Written several years ago by my online manager, Melody Hansen. Several years as in her boys are now 9 and 11 and far less squishy.
I’ve had a few friends mention to me lately that they get discouraged reading about the perfect lives of Moms and their brilliant, well-behaved children. I did read recently that people tend to glamorize their lives on Facebook and other online forums, so it can be easy to get discouraged.
If you read about a Mom who makes her children homemade waffles every morning, volunteers 3 hours every day, makes homemade cookies for the neighbors every weekend, never fights with her husband and sings carols at nursing homes every Tuesday all while maintaining a perfect body and hairstyle, you may start to feel like your life is lacking somewhere.
What we generally don’t see is the chaos that often reigns in the house of parents with young children. I’d love to think that our lives are perfect, that nobody ever gets frustrated, that nobody ever flings their spaghetti on the walls, that nobody ever goes far too long between hair cuts. I don’t know who lives like that, it’s definitely not our family.
Perfect wouldn’t suit us. Perfect wouldn’t suit toddlers.
Just for a twist, I thought I would share what an average day in our life looks like, warts and all.
5 AM – Woke up to get some blogging done.
6:30 AM – This is the time I generally try to start working out.
6:45 AM – Finally convinced myself to work out.
6:46 AM – Both kids woke up, one with a diaper hanging almost completely off.
7 AM – Squeezed in my workout, while dodging a rogue Zhu Zhu Baby.
8 AM – Both boys wanted to eat breakfast at the picnic table. Great idea, until both plates got dumped on the floor.
8:15 AM – Squeezed in a shower. One child turned Bubble Guppies on and off, the other just yelled.
8:20 AM – Had a conversation with myself about adjusting my attitude.
9 AM – Getting ready for a lunch play date. 30 minutes to potty, put on shoes and coats and get out of the house. In the middle of getting ready, I had to glue a plastic googly eye on a paper turkey from Thanksgiving that I can’t seem to get rid of.
9:30 AM – Heard my 3-year old’s two favorite songs on the radio in the car: Party Rockets (Party Rock) and Moons like Jagger (you can probably figure this one out).
12 PM – One babe did not want to leave. Left the play date screaming with no socks, shoes or hat, despite the fact that there was still snow on the ground.
12:15 PM – Youngest son fell asleep on the way home from our play date, despite my best efforts in keeping him awake. Talking, loud music, rolling the windows down and bribing with snacks did not work.
1 PM – Both boys down for nap, miraculously. Made a cup of tea, sat down to blog. Youngest babe woke up screaming after about an hour with the major teething blues.
2:30 PM – Both babes awake. Begging for croutons for a snack. Yes, croutons.
4 PM – Everyone needing serious distraction, so turned on Pandora and had a Bruno Mars dance party. Sometime during our party, a balloon got tangled in the ceiling fan. Mom to the rescue.
4:30 PM – Dad gets home. Attempting to make dinner while he does his work out. Boys run around the house in circles arguing over the same car. Because apparently we only have one?
4:45 PM – Made the boys a fort out of blankets. They played for about 30 seconds before someone got pushed down and was screaming. Finally got the chicken in the oven and played a mean session of Mr. Potato Head while it was baking.
5:30 PM – Dinner time. Someone taught our oldest son how to “Cheers” with his cup. Spent the next half an hour saying “Cheers” to everyone at the table. We shoveled in bites in between.
6 PM – While cleaning up dinner, I hear the boys laughing hysterically in their room. Asked my oldest son what his brother was doing to make him laugh so hard. He says “He’s teaching me how to learn!”. Naturally.
7:30 PM – Babes in bed. Our oldest son was able to recite most of Green Eggs & Ham by memory, which was a pretty sweet moment. His “Favorite Part of the Day” was cleaning up the house. What?
8 PM – 9:30 PM – Blogged until I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore, spent the rest of the evening watching my husband flip between the MLB Channel and DIY.
Pretty thrilling stuff. All in a day’s work. It actually was pretty entertaining writing down the details of our day. I forget the majority of the “small things”. I’ve been keeping a one-sentence journal to record some of the more hilarious moments (which I seriously think everyone should do), but this made for a fun experiment.
I’d love to hear your favorite small moments. The life of a parent sure makes for an interesting story each day, one that never repeats itself or EVER gets dull.
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Children are so cute as toddlers, when you look back you forget the small arguments over toys and spilled food when they become teens. I do like being able to take a shower without fear they will hurt themselves or each other, and I don’t miss changing diapers. I like their school activities and don’t miss the repetition of hearing the same children’s song thirty times in a row that gets stuck in my head. When they were young they weren’t so picky about their hair. They weren’t fond of getting their haircuts, but each would sit still while my husband gave them their monthly haircuts. As teens he still gives them their haircuts, but both are very particular about how they each want theirs cut. Thankfully hubby is very good with the clippers and shears, so they like his work and aren’t demanding to be taken to an expensive barbershop. I do like being able to get a few minutes to relax, I have hubby trim my hair every couple months to keep my ends neatly trimmed while I sip a glass of white wine. Most mornings I have him braid my hair for me or I just pull it back in a ponytail before I am out the door. I gave up on the hassle of short hair years ago. It was too much time and effort to make it look good and honestly I didn’t look good with short hair despite the hair stylists that push the short hair styles as well as the overpriced products. I shop for good hair products at much better prices on my own.