The 2018 Winter Olympics might be coming to a close and you may have or have not noticed since you’ve been busy running your own Olympics. You may feel like you’ve been failing at this #momthing but here are five ways to know you’re winning.
1. Your kids are safe…and mostly unscathed. You wake up every day thanking the higher powers you all have made it through another day. The crying, the toilet training, the tantrums, the talking back all have been balanced with hugs, kisses, and eyes of admiration from those little creatures called your kids. Yesterday you felt like you about lost it when your child threw a full-out tantrum level 150 in aisle 11 at Target, but you soldiered through. Sure you got judging stares of passerbys but you also saw those sympathetic eyes too – the sympathetic eyes of those moms. We feel you. Bonus: the kids are happy and still love you. You are still their world, SuperMom.
2. Your husband still wants sexy time. You may not feel or look like it but yes, your significant other still wants to f*ck you. The craziness of the day is the inverse of you giving two cents about your appearance. Maybe you’re a new mom and don’t care if you need to put all of Safeway produce on your boobs as your milk comes in. Maybe you’re a mom of a toddler who you can’t quite get off your leg so you forego the shower for a few days. Or maybe you’re an elementary school mom shuttling the little ones to school, soccer, baseball, dance class, tutoring, Tai Kwan Do and you wear the official mom accessory: a baseball cap…again.
You were wifey material to begin with and this whole #momthing balancing act is sexy as hell.
3. You still have a job…and doing a damn good job at it. No, I’m not talking about the Mom Shift…I’m talking about the work job. For the working mom, this means you got up at an ungodly time, got yourself ready to look presentable to the world, and got the kids ready: waking them up, yelling at them to wake up again, picking out their clothes, making their lunch, then shuttling them to school after the seventh and final warning. For the SAHM, it’s a pretty similar morning battle. Without a flinch, you ride into work like a badass. Maybe it was the coffee (it’s always the coffee, girl) or the motivation from the extra sass coming from that bossy management material daughter. You are on fire at work! Sure, in your head, you’re juggling who’s picking up your kids after school, what to make for dinner, loading that one load of laundry, ordering the yearbook, remembering to call your own mom, and on and on. But you don’t let it show. You’re balancing the unicorn also known as work-life balance. You got this girl!
4. The #momthing is not glamorous and you know this…now. Before you were a mom, you thought you’d only gain 15 pounds during pregnancy, you’d be getting your beauty sleep and wouldn’t feed that to your unborn child. You were gonna be the perfect Instagram mommy – you know, the ones with their cute waists and empty sinks. You now know it was all a farce. Your kids have been on the ipad for godknows how many hours, the laundry pile is now looking like Mt. Laundry Everest, your kitchen needs to be red-tagged by the government, and your kids are safe somewhere in that playroom mess. But you soldier on and keep going…with humility (and sometimes mom guilt) in your heart now. Knowledge is power. Stay woke.
5. You pay homage to those who came before you. Women have been becoming mothers for thousands of years – it is how civilization doesn’t fade into oblivion. It could be argued that times were simpler back then. Heck, they were simpler 10 years ago! When I became a mom 16+ years ago, there wasn’t aden+anais swaddle blankets or cute Forever 21 maternity clothes. If you wanted to see the newborn baby, you’d actually have to go visit the new mom and baby and not catch the announcement on IG or Snapchat. 25 years ago, there wasn’t cell phones to call your spouse when you were going into labor. 35 years ago, there wasn’t reusable tape tabs on disposable diapers. And 45 years ago, epidurals during labor were brand-spankin’ new. As a mom now, you know life could’ve been much simpler/harder/different if you were born in a different era. Priorities might be different but responsibilities are still the same. Your grandmas and your moms survived and you know so will you. Take it from a rested, seasoned mom when they say:
The days are long, but the years are short.
Cherish your children. Cherish the mess. Cherish motherhood. The little things now were the big things later.
So, there you go, SuperMom. Stand up on that pretend podium, sing a song, and go grab your damn gold medal.
