What makes me unique? Ha! I’m a Mom. There are millions of us running around in not-so-secret mini-vans with Cheerio crumbs as far as the eye that hasn’t been poked by a Polly Pocket shoe can see. I wear a week-old pony tail while carting around my three daughters ages (8, 5 and 2….I think) to swimming and music lessons, art class and I am guilty of rooting through leftover school lunches to eat someone’s uneaten bagel. When I am told the bagel was leftover because it fell on the floor and realize I should have noticed the grade three carpet hair clinging to the cream cheese, I will gladly remove the baby’s sippy cup lid and scrape my tongue while humming along to Snacktime by the Barenaked Ladies. If I thought I was unique in this situation it would be far less appealing. The sense of community I find from mini-van waving, tongue-scraping moms everywhere is what keeps me going.
I guess I felt unique the day I attended a baby and me swimming class and they told us to stand in the water at nipple height. Of course I felt strange being the only one still on the first step of the shallow end so perhaps unique is the wrong word. Lonely? Saggy?
I proudly wear Mom-Jeans, a tapered badge I feel I’ve earned but secretly look forward to our cold Canadian winters when I can wear my pyjamas under my snow pants for school drop off and no one is any the wiser. Perhaps she’s wearing a cocktail dress and heels under there? I can’t be the only one.
I’ve been to the hair salon with a baby in a car-seat, a back-blaster nightmare and not a diaper in sight, just like every other Mom. The fact that I’m not unique using my sweater sleeve and a traveling tea cup to wipe a wrinkly baby’s bum is the very thing that keeps me going, smiling, laughing. Knowing there’s another woman across town going through a similar situation, trying to have her hair cut for the first time in six months so she can appear normal is not a situation in which I want to be unique.
I wear Spanx and sometimes double them up. Unique I am not. Sad, perhaps.
I faint at the sight of needles despite having three kids and threw up during the orange crush chugging contest at 5 months gestation. Unique? No, I just googled that one. I am not alone…phew.
I don’t want to be unique. I like our club. When I hear stories of those trying to conceive for years, wishing they could have what I have, what Today’s Parent readers have, I wouldn’t wish for a unique life. It doesn’t get any better than this.
I write daily at www.teaandsnippets.com and have had several posts become published articles. I write with humour because as a happily un-unique mom, when I do find a little me-time, I choose to read something that I can relate to, something I’ve been through, something that makes me smile.
The first is I Had A Dream. A story about my dream to become published and how I created dream catchers for my kids using Christmas ornaments and a few little, white lies.
The second attachment is “Mom Jeans” featured in Parents Canada magazine.
Lastly, I have included a note to my husband about being away for work and making the colossal mistake of calling to tell me about the great time he was having.
Thanks in advance for your consideration.
Liz Hastings
https://teaandsnippets.com/?s=dream+catchers
