But I'm not going to do that to you.
Because it's a lie, is why.
For every picture of a toddler posed with book on knee, sunlight streaming in from just the right angle, there is another picture, the untaken picture, the sink full of dishes that didn't get washed, the take out containers in the trash from the uncooked dinner. For every picture of a kale salad bento-box there is another untaken picture of a kale salad that has been abused for 20 minutes, pushed around a plate while all the almonds or cheese cubes were surgically extracted. Sure. Some kids eat veggies. Mine do sometimes. I had a brief moment of glory in the grocery store the other day when my almost three year old and almost five year old (both wearing pants even!) yelled "WE WANT BELL PEPPERS!!! BELL PEPPERS ARE OUR FAVORITE!" while I navigated our cart through the produce section. Yeah bitches, my kids eat vegetables. Hell. My kids BEG for vegetables. I have got this motherhood thing LICKED I tell you.
And then there was today.
Breakfast. Homemade Granola (hot stove, slaved over it). Whole milk yogurt, I buy it unsweetened so that I can add just a little bit of locally sourced honey. Seasonal fruit, sliced up into child friendly sizes. I'm not immune to the hype. I try to be THAT mom. Plus this is my favorite breakfast. There is pretty much nothing I would rather eat in the morning than a big pile of cut up fruit with some yogurt and granola on it. In fact I remember eating pretty much this exact breakfast while growing up and LOVING it. My mom making granola in the big "convent" pan (so called because she bought it from a nun's garage sale) is one of my formative memories. I guess I didn't realize that I had so much invested in this fucking granola until my kids just flat out refused to eat the stuff.
More than just refused to eat it. They acted like the granola was poison and that by asking them to eat it I was basically trying to murder them. Plus they were also screaming about how cold they were while simultaneously refusing to put on clothes of any kind. Yeah.
And then on the way to camp my middle child extracted the liter sized water bottle from his backpack (because they have lost all the "kid" sized water bottles, lost with a frequency and thoroughness that makes me suspect that there is some sort of water bottle black market at camp and that they might be trading them for extra fruit snacks or something) and attempted to fill his sister's water bottle with it which resulted in his lap and car seat being thoroughly soaked. Not just soaked but wet in a very specific pattern which basically screams to all the parents and counselors that I meet on my way in from the parking lot "this child has pissed himself." Plus the extra water ran down into his backpack, which contained his extra set of clothing. So yeah. I dropped a soaking wet kid off at camp. I might have said something to the forlorn teenage counselor like "It's just water, lay him out in the sun or something," before high-tailing it back to my car as quickly as possible. This was one of those mothering situations that would be better handled by not-the-mother.
What about those other moms? They're doing it so much better. They're not losing their shit over granola and wet pants. They're cool. They put the water bottles in the front seat where the kids can't get their hands on them. Their kids eat their homemade food and say things like "Delicious mother! Might I please have some more if it's not too much trouble." Right?
Well...wait....so do mine, sometimes. I'm just seeing the wrong sometimes. Because nobody is going to show you the bad times, why would they. They don't want to remember those times so why would they want you to.
Except that those are some of my favorite times.
(adorable picture of my kids, fully outfitted in safety gear ready to enjoy a bike ride with the family)
(adorable picture of my passed out daughter along with a weeks worth of unfolded laundry)
