Today I had a heart to heart with a good friend. She and I lead relatively parallel lives and both take on way too much. As a result, we often feel like we are doing much but little of it is done well. I told her I sometimes feel like I am failing in every area of my life. When I step back, I realize this isn’t true. However, it made me realize we all fail on a regular basis. Perhaps if we can commiserate together about these shortcomings and poke fun at our own faults, we can learn to live with them. Hence, the top ten ways I routinely fail as a mom.
1) Sending Thank You Notes
Avery came home from school today with a Thank You card from a party she went to nine days ago. Oh Crap, I thought – major fail. I suck. We didn’t even pretend we were going to write thank you notes this year. Since I still have the blank Tiana cards from Avery’s Princess and the Frog birthday party (the year she turned four!), I decided to avoid the month of feeling guilty before too much time passed to make them relevant and decided to never even place them on my to do list. When we got a thank you card from a girl who came to Avery’s party earlier this year I worried that we look ungrateful. We aren’t – I promise! We just decided to skip the formality. I mean how sincere are thank you cards anyway. Have you ever received one that said, “thanks for the PJs but my daughter actually has all the 24 months clothes she could use” or “I wish you would pick out toys that didn’t have so many little parts that get lost and/or become choking hazards for the baby.” No – all thank you notes will assure you that your presence and gift were totally appreciated, so let’s all cut each other some slack and agree to skip this nicety – except for graduations, showers and weddings. I’m not ready to let those go quite yet.
2) Breastfeeding
It happened again just this week… While going over surgery instructions for Maggie’s tubes I had to publicly state that she is a formula fed baby. “Does she nurse or take a bottle?” FAIL! It was an innocent question asked by a kind nurse, but I suddenly was filled with all the guilt and shame I have felt three babies in a row. I feel this same shame when I shake up a bottle at the play place or the pediatrician’s waiting room. I want to confess details that are nobody’s business to all moms in eyesight. “Hi – you don’t know me, but I saw you eyeing my daughter’s formula. Yes… I know she is very young and this must look incredibly lazy to you. It can actually be a lot of work - washing bottles, running to the store each week, comforting a baby when you forget her food source, apologizing constantly… I actually wanted to breastfeed. My daughters and I could never make it work. My oldest lost 14% of her body weight because I refused to give her the rat poison known as formula. She was eventually admitted to the pediatric unit for monitoring after I was convinced to feed her Enfamil from a finger feeder. I still kept at it even after this. One time a lactation consultant, my husband, and I all wrestled Avery for an hour and got her to take half an ounce. And I STILL tried for the next two girls. I pumped for 2.5 hours a day just to get 12 ounces. Oh wait… you aren’t interested in this crazy rant from a stranger…” I have the utmost respect for the sacrifice it takes to breastfeed, I just hope people try to understand why some of us can’t.
3) Recording Memories
I mean what is there to say here really. This failure is pretty cliché. I filled out the first 6 months of Avery’s five-year memory book. I also wrote a weekly update in a journal about her. This helps me remember her first steps, etc. I wrote in the first five pages of Tessa’s book and composed one weekly update. I don’t even remember her first word. I have not even opened Maggie’s book. Today I realized she has been sitting really well for over a week now. I suddenly wished I knew what day she mastered it so I could write in her book for the first time. Then I realized that no one gives a crap about these things. Barring physical disabilities, all babies learn to sit eventually. Is anyone less fulfilled as an adult because they can’t tell you the exact date of this milestone? Picture wise, I DO take them but never print them or pass them out. Sometimes I feel bad about this. Other times, I give myself a break. Because of me, no one will have to deal with these printed pictures in days or years to come. We have all experienced the moral dilemma that comes with recycling a birth announcement. How can you put those little faces in the trash? At the same time, what will you do with them years from now? People will have no idea how this little darling is connected to our family. Even pictures of your own family might overwhelm descendants. For us, finding a picture of a great grandparent is such a rare joy and treat. What will our future generations do with our abundant photos? Sometimes we take ten pictures before we even leave for school!!!
4) Understanding PTA Politics
Oops! I forgot the number one rule of being new to a group. Lay low. Figure out how it all works. Learn the group dynamic. Then you can infiltrate in year two. I came on a little too strong with the PTA as of late and now I am seen by some as a complainer/griper/unwilling to help. My suggestions came across as judgment. That was never my intention. Those of you who know me know this is not me. Wish I could take this fail back!
