I officially understand why so many women fall prey to “the mommy look.”

When I got pregnant with my first child I spent my entire pregnancy worrying that motherhood would change me. It seemed like so many mothers just looked dowdy after they had kids — was that going to happen to me?!

Well … no. Not immediately. I returned to normal pretty quickly after that kid. After my second child was born, it took a lot longer for me to return to normal – not just my weight, but returning to myself. Some of it may have been postpartum depression, or just the enormous task of adjusting to a life with two kids instead of one. Either way, it threw me for a major loop.

Now I’m almost 6 weeks postpartum after having my third child and I think this one might have done me in. I have a big tummy pooch that looks like it might be permanent, and I finally, truly, understand why someone would want to put on “mom jeans.” I feel like I have to stuff that shit somewhere … may as well be into a pair of high-waisted pants. 

Husband and I had a wedding to attend last Saturday night, which I was very much looking forward to just as an excuse to get dressed in normal clothes and get OUT. Did I know these people? No. Did it matter? No. I was PUMPED.

I went to Dillard’s with a 20 minute child-free time frame in which to shop, and started trying on dresses. For me personally, dress sizes are much more forgiving than, say, pant sizes. I usually like to shop for a new dress, but this time was different. Everything I tried on was a size 12 that I struggled to zip up. There was one dress that I was fairly certain I was going to asphyxiate in and I had a moment where I thought, “Awesome, I’m going to die in a synthetic blend.” 

I had trouble finding anything that looked appropriate for a wedding or any other occasion, for that matter. Eventually I narrowed it down, took a good hard look, and realized I was going to have to select the least-matronly one.

I felt like Barbara Bush.

After this, I got it. This is why mommies look like mommies. Finding clothes that are fashionable and fit correctly takes time. Most moms don’t have any time. I vowed right there in the dressing room to make sure I give myself time to get it together in the coming months, because I’m not going to resign to living in ill-fitting clothes for the rest of my 30’s. 

Happily, I did manage to put together a decent outfit for under $30 and I felt normal for the first time in a very long time. It was worth it to fight for myself. So I want to encourage you to also fight for yourself! Fight for time and space and those little luxuries that make your life pleasant. Even if it’s a $28 dress from the clearance rack that you might not ever wear again. You are important, and you do everyone a disservice (including your children) if you don’t act like you know it. 

It takes a village an army.

That is all.

I made it to the 5-week mark!

Sorry if the counting of weeks gets tiresome, but these are big milestones for me and I am DAMN PROUD of them. 

Here are a few pictures from this week:

I love my job.

I find Husband’s lack of a sense of smell fascinating. 

For three days, I have been battling a pee smell in the boy’s bathroom that I just couldn’t get rid of. It smelled like a disgusting public restroom, and seemed to be getting worse by the day. I wiped down the walls, the toilet, and the floor — and still the smell persisted.

Finally, in exasperation I sent Husband on a mission to find the smell.

Me: Where’s it coming from?!

Husband: I don’t smell anything.

Me: What?! It STINKS in there. What do you mean you can’t smell anything? 

Husband: All I smell is cleaning stuff.

So I marched back in, determined to locate the source, and … I found it. 

A trash can full of days-old pee.

I couldn’t decide whether to be totally grossed out or angry at the culprit or AMAZED that Husband couldn’t smell that smell. I finally settled on all three. But I’ve decided to forgive him for his lack of olfaction, and this is why:

  
I know. So cute.

Here’s the culprit who peed in the trash can. But I’ve decided to forgive him as well, simply based on cuteness.

I kind of feel like I’m lying to you every time I say that this three-kid thing is going well, because that might lead you to believe that it’s easy.

It’s not.

“It’s going well” is my way of saying “No one, including myself, has been hospitalized yet.” Because seriously — there’s something to be said for that. My days are filled with tomfoolery that would make for some highly entertaining stories … if I had the time to tell them.

The truth is, I can’t even brush my teeth or go to the bathroom without someone doing one (or all) of the following:

1. Crying
2. Beating on the door
3. Screaming “MOMMY!!!” as if there was a knife-wielding burglar in the house
4. Using my absence as an opportunity to drink half and half directly from the carton.

Husband leaves in the morning and it’s just 12 straight hours of relentless chaos until I tuck their little bodies into bed. It’s hard; I’m pushed to my limit every single day. By 4 p.m. I normally start questioning why I had all of these children. By 5 p.m. I’ve HAD IT. I start fantasizing about getting in the van and driving somewhere far away. I start feeling like I can’t possibly deal with another weird issue, seriously, STOP BLOWING YOUR NOSE ON THE FLOOR.

