Dear moms's who don't do anything all day...
You know those mom's, hell maybe you are that Mom.
Your spouse comes home after being at work all day, scans the room with their eyes and you can see the look on their face.. that "What did you do all day?" look.
You watch their gaze go from the highchair covered in lunch... and breakfast to the red crayon drawing of a dog on the wall... or maybe it's a rocket?!
They look the kids up and down, stained hands, un-brushed hair, and chocolate on their nose. They are still in last night's pj's, but you're wearing the same pair of leggings from three days ago, so there's that.
There's a pan on the stove with stuck-on eggs, and the sink is bursting with dishes. The trashcan is like a mountain of carefully placed objects, like a game of smelly Jenga, trying not to fall over.
You can hear their brain thinking "she didn't do ANYTHING today..." It's like it's getting said out loud, but it really isn't. Your heart sinks, and you suddenly see what they see.
Did you do anything today? Of course, you did, right?
You start blurting out how busy you've been today cooking, cleaning, wrangling the kids, but it doesn't look like you did ANYTHING.
In fact, it looks like you did nothing, like you crawled out of bed, sat on the couch and grew roots there for 10 hours.
But the truth is a different story. You were snatched out of a dream by a howling baby, begging for boob. Just as you nurse them back to sleep the toddler throws open your bedroom door asking for a sippy in the loudest voice you've ever heard.
You drag yourself out of bed, baby on your hip and make your way downstairs. Stumble into the kitchen to find your all out of juice... "But juice is my favorite!" The toddler cries in agony from their place on the floor.
There are only 3 eggs left so you scramble them up for the kids and drink your liquid breakfast, begging it to wake you up, your stomach growls.
When the kids are done eating you put the dishes in the sink, unload the dishwasher, realize the laundry needs to be switched, carry the clean clothes upstairs, empty the basket onto the "clean pile" on the floor and fill it with the dirty pile. Walk into the kid's room to get theirs and notice the moldy sippy cup and take it to the sink. Shit, you forgot the clothes, oh well you'll get them in a minute. Baby needs to be changed, trash is full, out of bags, oh well, I'll run to the store later. Kiss a boo-boo, check Facebook, compare yourself to other moms, be depressed.
You will never be as organized as they are, you've accepted that. Not everyone is cut out to be Pinterest worthy, but you don't have to be, you have other talents, right?
That reminds you that you have an assignment due in your online class, you open your laptop and book, read 2.7 sentences, the toddler needs another drink, and baby is eating a Cheerio off the floor.
Never mind the report, you can do it later, right now you need to vacuum, to do that you have to put everything away off the floor, which takes you to every room in the house, you sit down for a break but the kids are hungry again. Lunchtime it is. Make the kids their favorite snack, cut it into a heart, just how she likes it.
While they eat you can do your report, but you can change the laundry over real quick first.
You have to pull something out for dinner, that takes the entire 10 minutes the kids are eating because you don't have everything you need so now you're just standing in front of the fridge staring at its contents, waiting for it to speak and tell you what to cook.
Your day just continues on like this, half completing tasks, and never getting anything truly done. You can sweep the floor at 10 AM but the dog will track sand in by the time your spouse comes home, you can start a load of laundry but you never get around to folding the ones in your room.
You don't eat when everyone else eats, because that's your chance to get something done without distractions, hell you don't even pee when you have to because maybe you're stuck under a nursing baby, or you can't leave the room without them having a meltdown.
You barely sat down all day but yet your house doesn't look any better. Dinner isn't ready. The report never got done.
But, and it's a very important "but", you stopped to kiss boo-boos, you nursed the baby on demand all day, you sang songs, and played pretend, you colored, and stamped. You fed them and made sure they had an empty floor to run around without tripping. You fed them the last of the eggs, while you went without. You thought about everyone else's opinion when it came to dinner, you put everyone else's needs before your own every step of the way. It's exhausting sometimes to be last, to be invisible, to be alone in a house with other people. You're not the only mom that feels this way though, I bet there's one in every house on your block, and they are all wondering when it will be their time again.
You don't do ANYTHING all day.
You do EVERYTHING all day.
I see you, I know you're trying your best. I know you want to be the Pinterest mom who cuts her kids pb&j into the Mona Lisa, and who wears clean clothes every day.
Just remember this is only a season in your life. Things are overwhelming right now, and it looks like it will never end, but one day you will have time to fold the clothes, and your walls will be free from the artwork.
There are no perfect moms. As long as you are trying your best, your kids will know it. They don't care about the book report that's overdue, they just know that you take your time to make sure their sippy's always stayed full and the Cheerios flow like an abundant river.
So no, you didn't do anything all day...
You did everything.
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