was pregnant just after our son’s first birthday. We were delighted after trudging through seven years of infertility for our first child, to have an easy conception the next time around. I had no worries since my easy peasy son was such a dream and motherhood was a breeze.

And then our daughter was born.

Our daughter Wyn was not a good eater. (And still is not.) She was not a good sleeper. (And still doesn’t sleep. EVER.) She screams more often than not. Does not nap. Needs to be held constantly and overreacts to even the slightest stimuli. I hate to put any kind of drama queen label on her so I will just say she is a high maintenance child.

I totally get it now and I am so, so sorry for my previous smugness.

I see judgment all over the internet and real life toward mothers who don’t manage to not only hold it together, but also do so while being showered, perfectly coiffed, and smiling. The judgement carries over into the state of their homes, boogies on their shirts, and of course whether they work at home or at an outside office. Don’t even get me started on people wondering why moms talk about being sleep deprived.

Once upon a time, I pondered a few of these things myself since I only had one dream baby.

Here is the thing. If you have multiple children who are close in age, proper life really does halt for a while. If you did not space your kids at least three years apart, it is a whole other ball game. (Of course if you have 10 children, it really doesn’t matter how spread out they are.)

Take the lack of a shower some days. People love to harp on honest mothers who admit they do not get in a shower every day. (I am reminded of my own mother who I remember actually going to work with an entire granola bar stuck in her hair one day.)

Consider this: You have a three year old, and two year old, a one year old, and a newborn. (Just pretend) Why no shower? The minute you walk into the bathroom the following transpires:

Well, the three year old knows how to circumvent any play pen and baby gate ever invented and is quickly teaching the two year old his mad skillz. That is, when the two year old isn’t feeding rusty nails to the one year old. How did the two year old get rusty nails? Well, she stole a butter knife from the kitchen and hid it under her crib mattress. Then she used it to pry out the random nails in the back wall of her closet that you didn’t even know were there. Meanwhile the three year old decided to poop his pants because he is being stubborn about toilet training and hands the poop to the one year old. The one year old paints the walls with it, but hopefully not the couch. The newborn has been screaming bloody murder this entire time, so even though you have only been in the bathroom for 90 seconds, your eyeball is already twitching so violently it is about to pop out, flying across the room and creating a Heimlich Maneuver needed situation.

That five minute shower could possibly result in all of the cabinets being emptied all over the floors, an ER trip, and a decent possibility of three rooms being on fire when you emerge from the bathroom with soap in your twitching eyes.

Having very young children close in age is a bit like living in the movie Animal House.

Toddlers are like living with drunk frat guys. Mine does the John Belushi zip popping potato spew thing almost daily. He leaves sippy cups instead of beer cans all over. I pick up laundry he drags all over the house. He falls asleep with food on his face on a consistent basis. The infants spew bodily fluids all over you and the house at least hourly. Occasionally someone toilet papers the chandelier. Kids love rifling through the trash. Most days the kitchen looks as though it was ransacked by racoons. Wrangling kids on top of housework, cooking, laundry, and working full time, with NO nanny or daycare, is no joke.  Not to mention those who home school. (Seriously do not know how people do it.)

These are not complaints. It is just life.

And this is why there are women everywhere who are not perfect. And that is OK. This short time when our kids are very young and need constant attention is just that. Short. Soon enough, they will be far more independent and we will have all the showers we want. And we will miss this time, no matter how smelly the memories.

I am not smug anymore. Not even close. I might even be the anti-smug since most days I feel rather desperate. And now I need to go assemble the double deluxe baby corral the UPS guy just dropped off so that I can hop in my own shower and avoid frazzled mom pits.

My apologies, and keep rocking on awesome ladies.

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