But we muddle through, because I am a God-fearing woman and my God-fearing mother prays for me daily and I really think I must be on several prayer lists somewhere. At 6 p.m. I start the arduous process of bathing them and putting each one to bed in the order of youngest to oldest. After the house is quiet at 8 p.m. and I have a little while to pull myself together, I feel like I can face another day. Maybe. And then, after all of that, Husband comes home. 

Lately I’ve found myself in moments of complete exasperation asking myself or my friends, “Why am I doing this to myself?! How did I get here?! Because this SHIT is BANANAS.”

Thankfully, my exasperation passes and when I can think clearly I know exactly why and how I got to this place. As maddening and chaotic and overwhelming as this situation is, it is equally as magical and hilarious and soul-filling. They are terrible and wonderful creatures, children. They are sucking the life out of us and filling our house with joy all at the same time.

It’s hard to know if what I’m doing every day makes a difference, and I cling to the moments where I see all of the love and work I’m pouring into these kids come back out of them and into their world. Yesterday, Asher peeked under Pepper’s blanket in the car and said, “I wuv you Pepper!” It was so surprising — I had never heard him say that many words strung together — and, of course, cute that I had to pull over and take a picture of it.

I find things like this …

Playing dress up … ?

Trying to make himself as small as his sister.

My kids love each other, and we’re all learning to be patient with everyone including ourselves, and no one ever died of eating too many Eggo waffles. 

I think.

This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. 

And it really is bananas.

Once I start getting out more I’ll have other things to talk about, but right now, this is my life:

I have moments where I think, “I JUST WANT TO SHOWER IN PEACE!!” Because I do. But this is a season of my life, and I am embracing it as much as I can. Soon it will be over and we will move on to a different season; hopefully I’ll be able to wash my hair more often in the next one.

Mothers need encouragement.

Actually, all women need encouragement. Not just mothers. I’m saying mothers need it because I am one and currently I’m up to my NECK IN CHILDREN. 

It’s funny how you continue to grow as a person even in adulthood. I’ve had some remarkably tough days lately, involving things like all three of my kids crying at the same time for different reasons as I threw microwaved pizza on paper plates and dumped applesauce into bowls and stubbed all of my toes on various pieces of furniture because I was rushing to put something in their mouths to stop the whining and crying. 

A few years ago, an evening that stressful would have wrecked me. Like I would have probably yelled at them to stop whining/crying/asking incessant questions/screeching, which would have made them do it even more, and then I would have written an angry blog post about my children who are clearly trying to ruin me — RUIN me, I tell you.

Yes, that is Scotch tape.

Now I have reached a place where I realize that I’m not being ruined, I’m being worn in. My entire body has expanded and contracted three times to accommodate new life. My lap has been climbed into hundreds of times, my arms have carried 7 pounds and 47 pounds, my shoulders have been gummed by teething babies, and I have dealt with SO MANY ODD SITUATIONS, OMG, THEY CAN STOP NOW, thanks to my oldest son.

No … my children aren’t trying to ruin me. They are, without even being aware of it, shaping me.

Today is the first day that I felt like my old self: The Girl Who Can’t Sit Down. I’m trying to soak it in while I can, before someone flushes another toy down the toilet or eats a bug off the floor or runs naked through the front yard at dinnertime.

Today, I dusted my house. I ran errands, I took a shower, I ate real meals at the table and I even took a kid to story time at the library. That was … SOMETHING. I’m no rookie mom, but sitting in a crowd of harried women wrangling screaming toddlers shook me up a little. I kept looking around thinking, “This is who I am now. I’m one of them.” It felt weird to me, because even though I was surrounded by young moms with young children I still didn’t feel like I was at home in that situation. They all looked so exhausted. DO I LOOK THAT EXHAUSTED? 

Honestly, I don’t know why I don’t ever feel like I fit in a particular category. I’m fairly certain it’s not them, it’s me. In the middle of story time a toddler girl threw a fit, like a hysterical, shrieking, red-faced FIT, and I started silent-laughing uncontrollably. I tried to stop, but the more she screamed, the more I silent-laughed. My whole body was shaking as her mother carted her off. We could hear her shrieking from way across the library. And then I thought, yes — that’s what the problem is. I have weird humor and laugh at inappropriate times and all of these other moms seemed like they were too damn tired to laugh AT ANYTHING.

Husband keeps telling me I need to make more stay-at-home mom friends, but after today I think most stay-at-home moms are borderline batty and we — I include myself in this statement — are all so focused on making sure we remember to clothe everyone before they go outside that it can be hard to form new friendships. My method of coping is just to laugh at everything … it really doesn’t matter if it’s an appropriate time or not. Because if I wasn’t laughing, I would be emoting something else and it wouldn’t be nearly as pleasant.

So I guess my new goal is to find mommy friends who don’t find my humor off-putting, because if your kid or mine throws a red-faced, hysterical FIT I’m definitely going to silent-laugh. What else are you going to do?!