You have to scream to get anyone to listen to you!!

This seems to be a universal mom thing. No one seems to listen or pay attention to you until you turn into a stark, raving lunatic. Then, they all stand around and try to figure out why the men in the white jackets are taking Mommy away.

If you constantly have boogers on your shirt and they’re not even yours!

My son has a terrible habit. It starts off cute; he snuggles close to you. Then, BAM! He wipes his nose all over you. It’s horrifying and gross. When it happens, you have no reaction but to stand there and stare in horror at the white, yellow, and green streaks running across your shirt or pants. What’s even worse is this is a repeat behavior. Why not stop it? Because, I’m a mother and I can’t turn down snuggles from my kids. All too soon they grow up into snotty, know it all teenagers. So, for now, I’ll deal with a little snot on my clothes.

Puke and poop no longer bother you.

It’s true. Eventually, you’ll get to the point where you can clean up poop and puke from your kids and still eat your sandwich! Hopefully, you wash your hands in between those activities. After a while, you’ll be able to tell when your kid is about to go Mount Vesuvias and catch vomit with your bare hands. Have been peed, pooped, or puked on! Bonus points for a combination of two. Super extra points for all three at the same time.

And speaking of poop…

Sniffing another human’s butt several times a day is considered normal. A mother’s nose becomes a sensitive as a bloodhound’s the day she conceives. During pregnancy, the slightest whiff of cucumber melon can turn her stomach. On the other hand, a hint of vanilla can turn a pregnant mother into a ravenous bear freshly woken from its winter hibernation. This is all to prepare you for the inevitable. There will come a time when you are in Wal-Mart with your sweet, precious, adorable bundle of drool and you will smell the most stomach churning stench. You’ll look around to see if there’s a Captain D’s dumpster fire anywhere around. Alas, all that’s there is you and your offspring. Like Indiana Jones, you carefully lift your baby up and sniff. The source of the gut wrenching odor has been discovered. Congratulations, this is the first in a series of butt sniffs that is now part of your life.

You embarrass your kids.

Let’s face it. It is our God given right to embarrass our kids. We, as parents, are not supposed to be cool. For moms, that goes double. Moms are not supposed to wear cool clothes but also don’t let your kids catch you in yoga pants and a tank top. You will never hear the end of it. You will scar those children of yours for their entire lives. They’ll be thirty on a psychiatrist’s couch talking about that day Mama bent over in the garden while she was wearing those black yoga pants. And guess who will be paying for those shrink sessions? That’s right. You. You will have the honor of paying for being comfortable. My advice: stop trying. Just fade into the background and only resurface when money and cookies are asked for.

If you spit wash someone’s face!

I’m 98% sure most of us have been subjected to this as kids. When it was happening we swore to our future offspring we would never make them suffer this indignity. Then it happened. You took your kid to the zoo and bought him an ice cream cone. In 90 degree heat. Quicker than a cheetah on a gazelle you whipped out the napkin, spit on it, and started wiping your child’s face. The horrified look on your dear, sweet baby’s face is nothing to the look on yours when you realize YOU HAVE JUST BECOME YOUR MOTHER!!!! There’s no going back from this point. There is no U-turn. No off ramp. You are on the expressway straight to “I’ve Become My Mother-ville.” Soon, you’ll be saying things like, “If your friends jumped off a bridge, would you?” It’s a slippery slope indeed.

You regularly have a spectator when you use the bathroom.

What is the deal with this? Why? Just why? What is so fascinating about me in the bathroom? I assure you, when I’m in the bathroom, I am at my least interesting. I’m not really doing anything. Most of the time I’m in and out. Five minutes. As opposed to my husband. I tell my husband I need to make my lunch, dress the T Rex, make him a peanut butter waffle, take him to his gramma’s, and my husband disappears into the bathroom. He’s like the rabbit in a magicians hat. Gone. POOF! The amazing disappearing husband. Of course when I get back from dropping our son off at my mother in law’s my husband immerges like the groundhog in February. Convenient. Maybe if he had an audience he would move a little faster in there.

You look at the teacher with extreme doubt when she tells you your child is quiet, studious and very polite to everyone.

First, let me tell you, this was said by my mother. My dear and loving mother. My sweet, little, gray, mushroom mama. My back hurts from where this particular knife has settled. That being said, it’s true. All of it. Your kid totally acts differently at school than she does at home. Why? Because you have to love her no matter what. It’s not an option. Unless you’re a craptastic mom and just schlep your kid off on someone to raise them while you go live your extra life. But you’re not that kind of mom. Are you? No. You’re a mom who loves your kid even when they use your lipstick on the wall or backtalk you. Because, in the end, that’s your baby and they always will be.

The only songs stuck in your head are from “Disney Junior” or “Paw Patrol.”

