Real Mom Truths, Part Deux

You may remember Robyn recently wrote a post about Real Mom Truths and then tagged me and several others for their versions. Well, believe it or not, I am actually getting mine done before a month has passed! Here's what little I have learned in the last eleven years of momming...

Real Moms Are Master Multi-Taskers

One of the first things most women learn as moms is how to do many many things at the same time. If this skill is not acquired early on in motherhood, then you spend the rest of your mothering trying to play catch up. I can not only bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan, I can also do the laundry, talk on the phone, supervise the preteen doing homework, and keep the toddler from climbing on top of the refrigerator while I am doing it. If they would have put some moms in charge of the Iraq war? The insurgents would be gone, Baghdad would be rebuilt, and non-burka wearing moms would be having iced coffees at Starbucks on the corner of Camel and Bedouin Streets in Kabul by now. This is in no way meant to be an insult to our army. I am just saying that maybe if some tired moms of toddlers had been in command....

Real Moms Aren't Afraid of a Little Bodily Fluid

In the last eleven years, I have been peed, pooped, vomited, coughed, sneezed, and snotted on, sometimes all of the above within a 24 hour period. I can talk about bowel movements and mucus colors while enjoying dinner. I can hear stories of your childrens' sicknesses and the various things coming out of their bodies without blinking an eye. I can help my husband gut a deer and never give it a second thought. You think you can shock me, Hollywood? You think you can gross me out, Stephen King? You think you can remotely frighten me, Koontz? I am a mom. You are going to have to do waaaay better than possessed pets attacking owners.

Princess Poopy Goes to Church

Real Moms Are All Up in Their Kids' Bidness

I decided early on in this mothering gig that while most of my friends were busy trying to be their children's "friend", I would concentrate on being my childrens' Mother. This means that I know all about what is going on with the spawn at any given moment. I know who their friends are and who the friends' parents are. I know where the friends live. I know what the friends are into. Because you know what? You can't really know your kid unless you know his friends. I have put the kabosh on friendships that I felt were dangerous or destructive and encouraged the friendships where the other children had like moral values and upbringing. I don't put up with disrespect or sass from my kid or anyone else's while in my home. I demand certain behaviors from my oldest kid (the youngest is not yet two), and I get it. His friends consider me a strict mom, but you know what? They love me. They love coming over here. Because not only am I all up in my kid's face about what he's doing, where he's going and with who, I will also be the one to take the kids places, do things with them, and be just as goofy as them. I will dance around the kitchen doing a very bad American Idol audition while my son and his friends howl in laughter. I will speak to them using the words Dude and Like in a sentence 47 times. I will fake-fight them using karate chops and Matrix moves and screaming "Hiyah!" and threatening, "Boy, I'll smack you so hard your gramma be sayin' ouch!" Who are these parents, after their kids are arrested for doing something horrible, that say, "I had no idea Johnny was building WMDs in the garage!"

My son and his posse, planning world domination under the noses of the Great Grandparents.

And last but not least...

Real Moms Know Kids Are Weird Freak-like Little Creatures

What else could explain how they looooove mac and cheese one day and then scream like they're being tortured the very next time you offer it to them? Why they love the bath one night and the next refuse to get in the water? What can possibly account for the love of Teletubbies or radioactive turtles who fight crime in New York City?

It's true. Kids are freaks. They are strange. They make no sense. At all. Whatsoever. They are "Mommy, mommy, mommy!" one day, then the AllDaddyAllTheTime Channel the next. They love the plastic crap toys from McDonalds but eschew the educational Discovery toys you spent $24.95 on. They think farting should be an Olympic sport. They think burping is hilarious. The bigger of a fool you make of yourself, the harder they will laugh. Sugar them up and they act like lemurs on crack. You will spend your life trying to understand these funky space aliens that have landed in your home, wracking your brain to keep one step ahead of them. And when you think you have them all figured out? They change it up, just to drive you that much closer to the padded room.

It's a good thing the little freakshows are so fun. And lovable. And cute. And adorable. And then there's the whole They Make Life Worth Living thing too. Otherwise, mine would totally be out by the curb in a box with a sign around their necks reading, "Free To A Good Home....That Thinks Farting is Funny."