Tiffany Raiford
If there is one thing that moms can relate to, it’s being the only people that really understand a few things in life. From what it means to talk on the phone while kids are screaming in the background to carrying a bag filled with cheerios and extra panties along with a diaper bag into the store to wondering if you can get away with only two tampons for the entire day or if you really have to take all the kids out of the car in the pouring rain during nap time; only moms get some things. And we have compiled a list of things that only moms (and some exceptional dads like my own husband) understand. Moms get what it’s like to be the only person to be able to do certain things.
Being the only person in the house able to replace a roll of toilet paper
Being a mother means you develop super powers that no one else in the entire house has. One of those super powers is putting a new roll of toilet paper on the roll when the old one is empty. It’s a skill that only those who have shoved a child out of their body from some orifice or another (or taken on a child that someone else has shoved out of one of their own body parts) understands. It’s not something men understand. It’s not something children understand. It is our very own super power.
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Understanding that sometimes a potty trained child is messier than one with a diaper
“I potty trained Jr. when he was only 13 months,” says a mother at the park. “Wow! What a blessing! Congratulations!” I say with a smile and secretly pray that my kids stay in a diaper a few more years. Why? Because potty training my four-year-old taught me that I’d rather just use diapers forever. It’s much faster and less disgusting to clean her poop out of a diaper than it is to clean what she neglected to wipe out of her butt out of her panties, off the toilet seat, off the floors and then change her pants because, well, she now reeks.
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Distinguish between cries
He’s mad his twin sister took his toy. She’s hungry. Oh, boy; Carter must have grabbed the food off Charlotte’s high chair again. These are cries I know and understand. I’ve known since day one which of my twins was crying through the monitor though others cannot tell them apart. It’s a gift. But it’s also one my husband has, so maybe it’s not just a mom thing.
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Hear everything someone is saying without realizing a child is crying in the background
I’m sorry you cannot concentrate on our conversation because there are kids yelling and having a grand old time in the background, but I’m 100% focused on you. It’s called, “I’ve been a mother for 7 years and I have four kids so I really don’t even hear this anymore,” and it’s the best invention and skill a woman will ever acquire in her life. I hear you; I do. My kids are easily ignored when they’re making nose. Survival of the fittest, right?
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Work and breastfeed twins
I work from home, and my job doesn’t stop because I have kids that needed to eat. I learned very quickly how to nurse one baby and give the other a bottle while still working from my laptop while I sat on the couch. Seriously, be jealous. It’s a skill not everyone has. I can do it with both eyes closed and my hands tied behind my back while feeding the babies. Or something like that.
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Find the missing shoe
No one can ever find the missing shoe. If I’m not home and the shoe is missing, I can find it from my hotel room in Hawaii over the phone. It’s a super power only moms have, and it’s not something that you just learn as you get older. It’s a serious skill and it should actually be something that we can include on resumes and other “look at my skills” sections on various forms.
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Find the missing toy
When my daughter loses her Barbie’s shoe, I can find it. It’s the size of a penny and it could be anywhere inside of our 3000 square feet of living space, the garage, the yard, or either of our cars. It could have fallen out of the golf cart a mile down the road or gotten left in the middle of the supermarket. It does not matter, though, because I will find it. I have that skill and that so do all moms. We can find the smallest, most innocuous items around. We can do it.
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Know exactly which toothbrush is the only one a child will use
My kids have 700 toothbrushes and they like to use them all, except for when they only like the blue one. The problem is that they each have 60 blue ones. There’s the blue mermaid, the blue Barbie, the blue Bubble Guppies; there are many blue toothbrushes. But I’m a mom; so when my kids are screaming that they can only use the blue one, I know immediately which one that is. It’s like this crazy talent that I’m really proud of.
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Know exactly what ‘my favorite Barbie with the hair’ means
With three girls in the house, we own hundreds of Barbies, each with hair. But I know which one my daughters mean when they say that they want their favorite Barbie with the pretty hair. They’re all th same, but I know. I’m a mom. What’s your super power?
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Not caring how high gas prices are when driving around the neighborhood 78 times before going home
When there is a good song on the radio, or it’s Tuesday or the kids were particularly evil all day long, I will drive my neighborhood for 30 minutes after spending entirely too long in the supermarket before I force myself to go home and pretend I’m not still annoyed that everyone is still awake for another few hours. I don’t care how high gas prices are; it takes me 2 hours to pick up milk – every single time.
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Love grocery shopping
I used to hate grocery shopping to the point that I’d save it for my husband and I to do after church on Sundays so at least we could go together and make it fun. Now we have four kids and there is nothing I enjoy more than going to the grocery store alone. It’s like vacation. I will walk every single aisle 3 times, slowly, back and forth. I will not shop in order. I will let people get in front of me. I will actually respond to people who begin a casual conversation with me when I would usually pretend not to hear them with the kids in tow. Grocery shopping is amazing by yourself. Moms, you know.
