It’s the best feeling in the world: Laying down in bed at night, thinking about the great day you had, all the fun and educational activities you planned and successfully pulled off. All the smiles and laughter. The hugs and kisses. As you drift off to sleep your last fleeting thought is, “Today I was Super Mom!”
But if your life is anything at all like mine, most nights you fall asleep hoping tomorrow is at least a little bit better than today was, because Lord knows you can’t handle another day of what you just experienced!
You know, the days where smiles and laughter are replaced with crying and tantrums. The screams and shrieks that are at such a high decibel it’s a miracle your brain hasn’t turned to mush yet. I’m still amazed by how loud my 3.5 year old can be, and how long she can sustain such loud volumes, yet she has a hissy fit when she can hear a baby crying all the way on the other side of Costco!
Days where she’s upset when you open the box of chicken nuggets, because she doesn’t want chicken nuggets. Even though, five minutes ago, she ordered herself a chicken nugget Happy Meal.
Days where the wrong color bowl sends your kid into a swirling downward spiral before the bowl is even pulled out of the cupboard. Heck, even before you open the cupboard door and are only thinking of the bowl you’re about to pull out for her. Because the bowl you’re thinking about is only good for snacks, ice cream, and apple sauce, but not good enough for cereal. Even though it’s the same bowl you used yesterday for cereal.
Days where the baby gets poked one too many times by his sister while sleeping and refuses to nap the rest of the day and demands that you hold him in just the right way to keep him from screaming bloody murder because now he’s over tired. And of course, the way he wants to be held causes you to have nagging back pain because it’s the most unnatural position for a human body to sustain for any length of time.
Days where you’re not proud of the way you’ve dealt with the stress and chaos of the day, or the words that came out of your own mouth that day.
Days where your preschooler yells, over and over, “I DON’T WANT MILK OR MEAT. EVER. AGAIN!!!” Even though you just put a plate of cheese in front of her. Even though you finished eating two hours ago and have moved on to other non-food related activities.
Days where the baby decides he hasn’t pooped enough in his short life and ends up having three blowouts and three changes of clothes, all before noon.
Days where you’ve threatened to take away everything good in this world if she doesn’t get a grip on herself and start acting like a human rather than the psycho monster she’s turned into overnight.
Days where you miss out on much anticipated activities like play group, shopping, or library story time because there is no way you’re going out in public with the previously mentioned psycho monster.
Days where there is a melt down when the hot chocolate is actually hot, not cold like chocolate milk.
Days where you’ve just left your daughter’s room after putting her to bed for the night and discover the faint smell that’s been following you around all day is, in fact, you and not your kids because you realize you haven’t showered in three days. At the same time you make a mad dash for the bathroom because you also haven’t peed since 7 am that morning.
Days where both your kids have legitimately earned the nickname Crabby McFussface.
Days where you can’t wait for them to be over so you can go to bed and hopefully start over again the next morning.
We all have days like that, and many of us have more days like that than the kind where we feel like Super Mom. Days where we just try to survive and live to fight another day. “Mama said there’ll be days like this,” so know you’re not alone when you have ONE OF THOSE DAYS because chances are good I’m having one too!
**Post title from the song “Mama Said” by the Shirelles.