My sympathies if “Daddy Finger” is the song on loop in your head. Even moreso if you are still singing “Jingle Bells” because it’s STILL your child’s new favorite song. In the same train of thought, you may find yourself humming the “Paw Patrol” theme song well after your kid has gone to bed. The majority of the TV shows you watch are animated. Those songs are going to stick in your head like gum in your hair. I found myself watching “Dinosaur Train” well after my 4 year old had fallen asleep.

Going to the grocery store alone feels like an exciting mini vacation.

Sad, but true. As a mother, you get genuinely excited about going grocery shopping alone. No tantrums. No surprise items in the cart. Just peace and quiet and the other crazies of Wal-Mart. Your only ME time is rush hour. 4. Driving alone in your car feels like the great escape.

And speaking of going out alone…

When you go out alone carrying nothing but your purse, you have a constant feeling that you are forgetting something because you don’t have twelve bags and a child to carry. I have seen these mom’s with just a purse and a kid. I don’t know how they do it. My son is four years old and we still leave with my purse, a water bottle, and a bag of dinosaurs. I can’t even imagine just leaving the house with nothing but my own bag. That alone has my wallet, a small tablet laptop, pens, a small notebook, some snacks, hand sanitizer, lotion, a lock, and my ear fuzzies for my headset at work. It’s a miracle I can carry that thing without a sherpa. If I left with any thing less I would assume I was missing something.

Sleeping in means waking up at 7:00 am.

As a mom, you stop fantasizing about being rich, famous, and on the arm of Chris Pratt. Instead, you fantasize regularly about sleeping. You might as well change your address and update your driver’s license. You now live in the state of exhaustion.

You can’t remember the last time you finished a coffee while it was still warm.

As I’m writing this, I have a half cup of tepid coffee sitting on my table. My left arm is currently being used as a bench for my four year old. And microwaved coffee is just not ok. There are several unforgivable crimes in life. Wearing white after Labor Day. Mixing patterns like polka dots and stripes. And microwaving coffee. What did coffee ever do to you do deserve that kind of treatment? Coffee is a warm, loving embrace first thing in the morning. It reminds us who we could be with enough caffeine, dry shampoo, and motivation. Your coffee deserves better than a microwave.

And speaking of dry shampoo…

Dry shampoo is now your go to hair styling product. Forget mousse. Good bye, cans of Aqua-net. Dry shampoo and a hair tie are now your best friends. You’re gonna rock that mom bun and mom ponytail like no one else.

You pee a little when you laugh too hard. Or sneeze too hard.

Or cough. Let’s not even talk about jumping jacks. Allergy season is now officially also Depends season. You leak pee when you sneeze or cough before you have enough time to brace for it. Remember those times you laughed at your mom for crossing her legs when she coughed or sneezed? Yeah, welcome to your karma.

You are desperate for your baby to sleep so you can finally get some sleep or alone time or stuff done.

You’ll hear it a lot. Sleep when the baby sleeps. Work when the baby sleeps. Eat when the baby sleeps. Apparently, some people had narcoleptic infants. If I slept or cleaned or took a shower only when kid slept I would have looked like a celebrity mugshot. You know the one. The kind you look at like “Oh my gosh, what happened to her?” And the lady behind you says, “She had kids. That was the end of it.” The lack of caffeine and hygiene and sleep now has you in a more understanding place of epic celebrity mental breakdowns. Add yo this the weird phenomenon of phantom baby crying syndrome. This is when you think you hear the baby crying when you’re in the shower. Or falling asleep. Or changing your day leggings into your night yoga pants. Or anything you’re doing when the baby isn’t directly in your line of sight.

You sometimes hide to eat a snack so you don’t have to share.

This is not a joke. This is not a drill. I currently have a stash of chocolate in a broccoli box in the freezer. I have Oreos in a tampon box in my towel closet. I turn the shower on and lock the door so my family can’t hear me open the pack. The same kids that never hear you until you’re stark raving lunatic screaming so loud the neighbors start picking up their toys and brushing their teeth are the same kids who can hear a candy wrapper crinkle in the middle of an F5 tornado.

Your daily exercise routine used to be a 5 mile run followed by an hour of Zumba and some yoga thrown in for fun.

Now, your fitness routine is picking up your baby (which progressively gets heavier) no less than fifty times a day. That turns into cardio which is just chasing your toddler and grabbing things before he can put it in his mouth. Don’t forget your calf raises as your doing three loads if laundry a day (five if you cloth diaper) and squats as you put the laundry in the dryer. Then you get your upper body in by folding and hanging all that laundry. Keep in mind you still need to vacuum and do dishes while you’re at it. Don’t worry about missing yoga. That’s now called “Changing Your Toddler’s Diaper.”

Finally, despite the diaper explosions, exhaustion, snot, bad attitudes, and everything in between you wouldnt give up the mom life for anything.

Because you know mom life is the best life for you. And even though a change of scenery would be nice and a little less snark from your teens would be amazing you wouldn’t trade this for all the chocolate, wine, or Chris Pratts in the world. And that’s why you wake up and do it all over again. Every day. All day. (News flash – it doesn’t change when they grow up either.)