It's ok.

Lately a few people have asked me what’s the difference between having three children and having two, I think for me personally, it’s been realizing this, it’s okay if some days you are a screw-up Mom, you can start over tomorrow.

Babies one and two, (Evelyn and Ivy) came in super quick succession, just 13 months apart and at that point I was young and obsessed with this idea that I needed to be the best informed and perfect parent I could possibly be. I researched absolutely everything (and I mean everything) I spent hours on parenting forums comparing and seeking validation from other mums. When I did night feeds I kept myself awake by arguing with other parents on Facebook parenting pages about ridiculous non issues. I can cringe about it now, but back then, only five years ago, I was really dementedly obsessed with being the absolute best parent I could be that I couldn’t actually admit out loud to anybody in real life when I was having a bad day or when I screwed up (and there were a lot of those days).

Ivy was a co-sleeper, which I sold to everyone as this deep bonding experience that I adored, this was bullshit.  It was co-sleep or NO-sleep. I love my sleep and I function at best, poorly without it (replace poorly with * as a manically evil bitch* for a more accurate description) and so I had to train myself to sleep for a full year on one side, with my arm flat, Ivy lying in it, or none of us slept. That was 90% of nights. The other 10% she screamed bloody murder for no god damned reason at all except just to wind us all up.

Evelyn was a kid who loved to walk and thus walked EVERYWHERE, except one day when I walked to the supermarket and on the way back, having only brought the single pram and a buggy board she decided she was tired and also terrified of the buggy board and would comprise only to sit on it. Hahahahaha I uploaded to Facebook and sent to relatives. The truth was that I fumed and sweated the long walk home as she snivelled and Ivy slept.

The day of the buggy board

Then there was a day when after a super morning at the park we walked in the door and the girls immediately started to throw up everywhere and then I did, then Aaron came home and started too and we were all so ill that at one point there were just towels on the floor where various sick explosions had happened that we were all too ill to actually clean.

The fact is, for those first two years, if you didn’t know me that well, I would of presented you with a lovely little picture in which I tried to be a funny, happy, perfect parent and left out all the totally shit screw up days where I was far from that. Having baby number three, Arlo, a few years apart from the other two, has given me a different perspective, a lot more patience, it’s okay to screw up, it’s okay if 3 days out of 5, you arrive on the school playground as the bell goes, because hey, at least you got them there, right? It’s okay if you notice half way down the road that one of your kids has her shoes on the wrong feet because at least she has shoes on! It’s okay if you have to go back to the nursery twice a month to give in the snack you forgot to pack for your child because you had a million and one things going on that morning. It’s okay If your three your old was still swinging off the bunk bed at half past nine because some days she’s wild and feral and strong willed because she was born that bloody way and no amount of telling her off is ever going to get her bed before she decides shes tired (but you can convince yourself it was the last seriously very firm telling off that did it if you like)

Perfect parents don’t exist, you might see those moms who look like they have it all perfectly held together every day, who are never late, who look like they have never forgotten a non uniform day and done a mid school run turnaround, who have never left the house in a cardigan with a baby sick stain that they were fully aware of but just didn’t care, but they have, because they well put together parents are a lie. They screw up just like the rest of us do, they’ve had a baby poo explosion in the middle of a shopping centre, they’ve had to dash their daughter into a bush and hold them in the air whilst begging them not to wee on Mommy’s shoes, they’ve walked out of a room with their 6 month old in their arms and caught their heads on the corner of the door and they’ve gone out in a long top with a pair of jeans underneath that don’t quite do up.

Moral of the story is, it’s okay if you today you sucked as Mom, if your patience wore too thin, if you shouted, if you fed your kids the same thing for dinner that you did for lunch and for breakfast, If you meant to give them a bath but forgot, If you let them use the iPad for half an hour too long or if you put a film on to shut them up for an hour because they were driving you totally flipping mental, it’s okay if you turned your back for a minute (ten) and they drew all over themselves in pen, it’s okay if you bribed them to behave with 2 (4) biscuits. It’s okay if you felt like less than perfect, total screw up, not patient, crappy Mom today. Tomorrows another day.