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Audiences are overrated when using the bathroom
I used to say that I needed a constant round of applause. It would make me happy; I thought being a beloved celebrity would be awesome, and I would not mind the constant attention and adoration. Now I’m the mom and that makes me the most famous and most loved celebrity in our house, and that means the kid-arazzi are everywhere, even when I’m in the bathroom. And guess what? It’s just as overrated as celebs say that it is. I just want to pee in private.
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Notice that the trash is overflowing
I might not have X-ray vision, but I am blessed with the unique gift of being the only person in my house that notices nothing else will fit in the trash can – not even a piece of hair. No one else can see this. It’s like a unicorn or something; only I can see it and no one else believes me when I say that the trash is full and no one changed it. “What? It is? I didn’t notice,” because only I can see things of this nature.
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Swimming through the bathroom
Every night after bath time, I know what it’s like to swim through the bathroom to the tub to get the kids out. Okay, I’m a liar. I don’t do bath time. I have tub issues. Being that close to a bath tub that has grout in the corners along the walls makes me want to vomit (I have no idea why, but I don’t even shower in my own shower without shoes or walk through any tiled rooms in our house without shoes on my feet because grout freaks me out so much). But I see my husband swim through the girls’ bathroom every night and I see his pain.
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Knowing exactly which movie is in the car without looking
“What are we watching, mommy?” my kids will ask me when the DVD starts playing in the car. As long as they’re not listening to it on their wireless headphones and I can hear the previews, I know exactly what they are listening to in the first 10 seconds. It’s like a gift. But please do not ask me anything more complicated than that because I have no answers.
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That all pasta does not taste the same
Penne looks just like bowtie pasta, but even though it tastes exactly the same, it absolutely does not taste exactly the same. I know this not because I taste the difference, but because my kids swear that only penne is acceptable pasta. And they’re girls; so you’d think they’d like bowtie pasta more, right? No; no they do not. Only penne. All other pasta is disgusting and offensive and awful.
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Regular chicken nuggets do not pass as dinosaur chicken nugget eggs
Sad but true. When the store is out of their beloved dinosaur chicken and I have the get the round nuggets, life ends. And no amount of promising that they’re baby dinosaur chicken eggs will do the trick. My kids are not stupid; they know those are not dinosaur chicken eggs. They want real dinosaur for dinner, duh.
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That happy meals really only need a toy and nothing else
My kids are starving. And they want to go to McDonalds and get something to eat before they absolutely die of starvation. Because I think that a milkshake sounds amazing myself, we stop. And then they do not touch a single piece of food in their happy meal. They play with the toy. Or complain about the toy. And then that toy goes home and multiples into a hundred other tiny toys over night. But the moral of the story is that my kids do not actually eat the food. They’re not hungry; they want a new cheap toy.
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Boobs shrink and everything else grows
I thought that I would have these beautiful and amazing breasts once I gave birth. I mean, they’re fine and they’ve always been fine. But they’re small. They were barely a B cup before kids and now after four kids, they’re pretty much an A-. On a good note, I can always buy some if the need arises. And on another good note, I never have to worry about sagging. They’ll always be perky and in position. So that’s something to be proud of. True story.
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Everyone you know has now seen your lady parts
Seriously – everyone. When my oldest daughter was born, my mother and my mother-in-law were in the delivery room with my husband and me. Our second daughter was born so quickly we didn’t have time to usher everyone out of the room, and my doctor’s entire office wanted to come in and see me since they really had this weird obsession with the fact that I always wore heels (well, I like to feel like a lady). It was me, my husband, my aunt, my sister-in-law, our then 2 year and 8 month old daughter who was napping on the couch and never even woke up it happened so fast, my mom, my mother-in-law, my doctor, three nurses from her office, three nurses from the hospital, the secretary from the doctor’s office, 8 nursing students and a nurse who just so happened to recognize our names on the paperwork as friends of a friend and came in to visit. I mean, seriously – this is our life and we did not care.
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Zipper pajamas seem easier, but they’re not
True story. We thought we wanted zipper pajamas only. We did not want the button ones (who wants to get up and button a million buttons in the middle of the night?). We were so wrong. As a mother, I now understand that buttons are easy because you can undo them halfway, change a diaper and not have to wiggle a tiny human back into an entire set of pajamas and zip it all the way shut. It’s really a thing.
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Cutting onesies is a thing
The first time I had to cut a onesie off a baby, I was sad. “What a clothing waste,” I thought to myself. Four kids later, I’ve probably cut 100 onesies when dirty messes happen and they need to be as contained as possible in and around the diaper area. I don’t even care. I’ll cut a onesie off a baby like a doctor cuts clothes off an accident victim; with total confidence and in a second flat.
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Mom brain is real
What? What were we talking about? I forgot. Oh, hey! I found my keys; they were in the fridge. And that shoe I lost was inside the Minnie mouse kitchen in the playroom. Why on earth did I stick my own pajamas in the diaper bag and the kids’ pajamas in my drawer? It never gets better. Sorry.
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We’re idiots facing elementary school math homework
Nothing makes you feel like a failure quite so much as realizing that you do not know how to answer your child’s homework question. In kindergarten. So what do you do? Do you answer it incorrectly with total confidence and hope your kids don’t ask how you came up with the answer just so that they don’t realize you do not, in fact, know everything? Or do you admit you do not know everything and call your own mom? Hash tag first world problems.
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We wonder where Max and Ruby’s parents are and we thank God Ruby is not our child
Let’s be clear here; Ruby is a self-righteous little know it all with a serious attitude problem, and she’s a snot. I thank God every time I hear that fictitious bunny that she does not belong to me, because I don’t want to be the kind of parent who hates her own kid. But I seriously hate that kid. And she’s so mean to Max, who is usually always right. And where are their parents? I mean, I’d be gone all the time, too, if Ruby were my own kid, but seriously; where are they?
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When moms hear a British accent we think of a family of pigs
Hi, I’m Peppa Pig, and this is my little brother George. And children like to watch our pointless show on repeat 800 times a day because we are trained to slowly make parents a little bit insane. But we are nowhere near as rude and irritating as Ruby, so we get to stay on television as often as the kids would like. Seriously, when I hear someone with a British accent, I immediately think of a pig. And it’s not for mean reasons, it’s just because of Peppa.
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Kids are always on the forefront of our minds no matter what
I’m always worried about my kids, even when I’m not supposed to be worried about my kids. The only time – and I mean the only time – I feel completely comfortable and safe about them and their own safety when I am not around is when my husband is home with them. I love their grandparents, but they’re not the parents. I know they take the best care of the kids, but other than me the only person I trust 100% with the kids is my husband. When we travel together and they’re not with us, I worry. When I go to bed at night and lay down, I worry. When I drop them off at school, I worry. When they’re outside playing and I’m 2 feet from them, I worry.
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Cancelled plans happen a lot
I cannot tell you how many times cancelled plans occur when you have kids. It’s like something moms get. When another mother calls me to cancel plans 30 minutes before, I get it. Things happen. If a childless friend called me a half hour before we had plans to cancel for some reason or another, I’d be irritated.
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Your own kid’s boogers aren’t that gross
Admit it moms (and dads). You will pick a booger from the nose of your own child anytime without flinching. You see another child with snot or a booger on his or her face and you immediately want to vomit and keep that kid as far away from you as humanly possible, right? Right. Because that’s parenthood.
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Sports Commitments
Every mom with kids that are old enough to enjoy sports and extracurricular activities knows that while it’s a commitment for “kids,” it’s a commitment for the parents. We have to drive them there, we have to plan our entire day around our kids’ activities and we have to dress them, pay for them and deal with leagues and coaches and all that entails. Moms get it; sports have nothing to do with the kids. They’re all about the parents.
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Eating Cold Meals
“Dinner was delicious!” Says the husband and the kids. Mom has no idea because she’s yet to actually try any of her meal. She’s been getting more water, more milk more napkins, washing the ‘stuff’ off the pasta she so carefully prepared for her children who no longer like pasta that way (since they asked for it that way at lunch) and also making sure that the chicken she just cut into small pieces is actually cut into smaller pieces shaped like a heart for the kid that only eats heart-shaped chicken today.
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The Bathroom Audience for Dad
Pee alone? What’s that? I haven’t peed alone since before I was a mother. Kids can be playing on their own, entertained and busy, in bed asleep or anywhere else in the entire world…until you have to pee. Suddenly they absolutely need you for every reason under the sun and it cannot wait. It cannot wait. Ever. At all. It is the most important thing that ever happened. Because if your kids can’t find their imaginary friend right now, the world will end. But we already talked about this. What about dads? Dads never have an audience when they have to go to the bathroom, and that is one of the most annoying things in the world for moms.
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The Missing Everything Your Kids Own
Where’s my sock? Where’s my shoe? I cannot find my cup! Whatever it is your kids cannot find, you will find it. You will find it because you do this thing where you actually look places that are more than a half inch away from your face. In the words of my mother growing up, “If it had been a snake, it would have bitten you.”
