My Parenting is Worse than Your Parenting

I read the most amazing mom-meltdown end-of-school article last weekend. It spoke my language. I love my kids, I love their school. I LOVE their teachers! But I am over all of it. All. Of. It. 

I, too, have completely abandon the homework binder - so much so that now I just leave it at home. I can't even bear to put it in their backpacks for fear it will come back with more stuff inside of it. 

For snack this week, Andrew was assigned “dairy” and Max a “vegetable.” I swear to you that today, at 7:59am, I put two balls of almost-expired fresh mozzarella in to Andrew’s bag, and a handful of questionable cucumbers that I found in the back of the veggie drawer in to Max’s. Somewhere, as we speak, elementary school children are gagging. Kids other than just my own hate me for my choices. And I'm totally fine with it. 

Here's how May has been going in my house... 

Max's lunchbox reeks of fish... a byproduct of him asking for fish sticks in his lunch, then refusing to eat them because they were cold... then leaving said fish in said lunchbox in the van.. all weekend.  

Andrew's shoes have laces that are straight-up shredded. He can't tie them anyway... I don't see the point in replacing them right now. They will teach him that next year in school, right?* For now, bring on summer and Crocs. 

*Dear sweet, amazing, teachers. I do not expect this. I'm fully aware that I should teach my kid to tie his own shoes. You are patient, kind, angels of the classroom and I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I am a complete sack of exhaustion and no help to you as you try to instill skills and values into my child. I will bring you a very nice gift card on the last day of class. Probably wine as well. Definitely wine. I'm sorry that I said "probably." That was dumb.  

I shared my new favorite mom-meltdown article with my Audiology bestie, Phallon Doss of DossAudiology, a Decibels 180 VIP and a certified mom badass.  Her responding text was epic:

I live that article! That is so how I'm gonna be when Allysa starts "real" school.  I'm having a hard enough time remembering to send her with a show and tell every week (by the way I forgot yesterday and she had to show an un-sharpened pencil she found in her backpack)!

As I read this, I envisioned little Allysa, show and tell approaching, scrambling through her backpack, knowing she didn't have what she needed, but handling it.. like a boss. 

I was composing a text back to Phallon to say "Trust me, my parenting is worse than your parenting. Maybe we're not the kind of moms that pack pretty lunches or fire up hot glue guns! Maybe we forget their show-and-tell. Maybe we don't alllwwwayyys check that our kids are actually wearing pants before we put them in the car.  But our kids have been taught to handle things. To pull it off. To work with what they've got. And that's life." 

Then, folks, she sent me this... 

I'm still laughing about it... two hours later :) 

This should win a Pulitzer Prize for parenthood photography. I see something different every time I look at it. The chair. The food on the floor. The little guy going on about his day as though not a damn thing is wrong with his sister or the chair on her face.  

I love it so much. 

Work hard, super moms. Love them the way you can. Because no one is going to sharpen your pencil for you. Show it anyway. 

P.S. Speaking of badass women, look at these hotties I found at Starkey this weekend! Love my girls Phallon, Gyl and Michelle... and we all loved that chandelier!!