I have been a mom for a little over a year! 430 days to be exact. Which is 10,320 hours. OR 619,200 minutes. This is a total of 37,152,000 seconds – And I can honestly say that these have been the craziest, most fun, exciting, tiresome, and BEST seconds of my life. I have grown more than I ever imagined was possible!
I think that sometimes I imagined motherhood differently than it really is. I always thought I would be the perfect mom who had the world’s greatest patience, would never get stressed or overwhelmed and my child would never cry or be upset. Through time I have learned that I was a bit wrong… okay, maybe a LOT wrong. 🙂 But I wouldn’t change a thing.
I feel really blessed with the opportunity of being a stay-at-home mom. It is a dream of mine that I have wanted forever and it is truly a blessing that I am able to do it. I became the “business woman” type for a few years while I struggled with infertility, but deep inside I really wanted to hang up my suits and put on my sweats. Some people criticized me for wanting to be “just a mom” and when I said I was giving up my great job to stay home I sometimes got the strangest looks! I am excited today to say that I am not “just” a mom… I am a full time MOM and that is the best job I could have EVER asked for! Have you seen a FULL TIME MOM’S JOB DESCRIPTION?
I love the quote, “Being happy doesn’t mean that everything is perfect. It means that you’ve decided to look beyond the imperfections.” I am excited to introduce you to a new segment on the blog – “You Know You’re A Mom When…” This is a place where I will give you real stories of my daily life to show you that I am a real mom, just like you! I am overall a very happy person, but that doesn’t mean my life is perfect. We all have those days that we are ready to cry. Those times we are ready to pull our hair out and maybe even give up! We call those “mommy moments” at our house. I am going to share with you the many adventures in my personal life and my many mommy moments.
Let’s kick this segment off with something that happened to me today.
#1 You Know You’re A Mom When… everyone in the store is looking at you because your child is screaming.
Laila RARELY has tantrums. Honestly, she is a really good girl and super calm! She is pretty easy going and is our little angel girl. I am not sure if it is because she is getting older or the fact that she has 5 teeth cutting through this week, but she has been a bit crazier than normal.
I have two baby showers this weekend, so of course I went to my favorite store for cute baby clothes, H&M! We were shopping and Laila decided she didn’t want to be in her stroller anymore. I held her for a little bit, but she then decided she didn’t want to be in my arms anymore either. So I put her down on the ground and she suddenly starts throwing all of the clothes on the racks off of their hangers. Okay moms – what do you do?!
Well, I decide I shouldn’t really let her do that so I pick her up and she threw the craziest tantrum I have ever witnessed in my life. She NEVER does this so it was so weird to me and I was VERY new at the experience. She was arching her back, yelling “no, no, no” and even had tears in her eyes. {I am SUCH a sucker. When I see tears it just melts my heart!!} I suddenly notice the whole entire store is watching me handle this situation. I was so embarrassed! People were literally staring at me!
That was when suddenly I noticed we were standing in front of a shirt that had a fish on it and she loves fish these days so I said, “Laila! A fish!” and she said, “ISHHHHH!” She suddenly snapped out of it, that quickly! {kind of} But I still left the mall empty handed and came home ready to cry!
I learned something from this experience. First, to not let her go on the ground at H&M. 😉 But second, that babies just need a little distraction sometimes. I took the clothes she was messing up away from her, but when I focused her attention on the “ISHHHH” shirt, she was happy! She suddenly forgot everything she was crying about just moments before.
I hope as I share these experiences with you, that you might be able to relate. That you will be able to recognize that you are NOT alone on this journey of motherhood! We are all in this together! May each of us learn from these “mommy moments” just as I learned something today.
Have you ever been in this situation before? How did you handle it? Make sure you share in the comments below and let us know your thoughts. I am interested to hear from you AND I think we can all learn from each other as we share our experiences!
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Danielle is the owner of Today's the Best Day. She strives to provide creative and uplifting content in order to enrich the parenting experience for women everywhere. Danielle hopes to help you and your family to make every day the best day! 
