It’s not a secret that the image of a frazzled mom is kinda played out. We’ve all seen the commercials that make it appear like a khaki-clad mom is experiencing the ultimate frustration when mopping the floor, or feeding her toddler, or leaving the house with kids. I mean, is there anything that’s tougher than corralling a trio of uniformed kids into a van for a soccer game? I mean, aside from getting a teething toddler back to sleep at four in the morning. Oh, and also distracting a hungry toddler long enough to prepare dinner.
Most of time time, I find these portrayals to be far from realistic. I mean, who wears khakis anymore, aside from people who work in retail (I see you guys, you have my heart). Still, I have indeed found that getting myself out the door with a kiddo can in fact be a total and complete sh*tshow. And I only have one child! I bow down to people with two or more kids and who manage to function in society. Actually, even if you have kids and you don’t function in society, you are still my sheroes.
I’m almost two years into motherhood and I’m rarely smooth with exits. I thought that getting myself ready and out the door before I had kids was a miraculous feat, and I assumed that doing so after becoming a mom would be basically the same. Like, maybe it would take a few more minutes, but mostly how hard could it be to get myself plus a little baby/kid ready to go? 10% more effort, tops. This is what I thought getting ready would be like. I was, as I'm sure you've guessed, vastly underestimating how difficult it would be. Here's how comically off-base my pre-baby concept of leaving the house with a kid was: