I’d like to think I’m a pretty good mom… (at least most of the time) I’m not winning any awards, but I love my small people fiercely, and I’ve always believed that matters most. They don’t go hungry (check!), they have a roof over their little heads (check!), they are, as I type, sitting in a classroom LEARNING (check!), there are friends and family close by (check!), sports to keep them busy (check!) and….lucky them – as a bonus – I am both fun and funny. (check!)
Like you, I make lunches and dinners, help with homework, carpool, sit on the sidelines of many of beloved game, wash those beloved uniforms, listen when they are frustrated, hug when they are happy or sad and still tuck them in at night.
What’s not to love?
Sometimes I fail.
Miserably.
I somehow manage to head to bed many nights and wake up many mornings feeling a little (or a lot) guilty about something.
I yelled. (they deserved it)
I decided I wasn’t making school lunches anymore. They are old enough, gosh darn it – and the day my 9 year old told me he didn’t know how to make himself peanut butter toast about DID ME IN.
I have officially stopped ‘helping’ every time my kids can’t open a package, decipher a word, fold a piece of their laundry, or understand the directions. Admittedly, I feel pretty darn sh*tty every time I say ‘figure it out’.
And every time I lose another permission slip.
And every time I miss a game or other important function.
And every time I didn’t know there was a test.
And every time I let them sit on their devices just so I can have some quiet.
And every time I decided NOT to wash those baseball pants before the game (the dirt from the last game is good luck, right?)
And every time I let ‘lunch’ or ‘dinner’ be nachos from the concession stands at the fields during tournament weekend. Or worse, breakfast. Yuck.
And yet I’m buoyed to know I’m not alone.
My friends Alicia Ybarbo and Mary Ann Zoellner, Emmy-award winning producers from NBC’s TODAY Show, have written their second book together, Sh*tty Mom for All Seasons – what they call both a ‘how to’ and a ‘how-not-to’ – filled with the kind of advice that allows you avoid, ignore and feel free to hide in the bathroom to keep reading the book.
Sh*tty Mom for All Seasons is a survival guide broken down in to each season. I laughed from the moment I open the book, until the very last page. Scratch that – I guffawed. And I don’t guffaw. Just ask my husband. He wanted to know what had me going, but I had to explain – he just wouldn’t understand.
Let’s talk a little about two of the seasons – my favorite, Summer….and my very least – Winter.
Summer:
It is as though they are living at my home over the Summer. From the grandiose plans to have the kids do some ‘work’ on their ‘workbooks’ – the ones that are inevitably two pages complete by August, to the frustrations with teenage babysitters who couldn’t care less about your kids and spend their days texting, to the ambitious plans you had to go strawberry picking and head to local music festivals – when in fact you send your kids out to play in the neighborhood…and that’s good enough (it was good enough for you as a kid, right?)
Winter:
How to Go Sledding:
You promised to take the kids sledding, but you can’t find the sleds. Acceptable substitutes include….
a) trash can lids
b) serving platters
c) discarded pieces of metal roofing
d) the cat’s litter box
The answer is anything but d. Sharp metal objects won’t create an indoor mess. After a long night in the ER, the last thing you won’t to deal with is scattered cat feces.
I will add – the authors are even better mothers than I…. there needs to be an E option…as I do not go sledding. I send them with their father. This mother officially opts out of Winter. Extra Sh*tty, yes?
These are my friends who not only understand the beauty of shortcuts in parenting and motherhood, but they wholeheartedly embrace them. In fact, they celebrate them. If we lived in the same city, rather than half a country apart, I’m confident we’d buy birthday cupcakes together instead of baking them. We’d happily ignore our children together, while gabbing and catching up – because sometimes there is nothing more beautiful than laughing and being just that Sh*tty together.
Be sure to add Sh*tty Mom for All Seasons to your reading list…it’s like sitting with two friends who want to make sure you laugh and love this parenting journey as much as possible and that you never, ever feel alone.
(If you missed Alicia’s and Mary Ann’s first book, Sh*tty Mom – The Parenting Guide for the Rest of Us – grab that one too!).
**I am excited to have been gifted a copy of Sh*tty Mom for All Seasons the week it was released. As always, all thoughts and opinions are mine and mine alone.
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