Scary Mommy? Yep. That’s me.

Jill over at Scary Mommy is having this FABULOUS little contest…she wants to know what it is that makes us [well, me in this case] “Scary Mommy’s.” Say what you want, but mom’s of any age can be scary. There is no denying it. And since the prizes are so unbelievably awesome and I like the topic, I figured, what the heck? Can’t hurt to enter right? {By the way…the prize? A Flip Video camera!}

I’m not sure the things I do would classify me as a “scary mommy.” To me, that’s one of those pyscho moms that spends every waking moment of her day criticizing her children, screaming, giving unnecessary discipline measures, and never spends any real time with her children. That’s a “Scary Mommy.” But most of us, I think are just real. We can’t all be June Cleaver. Call me an under-achiever or lazy or whatever you want. But I don’t have a perfectly run household, the perfect post-baby body, and a grasp on all that is perfect & good for our children.

Allow me to elaborate…
<

*We eat McDonalds or Chick-Fil-A atleast once a week. Why? Because I either don’t feel like cooking or don’t feel like cleaning up the dishes after I do the cooking.

*I tend to wash clothes and leave them there for a day or two before they ever make it to my dryer. And then, it’s atlest 24 hours before they get folded up. My poor husband digs his work clothes out of the dryer several days a week just because I don’t fold them up.

* Thanks to Dave Ramsey & Financial Peace University, we don’t purchase a whole lot with a debit card…meaning I have to go in the store to pay for gas. Which means, I usually leave my 1 year old strapped in a locked car while I go inside to pay for it. Do you KNOW how much trouble it is to unstrap a child to walk 10 feet, only to turn around and have to put him back in?

*I leave Noah in the same clothes all day…until bath time. And then usually, especially since it’s Florida and ALWAYS ridiculously hot, most of the time I just leave him in a diaper. Why waste the clothes?

*I will give Noah almost anything to stop him from whining. [No, I’m not so horrible as to give him something that will hurt him] Seriously…spoons, paper to wad up, a child-proof tylenol bottle that he can shake. As long as it stops the whining, it’s game.

*I let Noah sit in front of the TV in the morning while I lay in bed and try to catch 30 more minutes of sleep. I plop him down with his cheerios and a cup of juice and let him play and watch his “shows.”

*I don’t do anything organic. So shoot me.

*I stay in my PJ’s almost all morning. I tend to wait until Noah takes his afternoon nap before I even bother to get a shower. I do this just in time for the husband to come home and see that I have actually done something during the day.

*I don’t usually clean during the week. I wipe down the counters and keep the floor swept, but I don’t do any hard cleaning until the weekend. That way, my beloved husband can watch the child while I get it done. Otherwise, I would be stopping every few minutes.

*The days Noah is excessively ill and whiney [usually when he is teething], I put him down for a nap and let him cry it out. Even if he doesn’t really need it, just because it’s the only thing that buys me any sanity. There are just some days when he gets in these moods when I can’t do anything with him.

But you know what? Despite all of my downfalls, I love my son [and my husband] more than anything on this Earth. I take my little boy to church every Sunday. I read to him [not as often as I should, but I do.] I spend a lot of time during the day down on the floor holding him and playing with him. We explore things together, I do my best and try my hardest to teach him. I PRAY for him [again, something I could do more of and alot more specifically]. I try to do what I can with what God has given me. Do I think I am perfect? Heck no. But I think that I am a good mother. I think that I am raising my son the best way that I can. I try each and every day to do better than I did the day before. And I thank God that he has blessed me with such an amazingly sweet little boy.