15 Mom Fails That Almost Every Mom Can Expect

It was a full month before I confessed to anyone else….

I told my sister in law that I forgot to buckle my son into his high chair and he flopped right out, the worst damage done was to my mom pride. She laughed at me.

Soon, these mortified moments of parenting became the hushed and giggled conversations I’d have with my sister or girlfriend over a glass of wine. And as more new moms entered into my social circle and the ‘confessions’ came out, I began to notice a trend.

You will screw up, you will feel horrible, but your kids will be alright…..

2. You will accidentally clip their nails too short or even worse get their skin pinched in the clippers. You will cry more than they do. This may also be the last time you clip your kids’ nails without bribery.

4. You will be all yelly (it’s a word) and short with kids one day and feel disgusting and guilty at the end of the day.  If they get up in the middle of the night you will rush in and guilt-cuddle (that’s a word too) them while singing them every lullaby and tv theme song you know – twice. If they don’t happen to wake, you will still go check on them before bed and just lay beside them kissing their forehead too many times and professing your love to them

 

5. Your car will be dirty, in a whole different way than pre-babies. More in a way that says ‘McD’s play place on wheels’. One Saturday you will be searching for ‘the smell’ (every parent’s car has one) and you’ll end up filling a garbage bag and two rubbermaid bins of random shoes, broken toys and food wrappers

 

6. You will watch too much tv. No matter what limits you have in your home, or what devices you have – there will be lots of DAYS (that we brush off as ‘a day’) of screen time. Fact is that moms don’t get sick days, or ‘pregnant and exhausted’ days, or ‘been up all night with the newborn’ days – but we do get to stream Diego on Netflix. Don’t worry though, tv is awesome.

7. You will lose a dirty diaper….somewhere. Don’t worry, you won’t realize it right away. Eventually, you will smell it and have to dismantle entire rooms or your vehicle to find it wedged under a carseat. Either way, take this time to pat yourself on the back for cleaning and decluttering said room or vehicle

 

8. You will feed them crap, more often than you ever intend to. A drive-thru run for French fries or a bag of Goldfish looks really like a sweet pina-colada-filled oasis after trying to make gluten-free, paleo, homemade lunches and fizzling out of the false romance and work that entails. Make this stuff cause YOU want it, and relent that your kids will eat your quinoa waffles no more than twice before they decide they didn’t like them anyway and ‘can I just have cereal please!?’.

9. You will fail at sleep training attempts. Because sleep training is as straightforward as learning how to use Android after life with an iPhone.  But you will try! You will read a book, learn a mantra and get geared up for the ‘three nights’ of training. Then when the time comes you will be whispering questions to your husband in the middle of the night desperate for an answer on what to do. While your baby cries echo through the house and your boobs begin to throb with a firey hot sleep-deprived ache. You will cave. Don’t worry, you can try again tomorrow…or next week

 

10. You will pretend not to smell a poopy diaper….and then whisper in your kid’s ears that they need to go give their dad a big hug. If he calls you on it, play dumb and challenge him to rock, paper, scissors – in the name of fairness

 

11. You will sneak-eat. A word which encompasses all the tactics moms use to hide their consumption of the ‘good food’ from their children’s hungry eyes

 

12. You will take credit for a random and brilliant thing your kid can suddenly do or say. Like the first time we realized our son knew all the alphabet letters. We both asked each other who taught it to him….thank you Super Why, we will take the credit from here

 

13. You will miss baths, toothbrushing, and diaper changes a little more often then you let on. The peaceful nightly routine you had with a newborn will slowly adapt into a metaphorical board game of parenting as more kids, more poop and more dirt come into your life. Landed on ‘crapped my pants’? Go back to ‘bathe the kids before noon’. Rolled a ‘pending dentist visit’? Pick up the ‘double up on dental hygiene for a week’ card.

 

14. You will lie to your kids, for their own good, of course. And by own good I mean so you can avoid another excruciating episode of Calliou or their relentless pleas for another park day. Besides, it helps their imagination if they believe that tiny invisible elves are repairing the spray park – or the book fairy took away that My Little Pony book for a kid who needed one – or we can’t watch any more Diego cause he has to go home and eat all the dinner that his mommy made just for him

 

15. The day you play a mental highlight reel asking yourself if your baby could roll off this bed or couch and conclude that they ‘aren’t there yet’ will be the day they roll of the bed or couch