5) Keeping up with Friday Folders/Homework
Last month, for three weeks in a row, I had to have Avery read her homework books to me on the way to school on Monday. This is the ONLY homework she gets all week, and she gets in on Friday. Therefore, we have ALL weekend to do it. In the frantic morning rush I had to sign the homework sheet in the car and throw the books back at Avery in the car seat in hopes that the text was short enough to complete during the ten minute drive to day care. I am a teacher (a READING teacher), so I don’t want to talk much more about this fail as it is pretty embarrassing. God help us all in middle school.
6) Doing Recital Week Well
If you do not have girls, skip this section all together. Thank your lucky stars that you can look like hell and still be a star on the baseball field, football field, etc. Some of the girls’ activities require massive amounts of primping before showing off your athletic prowess. I grew up with brothers and quickly learned the power of being able to get ready in ten minutes. It means you get to sleep more, read more, write more, etc. I pity my friends who flat iron their hair for 30 minutes plus each morning. Due to genetics, and a general unwillingness to care, I can walk out the door with wet hair and at least not look unkempt by the time school starts. My daughters have the misfortune of being born into this general distaste for hair fixing. As I watched all the pics show up on my facebook feed of perfectly curled hair for DRESS REHEARSAL!!!! I realized I was a failure once again. I can master a ponytail IF the girls have wet hair, but that’s about it. How am I now in charge of two heads of hair? (Maggie is still bald thank goodness.) Please wish me luck in the weeks ahead for dance picture day AND dance recital day. And if you really love me, maybe show up with a brush.
7) Keeping Track of Key Cards and the Like
Something I have been keenly aware of as of late is how incredibly physical parenting is. In addition to being physically exhausting from lack of sleep, it also wears you out in the knees as you bend down to give baths, in your arms as you rock a baby who screams for three hours at a time, in our neck/back as you try not to move b/c said baby has finally stopped crying. Another part of parenting that is physical/tangible is all the stuff that comes with it. Being on my last baby, my eyes light up every time Maggie outgrows an outfit or device as I imagine these items leaving my home. I can’t keep of my own stuff let alone all their stuff. Just this past week we lost a tap shoe (note above fail and do the math), most of our hairbands and a library book. This kind of losing is common in my cluttered life, but this issue has taken on a new urgency in the form of THE DAYCARE KEYCARD. (Imagine dramatic sound effect in the background.) After a year of promising, they finally installed the key system at daycare. I should be glad for this safety measure. Instead I am made to feel like an ass on a regular basis. As I pull up to the building most mornings I am suddenly my high school self on the day I forgot my homework… “How can I get around it this time?” I think. I duck in my car until someone I know pulls in or rush out leaving the kids behind to offer to hold the door for someone with full hands. They remind me that they aren’t supposed to let me in, but they will. I suddenly feel like a mother begging for food in shame. I am powerless to this possessor of the key. This fail sucks because it is so public.
My kids are funny. They have these crazy personalities and are masters at language. At least once a day I laugh when I should discipline. Other times, I laugh when I should show sympathy. Avery will be throwing her clothes around her room yelling that I just don’t understand her and I bust up. I wish I had some really good gems to share, but my brain is starting to get fried and I imagine I have lost a few readers somewhere around page two anyway…
9) Letting Children Chew on Things they Shouldn’t
Somehow I missed the mommy class telling me to live in constant fear for my child’s safety. I am pretty hands off in this department. I mean, we use car seats and all, but we don’t stay home from a party because a distant cousin of the host might have the stomach flu. We let the kids explore outside with some freedom. And… when our babies are really fussy we let them chew on things near us. Sometime this is the end of a bottle of lotion or our dirty fingers and one time, it was a chicken wing bone…
My worst mom fail ever probably came when Tessa was nine moths old. Both Jon and my grandpa were in the ICU on New Year’s Day and the cousins decided to get away from it all for a bit and grab dinner. Tessa was eagerly eyeing a chicken wing bone. Avery used to love to chew on rib bones so it seemed harmless. All of a sudden the bone was missing. Tessa looked a little red in the face, and I lost it. I screamed (apparently quite loudly) “she is choking on a chicken bone.” If you are unaware of the multitude of sounds in a restaurant, you will realize them if you ever cause an entire establishment to go silent. The clinking of glasses, dinging of silverware, scratching on an order pad and general conversation buzz all disappeared and were replaced by wide gaped mouths and fearful stares. I threw Tessa to my friend Treena who is a doctor. She tried to explain to me that Tessa was now crying which meant she could breathe, but I could not hear her through my terror and very public hysterics. Luckily, I soon found the bone in the sleeve or her sweater and was able to announce to the entire room that she was okay, and they could get back to business. At least we can laugh now…
10) Evaluating Myself on a Regular Basis
And my number one fail (Drumroll please) is caring for more than two seconds about any of the items above. I am going to excuse myself for all that listed and more. I hope you will do the same and share some of your best fails with me!
