My Weekend as a “Failed” Mom

Disclaimer: I honestly think I didn’t “fail” this weekend but it was not a magical long holiday weekend but due to the perfection disease that seems to be spreading I thought I would share with you a list of my failings this long holiday weekend.

1.  I did not “cook” Thanksgiving dinner.  I spent an hour re-heating a catering order from Wegmans.  Wegmans is a grocery store chain in my area which is an amazing place, it is totally worth it to do your shopping there on a regular basis but this time around Babci had originally thought of going out to dinner on Thanksgiving.  I have a moral dilemma with going out to eat on Thanksgiving.  In the US this is a national holiday, not a religious one, with some potentially nefarious roots if you dig into the history but I do appreciate the time to sit down with family.  Whether you make a big deal about it (i.e. go around the table and say what you’re thankful for) or just do it personally, it is nice to be reminded to be thankful for something.  But I digress….  Babci couldn’t get the reservation she wanted so I said I would cook, she suggested the catering order from Wegmans and as I thought about it, I liked that idea more and more.  The first time I called to order the dinner they were all out of turkey meals so the Mr. and I came up with an alternate plan (sub sandwiches or “hoagies” if you live around here) but when I went to order the second time they had turkeys.  I’m guessing they rationed them so they had some to sell all week.  I had actually come to terms with the sandwiches and was at peace with my non-traditional dinner (and to be fair after the fact I really wish I had sandwich leftovers and not turkey…mental note for next year) because to me the holiday isn’t about WHAT food you eat, it’s about WHY you’re eating it (being thankful) and WHO you’re eating it with.
2. The second mom failing of the weekend came when I sent the munchkin to daycare on Black Friday *gasp*! We did not have to travel.  In fact the Mr. was working all Thanksgiving day so we made people come to us (and the same will be happening on Christmas…well not the work part but people coming to us part…we have the kid!).  If you are not familiar with daycare rules, for the most part, I would say 99% of the time you pay whether your kid is there or not.  On one hand, I totally get it, I hope they paid their employees for the Thanksgiving holiday even though they were closed, but on the other hand I hate the idea of having to shell out that money when she stays home sick or whatever.  So I was going to be shelling out the money whether she was in daycare or not, so guess what, I chose daycare!  Momma had a nice day to herself.  I spent some time with the BFF getting a bunch of presents and just enjoyed myself because I am a human being separate from my progeny.
3. In the aforementioned number 2, I sent my kid to daycare in her PJs.  Why?  No good reason but we were going to Uncle Toodles later for his annual Black Friday leftover/MST3K shindig where I knew he’d be in PJs so I figured why fight it?  Some days jammies are a beautiful thing.
4. Saturday we did almost nothing worthwhile.  The Munchkin went to Babci’s for a few hours while I ran some errands but other than that it was a complete waste of a day.
5. Sunday was the worst day of them all.  It started out with a real, almost disaster and just didn’t get any better.  I opted to not go to church in the morning although I imagine participating in society would have actually put me in a better mood since I am an extrovert but it was just one of those days where “I can’t even” and went down from there.  The Munchkin was being a two year old, so while she didn’t do anything wrong, the toddler-ness was getting to me.  So it started with me almost setting fire to the house but setting a paper egg carton alight by attempting to clean the oven (sidenote: I have never used the self cleaning oven feature in my adult life and I don’t remember Babci doing it very often so setting something on fire will NOT encourage me to do it again in the near future).  Luckily I was able to “play firefighter” as the Munchkin called it and put it out with relatively no damage or issue.
6. The oven then experienced an F2 fault which means it overheated….however all I had done was hit the “clean” button…but maybe the flaming egg carton had something to do with it overheating (see number 5).
7. While in the process of cleaning, the oven automatically locked.  This oven came with the house, I didn’t even know it could do that! Then it faulted and didn’t UNLOCK so I was worried we might be buying a new stove.  This one ended up ok, as soon as the temperature came down (and magically the oven was clean!) it unlocked.
8. The Munchkin, being a toddler, likes to flail around.  She does not have the greatest spacial awareness so often hits something with her flailings.  That happened to be me quite a few times on Sunday.  At one point, I finally lost it, yelled at her because she hit me in the eye (I will say I probably overreacted a little bit) but then I put myself in time out and had a good cry.
9. I ended up taking a nap on the couch while I handed the Munchkin my cell phone because I knew it would keep her entertained.  I have no idea if she posted random $*** to instagram or deleted some apps but I got a nap and she had a free babysitter for a little while.
10. And the piece d’ resistance.  I can’t friggen spell!  While I have never been a great speller and spell check has been a godsend for me, I thought I would try and do something and set up our Christmas Countdown: I had made a list of activities that I wanted to put in there and then started to try and use “fancy” handwriting but realized as I was writing it I kept spelling “visit” as “vist”:
     so while I bought 40 place cards to fill in the activities thinking I’d have extra I ended up using all 40 because I couldn’t spell.

There aren’t enough facepalm emojis for this post and while I definitely felt I was a little lacking this weekend (and sometimes every day) I realized that I can’t make this crap up and women (moms or not) tend to suffer from the anxiety that social media and the world put on us to be “perfect” and to make things “magical” especially around the holiday season.  Sometimes the magical in this house means the Munchkin is wearing a diaper (we are currently experiencing a “naked baby” phase) and not coloring on the walls.  Sometimes my day is held together by Dave and Ava on YouTube and ignoring all the mess that is going on around me.  I know I’ll pick myself back up and get back on the adulting train tomorrow (or the next day) but sometimes it’s a comedy or errors or just a tragedy but I have to be okay with that.  Whatever the day brings, even if it’s not my “best” it’s my best today and that’s good enough.  In all my failings I am still good enough.  I am perfect even in my imperfections because the Munchkin has a home; it’s not always spotless, it very often resembles an obstacle course, and I may just want her to sit down and watch a cheesy Hallmark movie with me but damnit there’s a lot of love and it’s a place where we have no pretenses.  I’m not keeping up with anyone because some days I’m barely keeping up with me.