For a second while I was still working in news I thought to myself, hot dog! If I could legit just sit on my booty and write all day long I would be the happiest soul on the planet. So I started following a gazillion mom blogs to find inspiration and to find the missing link into what they weren’t doing. But I found myself really frustrated and annoyed.
I think my tipping point was when I read a blog post from a mom who was calling out other mothers for letting their only child hog up the grocery store double carts…AKA, “the red car” my son is so stalkerishly obsessed with. This blog post was mean and rude. Basically, how dare you let your only child have any fun. Trust me, if there are no double strollers I get a little steam in my ears too as I try to explain to my 2-year-old all the cars are in the repair shop and then he sees one roll by. But this post was different, there was no sympathy. I am an only child. I don’t think we had grocery store car carts growing up, but if we did and I wanted one…by God, my mom would have ABSOLUTELY let me sit in one if it was available. Why punish a kid for not having a sibling? This is such a petty thing to get upset with…but I’m trying to prove my point.
Moms are SO HARD on other moms. They can be incredibly judgmental, and I don’t want to ever be viewed as that and I really don’t want to be judged. Being a mom is so difficult. Let me give you a small example: I was going to NOLA for my cousin’s bachelorette party last week. Since we are in the process of moving, I can’t find any clothes. So my plan was to pack. That’s it. Just pack my clothes and make sure my children were alive at 5 pm when my husband returned. By 9 am I had changed 4 diapers (2 with a gas mask), prepared 2 different breakfasts, fed the dogs, played referee over who can “do the dishes”, fixed a tractor, put one child in timeout twice, looked for Thomas the Train for 30 minutes only to have said child play with it for 30 seconds, partially brushed my teeth…and then I literally hid out in the bathroom, as both children beat down the door and probably tried to set the whole damn house on fire. PARENTING. IS. HARD.
We really don’t need other parents looking through our windows with their white wigs judging what we do and don’t do. So I decided to stop blogging for a bit.
Then last night, through the power of social media, I wrote a really simple thank you to my Facebook fans who followed my Anchor/Reporter page. I was blown away. It’s been 6 months since I left news and no one un-followed. In fact, I gained some followers. Weird, right? So I thanked them for caring and one person wrote this: “You tell better life stories….so I’m not leaving…..enjoy them kids while you can…tomorrow they will be grown.” And I thought, you know? What the heck?! Let’s give this blog a go again. I don’t have any excuses not to. Some entries will be great, some won’t…but people will hopefully continue to stick around.
I’d like to open this blog up to YOUR stories too! Do any of you have a hilarious/heartbreaking parenting experiences? Or a day when you legit wanted to pour a glass of wine at 8:45 am, throw your hands up, and say Jesus take the wheel!? I want to hear it!! Share away, we can keep it anonymous if you’re not ready for the white wigs. Lemme know.
Meanwhile, next up on this blog: I will share with you a tale of 48 days living in a hotel with 4 adults, 2 children and 4 dogs. Jesus Take The Wheel, indeed…