Do we look like normal, functional people? 

Photo credit: Leigh Anne Wilbanks

Like when I see a picture of myself, or my kids, we look totally NOT like we just made a scene in our local Rite Aid. 

After the past few weeks I’ve had, I really don’t think I’ll judge another mom ever again. We’re all just trying to do the best we can, I’ve decided. Usually when I tell stories of public embarrassment it’s because of something one of my kids did or said. Today, I was the one who lost my crap. I was the one who cried in front of total strangers and I was the one who left a trail of items all the way out the door of the drugstore, snatching them from children’s hands and literally tossing them to the floor as we made our way out.

I’d like to forget today ever happened, because wow, but I’m writing about it so I never forget. When things are somewhat manageable, and I don’t have to struggle quite as much to keep it together, I forget what it’s like. This. The impossible task of motherhood when it’s so hard that I’d quit if I could but I can’t because you don’t get to do that when you’re a mother. Even if you’re a horrible mother and you think that you can quit or leave, you can’t. Not really. YOU ARE ALWAYS STILL A MOTHER.

So on days like today, when I feel like I have entirely too many kids and I can’t possibly meet their needs, let alone my own, and my scalp starts itching from stress and I don’t eat real meals for sometimes five days or more in a row … and then I have to run an errand … I am humbled. The people who saw me today totally judged me and I don’t blame them. I would have too. But I hope that the experience stays with me for awhile so I can offer some grace to another struggling mom. 

The experience of parenting three kids is so intense, and adding in a move or illness just sends us spiraling into Crazy Town. I completely stop cooking, we’re never clothed properly, we don’t have food in the house — things unravel quickly. I find myself shouting to my husband, “I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO FEED THEM!” as I hand a kid an entire box of cereal to eat with his bare hands. Some women say they go days without showering or washing their hair, but I’m too vain for that. I’ll shower and forgo other important things, like bill-paying and family nutrition.

Which reminds me — one of the things I threw on the floor on our way out was vitamins. 

The next time I’m in a store and I see a woman laden with child(ren) really, truly, struggling not to cry or scream or freaking tear into the biggest bag of peanut M&M’s she can find and eat them right there in the aisle and throw the paper on the floor because she is just so DONE … I’m going to tell her I’ve been there and she should just do whatever she needs to do. That’s my new mantra: Just Do What You Need To Do.

No judgement here. I’ll pick up your wrappers. You eat that candy, girl. Better to do that than to eat your young.