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Mommy Madness: I'm a Mess

By Harmony Hobbs:

I fear I am becoming a mess.

Let me back up … clearly, I am already what you could classify as a “mess.” But before now, most of my messiness was hidden. It was either in my brain or in the kitchen drawers. You kind of had to get to know me before you found out the full extent of it. And now … it’s OUT THERE. Now, I get nods of sympathy in the grocery store.  I do things like throw away an $80 gift card. Why? I don’t know. It just happened.

I ruined my husband’s fancy shirts, not once, but twice. I lose everything. I run over a curb at the gym almost every damn day, and recently I almost hit a PERSON because my three-year-old was chattering at me and the baby was yelling at me and I was trying to back out of a parking spot and … well … luckily I saw the woman in time.

In month seven of this stay-at-home-mom gig, I have become a scatterbrained, bad-driving, messy, always-rumpled, children-crawling-all-over-me-in-the-post-office, mess. On the rare occasions that I do get away from my kids and go somewhere by myself, I try to make a point to dress nicely and pull it all together. That way I can pretend for just an hour or two that I’m normal again. But then, something happens like I forget my wallet or drive off with the gas pump stuck in the tank, and the jig is up – I am forced to face the fact that I no longer have it remotely together.

I am, in sum, a typical mom.

The thing is, my kids don’t care if I’m a disaster. They don’t even understand what a disaster looks like yet. Maybe by the time they are old enough to decipher this, I’ll have a better grip on things. Or maybe I won’t. All I know is, I LOVE THEM. I fight against dirt and snot and hunger every day and somehow I manage to put two clean and fed children to bed every night without hurting anyone. It’s a miracle, really.

And my husband … I know he notices that I’m not quite myself these days. But he knows better than to say anything. I would make him regret it. One thing I’ve got going for me is that when all he sees me in are workout clothes, pajamas, and leopard-print slippers, it sets the bar extremely low. So when I do manage to put on a normal outfit and do my hair and makeup, his eyes light up like it’s Christmas come early.

So, instead of adding“avoid becoming a mess” to my to-do list, I think I’ll just embrace it. It’s kind of liberating to be okay with being a walking disaster. Now I understand why so many people do it. Welcome me into your fold, O Tribe of Moms. I think I get it now.

About Harmony:

Harmony blew into Birmingham after Hurricane Katrina and recently quit her job to stay at home with her two boys. Her sanity is in question. Visit her blog at Modern Mommy Madness.

One thought on “Mommy Madness: I'm a Mess

  1. I love how you put it out there. I feel just like you mosy everyday, anf mu children arent babies anymore, they are growing onto lil young men, and I have two that are in the world of being grown, pne in college and one in the world of working. Then my lil ones as I call them, and they hate that I do. They are 13, 12, & 9. all boys except the 21 yr old in college. But my point is I get you so well…. I mpst everyday feel like some crazy lady about explode at any moment. I try to hide it and act like ive got it all together. But with each child being involved in some type of sport or four lol. There are days all I fel like I do is drive kids back and forth to and from one thing to tje next and somewhere in between all that there is laundry dishes cats dogs and bathes that take over two hrs, because we only have one shower although we hv two bathrooms only one shower wks. Thank u for ur article I dont feel quite so nutts now… Maybe this happens to all moms they just know how to hode it better than we do.. May you get some relief and we dont truely go crazy, your friend, Stacie Patterson

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