Confessions Of An Imperfect Mom

Hello, my name is Abbey and I am a perfectionist.

Being a perfectionist was never a problem before I had kids. Even though I could really drive myself crazy with it, I always regarded perfectionism as a good thing. It meant that I was striving to be the best and there's nothing wrong with that.

Until, of course, I had kids and realized that perfect is impossible. "Perfect" is a lie created by celebrity Mommy Bloggers and 30-minute sitcoms. In my life as a parent, there are moments of blissful perfection, but they come and go and I have no way to control them. What happens more often than not are spontaneous acts of two hilarious kids and their permanently exhausted parents, who are just trying to do the best they can do.

As an effort to let go of my pursuit of parental perfectionism and to show that no parent is perfect no matter how hard they try, the following are a small sample of anecdotes which accentuate my varying degrees of parenting imperfection. Why am I sharing? Because no one is perfect, no parent is perfect, and if we can all laugh together instead of putting on the perfection front, life would probably be a lot more fun. So here we go.

Confession #1: About a year ago I made the somewhat catastrophic mistake (the catastrophe only realized in hindsight, as they often are) of taking my then four-year-old and one-year-old into the pet store at the mall while trying to kill some time waiting for something else. When it came time to leave, Layla was perfectly fine and willing to leave without making a scene. Ben...not so much. Fast-forward to me, speed-walking a stroller containing a screaming, beet-faced baby with preschooler flung over my shoulder (all the better to get the hell out of there faster). Oh, but it gets better. Ben has the unfortunate habit of pronouncing "K" words like "T" words. So as I practically ran through a mall, dodging kiosks and other strollers, Ben was screaming "I want a kitty" at the top of his lungs, but it sounded a lot more like "I want a tittie!", causing several Hollister-clad teenaged boys to yell back "Don't we all?" as we raced past them. By that point I was simultaneously laughing so hard that tears were streaming down my face and swearing to myself that I would show my son's naked baby pictures to every single girl who ever came to our house, for as long as I lived. That's right, my child was barely old enough to speak and I was plotting revenge. I can't imagine why Beyonce won Mother-of-the-year and not me.

Confession #2: One of my favorite kid-friendly ways of expressing anger or frustration (i.e. swearing without actually swearing) is to shake my head and go "Oh for the love of donuts!". Sounds innocent enough, but if my kids had any idea the words that my seemingly innocuous phase was replacing, their ears would probably bleed. And fall off. I suspect Layla is beginning to catch on because now she'll respond, "Wow Mom, you must love donuts. You talk about them all the time." My bad.

Confession #3: Because I stay home with the kids all day and essentially have to be the bad guy 95% of the time, I feel somewhat entitled to pawn off things like telling the kids bad news ("It's raining, so we can't go to the State Fair today" and the like) on Josh. Yes, I play my "Uh...I don't know, ask your dad when he gets home" card from time-to-time. And I feel really bad about it...Sometimes.

Confession #4: When the kids are playing together in their room, I occasionally yell "Hey! I heard that!" from somewhere else in the house when in actuality, I heard nothing at all. I'm hoping if they think I have super-human hearing powers they'll behave better. Or they just think I'm crazy.

Confession #5: Yogurt-covered raisins are not candy, but don't tell my kids that. Broccoli also doesn't make you fly if you eat it for the first twenty years of your life, but don't tell me kids that either. It's not lying, it's genuine concern for their health and well-being. At least, that's what I tell myself as I quietly save up for their future therapy.

Confession #6: Layla is a talker. She talks, talks, talks, talks all day and occasionally in her sleep at night. Six out of seven days, I find her hilarious and entertaining and am proud of her vocabulary and ability to articulate herself as well as she does. On the seventh day I give her a dollar to stop talking for ten minutes. Because really, even God got a break on the seventh day.

Confession #7: The other day Ben walked into the kitchen and asked me what I was eating. I said carrots. They were actually Cheetos. I maintain that I just care about their health and the event in question had nothing to do with the fact that I'm almost thirty years old and I still don't share well with others.

Confession #8: Speaking of Cheetos, when I was pregnant with Ben I had such vicious Cheetos cravings that I was in a constant state of orange-stained fingers and had a terrifying, reoccurring dream about giving birth to a giant diaper-clad Cheeto. Oh, and I always told Layla they were carrots too.

Confession #9: Layla has always been my good sleeper. Ben, not so much. He's getting better, but I still have to sit with him in his room at night until he falls asleep. I used to sit on his bed and hold his hand, but now I just sit on the ground in the middle of the room (progress!). I don't talk, or sing, or touch, I just sit there. And now I live in constant fear of how this will play out later in his life. I'm pretty sure that telling his future wife "I'm sorry, honey, but my mom has to come in here and stare at us for twenty minutes or I just can't manage to fall asleep" will not go over well.

Confession #10: Last week, a little boy at Layla's school smiled at her and I was amazed at my level of rage and quantity of  "I want to kill that kid" thoughts that rose up within me. Ben, on the other hand, flirts with everyone from little babies to the eighty-seven year old receptionist at his Preschool. I don't think twice about it. Why? Do I already have double standards when it comes to my kids? I think I need to buy more Tums.