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Dana Johnson
July 13, 2014 at 3:57 pm (10 years ago)When my son was little, every SINGLE day, he clung to my legs, crying and carrying on when I had to leave him at the daycare and then later at Head Start and then school. This NEVER got any better or easier as time went on even though I was very matter-of-fact about my leaving each morning, telling him that I was going to work and I loved him very much and I would return in awhile after work was done and pick him up. And I’d hug and kiss him warmly. I would wait until I’d left before letting my tears fall because this concerned me greatly and I thought there was something very wrong with the place and it killed me with guilt to have to go to work and not be able to stay at home with him. I voiced my concerns to my mom one day who asked me if my son was happy and ok when I picked him up in the afternoon and the answer was yes. He was just fine when I came to get him around 5:30 everyday and, in fact, all his teachers had all said that as SOON as I left every morning, my son wad fine that quickly and stopped crying and throwing a fit and became happy to be there and played with the toys and other children happily. So I really don’t see how he was able to know of the guilt I felt by leaving him there since he never saw my pained expressions or tears or heard it in my voice but he somehow must’ve known. Idk…..But, like I said, my son was very happy to see me when I went to the daycare or school to pick him up after work. This lasted until I walked outside to the car with my son on my hip. For some reason, when he got outside, he’d very often throw terrible tantrums, as if he did NOT want to go home. I didn’t GET it. I thought he could hardly bear to be without me all day and here I was picking him up and going to spend the entire rest of the evening and night just with him. Isn’t this what he wanted all along? Why he literally CLUNG to my legs all the way out the door as I walked out there every morning if I didn’t also have the teacher pulling him off of me as I tried to extract his little fingers from the grip they had on my calves? Weren’t all THOSE fits because he loved me and just wanted to be with his mama??? So why now was he acting like I am a mean and BAD mama whom he does NOT want to go home with and fought like the DICKENS to try and get away from once we were outside the daycare? One afternoon I specifically remember when he was about 13 or 14 months old, this had happened like I am describing and he was just fine until we had come outside to get in the car. He began to squirm and wail and holler and cry and, because of his great squirming in my arms, I had to set him down on his feet on the driveway there right in front of the daycare’s front door where my car was to keep him from falling out of my arms. I opened up the driver’s side back door where his car seat was inside and was about to pick him up to put him in there when he fell to the ground and THREW his head back so quickly I had no way of stopping him from it and the back of his head hit the concrete! I thought he’d cracked his skull! And I was beside myself! I was so confused and at a loss as to why he had this behavior or what to DO to make things better for him do he wouldn’t get this upset to be having to leave daycare. Right then I looked up from my place on the ground where I was trying to console my poor son and looked right into the what I saw as judgemental, condescending, accusing eyes of a dad next in line to pick up his child and get him/her into the car. I just KNEW he was thinking that for this child to be throwing SUCH a wild tantrum at being picked up by his mother, that mother must be a horrible monster, a child abuser, SURELY! Oh, my goodness, it was terrible because I knew once we were home, my son wax happy as a lark again as if nothing had happened. I never figured that out about my son other than that he was intensely troubled by other things quite often that were CHANGE. If I would decide to go to Walmart after picking him up from daycare and had not previously told him this, he threw a tantrum at having to go as if it were the end of the world. But if, on Tuesday, let’s say, I announced to him that we were GOING to go to Walmart on FRIDAY, & that was three days away and repeated this every day until it was Fridsy, then he was just fine. Or, in the early mornings when I’d get him up to dress him on the changing table for daycare, he would cry and holler and squirm around and around on that table, sometimes even kicking me or trying to, making it SO hard to get him dressed. So I started to ask him if he wanted to put his right arm in the shirt skeeve first (tapping his right arm to indicate which arm it was) or his left arm first, tapping the left arm because I found that when he had a CHOICE to make between two things, when HE was participating; HE was getting to make some devisions, not just being forced to do something other than what he WAS doing (sleeping)(and that was CHANGE; he REALLY did NOT like change), then he was very compliant and amiable in the mornings. Whew! He was my first child, my ONLY child, and a child that caused me to get to be very creative in parenting. I used a LOT of diversion and distraction and made up funny little diddies ABOUT the upconing change I wax about to implement which I sang over and over again with a broad smile and sone giggles here and there until he was very AWARE change was voming. Lol. Whatever works (within reason , of course)! 🙂 It’s pretty much all trial and error and just about the time you’ve got it figured out MAYBE, they’re grown. :-/ Can’t be too hard on yourself or you’ll cry everyday from guilt and second guessing yourself. Pray for guidance and wisdom.
Krystal
March 20, 2014 at 7:43 pm (10 years ago)Seriously yesterday at the grocery store my 18 month old would NOT go in the cart. I had to carry him as I shopped for milk and essentials… it was awful! We made it through but … yea. He definitely screamed the whole time!
kareen liez
March 20, 2014 at 7:40 pm (10 years ago)Love the pinnable images you included in this post. And yes, we all experience this but all of us can handle it too.lol. But sometimes, it is really embarrassing when your child is screaming in public. I just try to hush my little one and it isn’t hard to do that (in my case.lucky me?)
Kathy
March 20, 2014 at 6:42 pm (10 years ago)Being a parent is the hardest yet most rewarding job there is. thanks for sharing!!!
Lydia
March 19, 2014 at 1:31 am (10 years ago)This was so comforting to read! I look forward to more post from this series. My son is 5 months old and threw his first fit last week (he wanted the remote). Luckily we were at home and distracting him with the dogs worked nicely 🙂
Me And My Mini Me
March 18, 2014 at 11:25 pm (10 years ago)I absolutely love this. Being a mom is the most difficult, wonderful, rewarding and best job in the world. I hate when people say dumb things like that. you obviously know that they aren’t parents if they think that being just a mom is easy. Well cudos love. You did the right thing(:
Crystal
March 18, 2014 at 9:14 pm (10 years ago)The distraction technique has been my best tool with James! Whenever he is crying or frustrated I try to redirect his attention to something he loves. And he totally calms down!