7 Things To Know About Moms With Kids Under 5
Grooming. We rarely have time to wash our hair and shave our legs in the same day (week if I'm being honest). Hold your comments on our leg stubble. The "no shave season" is our best friend. And if we have the luxury to shampoo AND condition our hair, you can forget blow drying. The "mom cut" exists for a reason. There's no time for blow drying when there is french toast to be microwaved and lunch to pack. My towel-dried damp hair is hiding under a librarian bun or french braid at this moment. Today and every day. If our hair is blow dried/flat ironed, it's likely date night and we've asked the sitter to arrive 30 minutes early to allow time for this endeavor.
Phone Dates. If you miss your friend and "catching up" on life, chances are she does too. But there is literally not a moment of free time that is not scheduled. So, get on the schedule. This especially applies to working moms....Don't call a working mom during her career working hours expecting to chitty chat. She's busy. She has a boss who can hear the phone call and deadlines to meet. Rather you should text her and schedule a phone date at the convenience of both parties. It may be on a lunch break on the drive home or after bedtime. I have literally set a timer on my phone to call girlfriends whom I haven't spoken to in weeks/months. It's the only way I can make it work.
Tardiness. We are probably going to be late. To everything. This in no way indicates our lack of respect for whoever or whatever it is we're trying to meet or do. It is just our reality. Once a child is totally self-sufficient, I suppose this changes. But until then, everything is a gamble. We could wake up 2 hours early to still be 10 minutes late out the door. Perhaps you hit snooze too many times because you were awakened 3 times during the night by various family members and animals. Someone spilled cereal and milk all over the floor. Someone stepped in dog pee. The dog has taken someone's shoe outside into the yard that hasn't been mowed in 3 weeks. Good luck finding it. Or maybe you just could NOT find anything to wear that didn't need to be ironed or already have a stain on it. Once you're ready to go, you can't find your keys that you left in the fridge. You back over the trash can and have to stop to pick everything up, go inside to change your pants and wash your hands. I'm telling you the cosmos are working against us on being anywhere on time.
Mom Brain. It starts with pregnancy brain, which is not a myth by the way. It is legit. From the time you begin growing a life in your womb, they begin to eat your brain. And once they're born, it gets worse! You are a host to a brain parasite know as the human child. They literally suck the memory and reasoning out. Last week I went home on my lunch break and put my keys down in a compartment in the door of the fridge (where chocolate is hiding behind salad dressing). When I was ready to go back to work, I couldn't find them. I spent 20 minutes looking and got so stressed out I went to get a piece of chocolate. And there they were. Thank God I had and needed to eat chocolate or who knows how long I would have been looking. This morning I used my Keurig at work to make a cup of coffee. I set it to brew without placing a cup to catch the coffee. The drip basin completely filled with and overflowed with Pikes Place medium roast and I had a mess to clean up.
Vacation. A trip and a vacation are 2 very different things. When you take children with you, it is not, in any way, a vacation. It is a trip. A vacation implies you had the ability to fully relax, choose what YOU wanted to do, do it at your leisure and get a full nights sleep. A trip on the other hand, implies you are going to a designated location for what has the potential to be a good time with small humans who will eat all your snacks, dominate your schedule and hog the bed. You will also spend most of your budget on things for them during said trip to maintain your sanity - like a souvenir size frozen lemonade in a dinosaur cup and a Micky Mouse pocket fan with candy in the handle. Good times.
Help. If you know a mom that seems overwhelmed, help a sister out! Maybe she just needs a thinking of you card or a hug to know somebody on the planet appreciates her. Children don't learn or recognize the need to appreciate acts of service until much later in life. Maybe she needs a night off or a meal cooked for her. Side note: Dining out with young children isn't easy or fun. Eating in our own home is significantly easier even though there is clean up involved. Perhaps a few hours of child care so she can shave her legs and run errands without tiny people in tow would rock her world. If you don't know, ask her. Something a mom rarely hears is "What do you need?"
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