Confession #11: I have actually uttered the phrase "Don't make me turn this car around". Worse, I meant it.

Confession #12: I have a frequent and insistent daydream. I'm lying on the couch reading a book. That's it. I'm not daydreaming about winning the lottery or the drummer from Vampire Weekend. Just lying on a couch, in a quiet room, reading a book because honestly, that scenario is less likely to happen than winning the lottery and having the drummer from Vampire Weekend present me with the check. And I will confess that some days, I'm not entirely okay with that fact.

Confession #13: As infants, both of my children spit-up in my mouth. Yes, both. You would think that I learned the whole "don't hold a baby up in the air right over your face mere moments after they ate pureed beets " thing with Layla, but I didn't.

Confession #14: Layla acts exactly like me. She talks like me, she stands like me, she has a snarky attitude like me. 90% of the time she spends in time-out is for doing something that I probably would have done too. Ben is sweet and jolly and gets away with murder because he reminds me so much of Josh. This is gonna get interesting...

What can I say? Every day I try to laugh off my imperfections as a parent and to remind myself that perfection doesn't really exist. I try to save my crazy OCD level of  perfectionism for things I can control, like what I write, how well I do in school, and the frequency and volume I employ when yelling at the TV. I can't control, and don't want to control, people, especially my kids. As long as they don't suffer from the fact that Josh and I are really just making this up as we go, then I think everyone wins in the end.

And if nothing else, imperfect stories are much more entertaining.

My Soapbox: You're Only A Parent Once So WAKE UP!!

Here's a disturbing statistic: Twenty-three children have died this year (eight in the month of August alone and we're only half-way through the month) due to extreme heat overexposure because, in almost every case, their parents simply "forgot they were in the car".

Okay...really?!

This statistic both baffles and sickens me, but since I realize there is a fine line between outrage and self-righteousness (a line I feel I'm about to teeter precariously on), I'll try my best not to say that everyone who loses their child due to something that is entirely preventable is an idiot. They're not. I don't want to give the impression that I feel like I'm a better parent than anyone else. I'm not. No matter what, losing a child is a horrific tragedy and these tragedies aren't specific to a certain socioeconomic class, race, or gender. We're all human and we are all capable of making mistakes.

That being said...

People are not stupid, but what they are is incredibly self-absorbed, which as far as I"m concerned, can be even more lethal than being stupid. I know, I write a blog. I spent hours of my life slaving over a hot computer, trying to perfectly formulate my every thought under the guise that someone, somewhere thinks that my opinion is important and articulate enough to read and possibly take seriously. How self-absorbed this that?! The difference is, this self-absorption has never (and will never) hurt anyone. I don't leave my kids unattended in a hundred degree car for hours so I can write about issues of injustice, when I'm committing the biggest act of injustice myself; not taking care of my kids.

Here's the thing. No matter how many wonderful days you have with your children, how many hugs they give, milestones they pass, finger paintings they create and how much love you accumulate in your life, the truth is that being a parent is really, really hard. I've  had moments where I'm so overwhelmed with the sheer responsibility of being in charge of two lives that I feel like I'm hyperventilating and crawling up the walls. It can be terrifying. But it's also a choice. I choose to be a parent and I choose to do the best I can possibly do.

If you need ten minutes to yourself, I get that. Believe me, I get it better than anyone else. But leaving your child in a sweltering car in the summertime with the windows rolled up so you can go walk around the mall is not a viable solution. Being a parent means you now come second. I know it sucks sometimes, especially when you feel like you never get a break, but from the minute that second line shows up on the pee stick, it's not about you anymore. You have a job to do and you only have one shot at it. No one is perfect, but we can all try. And just so we're all on the same page, forgetting your kid in the car because you're too busy thinking about the Iphone 4 or what Ryan Lochte looks like shirtless does NOT constitute trying.

And honestly, how do you truly forget that your kid is in the car? Yes, sometimes they fall asleep or are occupied by looking out the window or reading a book, but generally speaking, kids are hard to forget. For one, they're loud. They talk, talk, talk or if they're too young to talk, they will occasionally cry because they're bored, hungry, or just want to remind you that they're there. At least my kids were that way and I doubt very highly that they were abnormal in that regard. So my question is, what exactly are the parents doing? What's occupying their minds? And why aren't they paying attention to their kids?

Which brings me right back to self-absorbed. If you can forget about your kids, what exactly are your priorities? I can't think of a single time I forgot about my kids. Even when my kid's grandparents keep them for a night, I still think about them. I'm constantly worrying if they've eaten enough, are behaving well or are sleeping well. I'm by no means trying to suggest that I'm a better parent that anyone else, but my kids occupy a majority of my mind a majority of the time. So for me, even a night off isn't really a night off at all. The fact is, you just don't get time off when you're a parent. You are a parent twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, three hundred and sixty-five (or six) days a year until the second you kick the bucket. There are no sick days, no calling in late, and no excuses. That is the reality. So unless you're ready to face an unspeakable tragedy and lose what should be the most important thing in the world to you, get used to it.

We only get one shot at raising our kids. So wake up, get your head where it needs to be and take care of your business. Otherwise, be prepared to face the consequences.

Thanks. I feel much better now.