Mom Confessions

I have this underlying feeling that moms criticize other moms often. However, I think moms criticize themselves even more! I admit I am one of those moms that criticize myself too much. I know I get it from my mom who has always been hard on herself and has passed that talent to me. How do I know I have that trait? On many of my employee reviews my boss, Maria, who is also a dear friend and someone I have worked under for many years has continuously had my “Areas to improve” be “Melissa is too hard on herself. She criticizes herself for her weaknesses and downfalls. She needs to cut herself some slack and at times doesn’t know when or how to do that.” (It is fun reading old personal reviews).
So, I am confessing today some of the things I beat myself up about. Maybe if I can overcome these things I might solve the sleep issue I have.
1. I have done 6 loads of laundry in one day only to go to bed angry at myself I didn’t do an even 10 loads-even if there weren’t 10 loads to do.
2. I have left the sprinkler on for over 4 hours because every time I walk up and down the stairs I have a load of laundry in my arms.
3. I have spent an extra 20 minutes washing and drying dishes by hand because I HATE to load and unload the dishwasher.
4. I have pushed all of Brandon’s toys to the side of the room instead of actually putting them in his toy box. This still makes the living room look somewhat picked up and tidy.
5. There have been nights when I am too tired to put the clean sheets on the bed so I lay a sheet over the top of the bed and sleep on that.
6. I have thrown one too many kitties across the room because they easily annoy me. Ok- a small exaggeration here.
7. I have, one more than one occasion, had a ‘picnic’ with Brandon in the living room. I do this a lot for breakfast because I have this thing about watching the morning news.
8. I have had my days when I am SO SICK of sweeping the kitchen floor that I sweep it all into a pile and leave it there. It will stay just fine until the next sweep or sometimes until Rob gets home to pick it up for me. This is another chore I HATE doing (hurts my back). Rob is nice enough to do it for me.
9. Those 6 loads of laundry I mentioned- I did them all with a few coins in the bottom of the washer because I just don’t want to bed over to pick up 20 coins that my husband didn’t take out of his pocket.
10. I have made Brandon go on a ‘car ride’ with me just to get a Starbucks. Only to go on another car ride 3 hours later for another Starbucks.
11. Do Brandon’s clothes really always need to be put away? Can’t the clean clothes sit in the ‘clean hamper’ and we pull them from there?
12. Only twice have I ‘fibbed’ to my husband about my back pain so he will offer to sleep on the couch and I can have the whole bed to myself. This actually does help my back pain and allows me to get a good nights sleep- something that is hard for me.
13. I have told my husband I have a ‘work meeting’ that will last a couple hours just so I can get out of the house and spend a couple hours on my own. If I were to tell Rob I need a couple hours out alone he would totally give them for me but for some reason my guilt won’t give them to me.
14. While visiting family, I have had them say to me, “I think he needs a diaper change before you head home.” I reply, “No- he is good” only because he will get changed when we get home anyway before bed.
15. I have hit the ‘reverse’ button on our Kirby Vacuum cleaner which then makes it act like a blower only to use it to ‘dust’ the furniture in our living room.
16. I have given Brandon a bottle when he shouldn’t have had one (too old for them now) just because he has figured out how to tip his sippy cups upside down and squeeze them to get the liquid out but when he drinks from a bottle he doesn’t get liquid all over.
17. I have used the Nuk as a mute button.
18. I have searched for ear plugs in our house (seeing Rob does construction we have them around) when Brandon is throwing a tantrum- just to take the edge off his screeches.
19. I have used a walk to the mailbox as a mommy time out.
20. I have left Brandon in time out 10 seconds too long just because I am angry and I think he will realize how angry I am if he has an extra 10 seconds- he really doesn’t know or care- he still just sits and waits for his time out to be over.
21. And something every mom does…uses the bathroom often just because we all know that is the ONE place where we can have some extra peace and quiet. When Rob asks, “You okay” I reply, “Yeah, my tummy just hurts” when really I am just sitting on the edge of the tub checking my facebook!