When the house is a mess and you haven't had time to collect all the toys and their missing pieces, but you decide to just say screw it and watch LMN because the kid is finally asleep, you're doing it right.
Buying a DVD player for your backseat and driving somewhere in peace thinking, "That little electronic screen flashing pictures is the best damn thing since sliced bread." Quiet, occupied children mean you're doing it right.
Expecting visitors for the weekend and trying to get everything that requires making any sort of sound done prior to putting your kid to sleep, and realizing, when the house is finally quiet, that you forgot to vacuum (facepalm). You'll be getting up a early anyway. You'll get it done, and you're doing it right.
When you finally get to go shopping for yourself but all you come home with are new outfits for your little one(s), you're doing it right.
For the working mom: It's Monday and work is consuming you. Swamped and stressed, you catch yourself on Facebook envying anyone who is getting to spend time with their small children on a weekday. You're tired. It would be so much easier if you could just be home.
But you're doing what is best for your family, even when it means doing what you really don't want to do. You're doing what you do out of pure love and selflessness, and even though it's hard to drop them off and go every morning, you are strong, and your children will look up to you and thank you for that. Because you're doing it right.
For the stay-at-home mom: You're sick and tired of seeing these walls. Tired of the same routine. Tired of cleaning. Tired of a whiny kid pulling at your leg 24/7. You catch yourself wishing that you were at a job, any job, getting any sort of break that doesn't involve motherly decisions and instincts for even five seconds. You feel guilty for even thinking it.
You do it out of love, to see your children grow everyday. Just because you don't clock in every morning doesn't mean you don't work. You have one of the hardest jobs in the world, and you're doing it right.
On sleepless nights when they cry non-stop, wanting to be comforted by only you, and you sacrifice those few hours of sleep you really need just so you can hold them until they pass back out, you're doing it right.
Picture day is always hell. Not enough time for this, unprepared for that, wasn't planning on this, and sure as hell didn't think about all the other stuff. Then the pictures finally come all edited and pretty, and there's always somehow one decent one. You're doing it right.
Those frustrating days when every whine, mishap, or tear forces you to simply walk outside and ignore it for a few minutes to breathe, to gather your sanity. Even though it doesn't feel like it, you're doing it right.
When you are so unbelievably protective of such a tiny human being that it scares the living shit out of you everyday, you're doing it right.
When certain friendships become distant and hard to maintain because your life now revolves around that tiny human being, it makes it difficult to explain, but you're still doing it right.
After you've done all you can and they still aren't happy, you tell them you love them and quietly shut the door. It's harder than anything to walk away, but they're falling asleep, and you're doing it right.
On those days when you worry yourself to death over whether or not the person you left your child with is doing all the right things, or whether your child misses you so much she won't behave for that person. They will be okay. And you are doing it right.
When you've been so busy with pediatricians, a sleep schedule, go-sees, play dates, and juggling life that your hair stylist calls because you've missed your last two color/cut appointments. And even though you know and she knows your hair looks like shit and you probably won't be available anytime soon, the two of you reschedule anyway. Yeah, you're doing it right.
That night when the laundry has piled up into the highest mountain it's ever been, and you sacrifice stopping to get detergent on your way home because you need to get the cranky baby in the back out of his damn car seat. You're doing it right.
When the grocery store is on your to-do list, but never actually gets done, among so many other things that haven't gotten done, and you're in line at Chick-fil-a for the third night in a row getting a kids four-count nugget meal, yes, believe it or not, you're still doing it right.
Every time you open your vehicle door, tiny toys come pouring out onto the pavement, and you find a dirty diaper wedged somewhere from God only knows when, and you think to yourself, "It must be really bad that I didn't smell this in here." We all go nose blind. You're doing it right.
On those Saturday mornings when the kid is awake at 6 a.m. for some unknown reason, and all you want to do is stay in bed and turn off your monitor so you can pretend you are 16 again with no responsibilities...you are normal, and doing it right.
When you realize you've been watching Nick Jr. alone for the last 20 minutes because your kid left the room and you didn't notice, it's okay. You're doing it right.
When you know you need to load the dishwasher, but all you can envision is the inside of your eyelids, go ahead, nap with them. Some things aren't worth more than your sanity and can wait. You're doing it right.
When you swore up and down you wouldn't give your child heavy sugar for a snack, but frosted animal crackers are the only thing that will make the yelling stop, you're not doing it the way you planned, but you're doing it right.
When your kid has been so attached to you that you forget what it's like to be alone with your husband, embrace it. It's almost like your first date, when you did it right. And you still are.
If your back aches from changing crib bedding because the diaper has leaked for the third time this week, and you start questioning your choice to layer diapers at night, you're still sane, and you're doing it right.
Those Friday nights when you long to go out and see that new movie you've been hearing so much about, but you don't have a babysitter, or you're still struggling with trusting someone enough, so you turn on Netflix for the fifth night in a row, pop some corn, and pray the spawn doesn't hear. You're doing it right.
You find yourself lonely or bored on more than one occasion, craving adult conversation, but you feel guilty for wanting to do anything but spend each of those precious moments with your baby. You need a break, which means you're doing it right.
The days when you're sick with what feels like death and you can hardly move from the horrible body ache, but you somehow manage to pry yourself off the couch to care for a needy kid, slowly and lethargically, but still doing it right.
The day your child discovers standing up in the shopping cart, and you almost feel like calling corporate because there are no shopping carts with straps that actually fit or aren't fucking broken. You totally have an incentive to lose your shit – and you're losing it right.
When the thought of knocking yourself out with a meat cleaver comes to mind because the, "Do the Chucky!" dance commercial is on for the eighth time in a single half hour, I feel ya, and you're doing it right.
Running to the store with who knows what all over your t-shirt, smelling like baby formula, barf, or a dirty diaper, but feeling like a million bucks because you've managed to be super Mom again. You own that shit that you're doing so right.
People everywhere tell you how cute your baby is, so you start wondering if you should look into baby modeling, because your genetics made a looker. You couldn't help it. You just did it right.
Your kids won't listen, testing your patience all day long, and then they look up at you with the cutest smiles you've ever seen, and you forget their punishment entirely. You're a softy, and you're doing it right.
When sticky hand prints on the window or marker on the wall become regular works of art around the house, don't feel embarrassed or obligated to clean. You, Piccaso's mother, are in good company, and you're doing it right.
And even during the roughest times, when you've cried yourself to sleep from feeling like a failure, or because you haven't done the best thing, or because everyone else is telling you you're doing the wrong thing. You've still got the upper hand. You, and ONLY YOU, are that baby's momma.
And guess what? You'll make it, and your baby will grow into a beautiful human, because you are doing it right.
ParentCo.
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