Struggles on the Mom Job

As a mom of two toddlers whose husband works a lot of hours in the fall, my issues always seem magnified during football season because I am alone so much more. My job is to keep us alive and entirely run the household from July 23 until post-season, and sometimes it ain't easy. Here are my job problems.......

1. Trying to get a ladies night organized
The level of difficulty on getting several moms to be able to go to Chili's for a meal and 2 glasses of wine is so astronomically high it's actually quite unbelievable you ever see mom's out at the same place at the same time, sans children. Anytime you see a group of moms from this moment forward, I suggest you go over to the table, whisper to them, I am thankful for this small miracle you organized, and buy them a vat of chardonnay. This is kind of like the desperate moms version of the Starbucks pay it forward thing that's happening right now. Since late July through January means I am completely without the luxury of having my husband actually watch the kiddos, the first challenge lies in all the ladies getting a sitter. Thank God we have the most amazing babysitters on the planet who I want to hug one million times every time I see them (and sometimes I do). Once I secure a warm body to watch my children get a babysitter, we all agree on a meeting time and a place, and I force my love handles into jeans that don't fit me but I refuse to get rid of. It's at this time that I can almost guarantee one of my children will decide to either puke or blow a wad of snot. It is typically 3-7 minutes before "D-Day," i.e., sitter arrival, also known as the moment I sprint out of the door and peel out of the driveway like a bank robbery scene. I think they huddle up while I am getting dressed and decide which one will do it. I never see it coming and it is often disguised as a hug coming at me, only to be met with bodily fluids at the last second. At this point the one top in my closet that didn't make me want to get into the fetal position in my closet and cry is ruined. I have literally wiped snot out of my hair, re-blow-dried it, and walked out of the house, all in a very reasonable amount of time. That is why moms are the closest thing to superheros in the whole world. That is also why we all text each other that the first mom there needs to have glasses of wine waiting for the other arrivals at the restaurant. This is called ninja ordering. It can also be referred to as "being the best kind of friend you can be."

2. Trying not to eat 9.872 calories during the afternoon
Most of the time during my kids nap I have a mile-long to do list I am trying to chisel away at. It is always super fun and can include anything from getting caught up on the bills to laundry to spending 17 minutes getting 45 stickers off the kitchen table. During this time I also somehow turn into the hungriest hamster on the planet and lose all self control I ever had. I typically pace the kitchen for a few minutes knowing I should cut up the huge carrots in the fridge and end up settling on 3 enormous bites of cheese from a 1 lb block along with the rest of my kids' macaroni and half a pop tart. I don't sit down for any of it unless maybe I plop in the smack middle of the kitchen floor to finish off the pop tart. I have no idea how this happens and it typically happens in a span of 22 seconds as well. I then spend the rest of the day berating myself that I am absolutely unable to resist dairy and figuring out what workout classes I will have to do at the Y the next day to reverse the damage.

3. Grocery shopping has become my Olympic sport
"Where do you grocery shop" It's a questions moms exchange often. Walk past a group of moms chatting at the gym or the park and you're likely to hear them discussing the buy-one-get-one deals at the store or the super-cheap diapers in the clearance section that have been marked down because they were manufactured wrong. At half the price, we don't care if the latch for the right side of the diapers is completely lopsided. Oh, the filling in these diapers might give my whole family a rash? Well we are risk takers and they are 17 cents off so I am gonna wing it. We are hungry for a deal and we will drive all over town (using gas which makes the deal no longer a deal) looking for it, darn it!

So since I don't have monthly goals and meetings like a typical office manager might, grocery shopping and deals are my sport. I have a couple bones to pick with you though, grocery stores of America. Why can you only buy paper towels in quantities of 1 or 100? And why do paper towels suddenly seem like the most ginormous thing I have ever seen when I have 2 kids in the cart and one is alternating eating cookies and throwing them at other customers and the other is hanging off the back of the cart like a surfboard. It's at this moment that I would like just 4 paper towel rolls please, not 1, because it'll be gone by dinner, and not 100, because holding them on top of my head so my kids can fit in the cart is sort of embarrassing.

4. Hugging my kids enough
When you're the only parent your kid sees for several days at a time, it's natural to worry if you hugged them enough. It's not like he's getting 10 other hugs from dad, so I often times go to bed wondering if I squeezed them enough and kissed them as many times as I could have. But ya know what? As a mom, sometimes I just do not want to be touched. And by sometimes I mean that it would be kind of nice to not be touched until Christmas. Can I ask for that for Christmas? At a normal job, it's actually probably prohibited to touch your coworkers, and written into many handbooks. There is a reason for this. At my job, I get touched to be woken up (usually my almost 4 year old comes into the room and heavily breathes for about 20 seconds, then lifts my eyelids open and tells me he is worried that we haven't found all the dinosaur teeth that are buried in the world. I need a coffee pot in my bedroom). 2 minutes later I have 4 yogurt covered hands all over my body. I don't know how but somehow a 2 ounce yogurt is suddenly covering the only clean workout clothes I have and I put back on the clothes from yesterday that haven't been washed. I can't remember the last time I was at a kitchen sink doing dishes and there wasn't someone pulling on my feet. Why do they seem like they weigh 450 pounds at that moment? It's like 8 kettle bells are pulling me down to the ground while I rinse out an egg pan. My kids latest thing is if I am low enough to the ground they love to touch my face. I HATE TO HAVE MY FACE TOUCHED. Good thing I love you you little gremlins. Their clammy little hands stroke my cheeks building up break outs and all I can think is, well they're probably not being hugged enough. Dear mom guilt, go away because I don't like you. xo Sarah

5. Getting the kids to go to bed
Obviously this is the most important part of my life. There is no more important block of time in my current existence than the 2 times of day I try to get 2 human beings to fall asleep. You need the sleep, I need the sleep, go to freaking sleep. This fall I have been a little more relaxed about bedtime and it has been a little easier since we have been so busy. But nap time remains the struggle of the century and at 1:00 in my house there is a hostage situation going on with the stress level of nuclear war. We are almost always coming home from a busy morning and my entire physical being is geared towards getting their sweaty little hands stroking my nose into their beds. It is at this time that they get a huge burst of energy and can be seen running around the house banging their heads on the wall. Suddenly they seem so heavy and my body is weak from climbing the tiny stairs at the park 987 times. My legs are giving out and I even have a cramp in my bones but I must go on because I am so close to my huge bites of cheese in the kitchen followed by folding laundry while nobody touches me. I make deals with little people in these moments I always regret. Ice cream at McDonald's, trips to the Dollar store, yes you can have a fruit snack before dinner, I DON'T CARE, just close your eyes so I can go scarf my cheese.

It's week 7 of the NFL season, so by calculations I have about 9+ weeks left to figure out how to get my kids to walk in the door and put themselves to bed, and for Target to sell me paper towels in quantities of 2. I will keep you posted.
xoxo Big Mama