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Homework: It’s Not Just for Kids
Homework; you graduated school and then you went to college. Now you are done. You are done with homework. Never do you have to bother with homework again. Until you are a parent and you have kids that have homework. And it’s not just their homework. There are family fun activities (which are anything but fun) and there are projects and there are many, many things to do. We hate it. We already discussed how we don’t know how to help our kids when they have homework questions because we’ve become stupid over the years, and now we are annoyed that we, as parents, have homework of our own.
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The Word “Mommy”
If ever you have considered changing your name, we bet it’s because you have a child that begins every sentence with the word mommy. “Mommy, I did this today. Mommy, I did that today. Mommy, can I have a snack? Mommy, can I have a drink? Mommy, I went to the potty. Mommy, I like your hair. Mommy, when will daddy be home?” Not soon enough, child; not soon enough.
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Being the “Worst Mommy Ever”
For those of you sitting back smugly thinking, “My kids have never called me the worst mommy ever,” with superiority, stop. If your kids aren’t calling you the worst pretty regularly once they’re old enough to talk and develop an attitude, you are not doing your job. You are the problem. Only the best parents get called the worst; because they’re probably making good decisions and forcing their kids to be responsible and well-behaved. Good for you.
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Getting Up at the Crack of Dawn to Get Ready
Be honest, moms; you fall into one of two categories. You are either like me and you get up really early so that you can shower, do your hair and makeup and look good for the day, or you don’t bother at all. Which is it? I don’t care, as long as I feel good about myself, but I know that many of you are taking the time.
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School Drop Off Lines
Remember when you were in school and you were allowed to pretty much roam the parking lot looking for your parents as they got to school to pick you up? Remember there was probably a teacher outside, but you didn’t notice because you were too busy getting into the car with whomever was there to pick you up? Life is not like that anymore. Teachers now feel that kids are too stupid to know who their parents are. Kidding – it’s all about safety. Now we have placards we have to hang in our cars with our child’s name on it, someone stands in the middle of a long line of cars and reads names over a walkie talkie and a half hour later when you make it to the front of the line, there are 8 teachers standing out front each with a number and a child and they systematically walk your child to your car and all but help them buckle up? Worst. Line. Ever.
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Other Mothers
Oh, other mothers. My least favorite. I’m generalizing, of course. I happen to love mothers. Except for that one in every situation. You know her; the one who is so much of this and none of that and always trying to make everyone else feel poorly about any and everything? Yeah, her. Oh, and the one that is her kids BFF. Because she makes my kids think I’m even less cool. But it’s all right because one day when my kids are independent, successful adults with careers and lives and families of their own they are able to support, I will appreciate my kid hating me every other weekend during her teenage years. She’ll hate hers because her kids will still be living with her at 40 and working at Burger King. You know, because they like it their way.
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The Great Mom Debate
Breast or bottle, nursery or co-sleep, pacifier or no pacifier, epidural or no epidural, natural birth in a tub or with a doctor in a place equipped for emergencies (sorry – don’t get why people would NOT want to have their babies in places that are well equipped to handle their actual medical emergencies and save lives rather than in their tubs). Work or stay home; whatever it is, it’s annoying. It’s so bad that the “who is the better parent,” debate has turned ugly. Literally; women without makeup looking like they just rolled out of bed are calling well dressed women bad mothers for taking a half hour to brush and wash and apply lipstick. I mean, come on. Parent your own kids and get over it.
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The Food is Here, It’s Time to Pee
Ah, yes; dinner is served, so it’s time to do anything and everything but eat. The kids suddenly have to go to the bathroom or they have an emergency or they are actually going to die if they don’t say two prayers before it’s time to eat. All I know for certain is that your food is going to be cold twice over before you get to eat, and your previously starving children are no longer even remotely hungry.
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The Importance of Naptime
Some moms forgo doing anything and everything during nap time. Others, like myself, will pick and choose what seems like a good reason to skip out on the holy hours. It all depends, and it all matters. Naptime is the holy grail of all hours in the day. Not only are your kids asleep and not whining or needing a change or asking for things or making you nervous; it’s the only time they are quiet and you are not worried. But it’s also the only time you can take a few minutes to yourself. You know, so you can unload the dishwasher and do laundry or work.
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The Importance of a Large Handbag
Being stylish is important to me, but having some free hands is also important to me. I need a stylish handbag large enough to carry everything I need and what my kids need when we are out, because I’m not about carry two bags. Additionally, moms can completely relate to the fact that it is completely fine to have blue crayon marks and crushed goldfish at the bottom of a $2,500 handbag, because we’d all rather that than dried milk.
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“Second Baby” Syndrome
We’re not talking about the baby fever. We’re talking about the fact that your first baby wasn’t allowed to sneeze without going to the doctor for every possible test on the planet because you know it’s the bubonic plague. The second baby could fall down the stairs from the second story and eat $10 in dimes and you won’t worry because he seems fine.
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Hatred of the Phrase, “Any Day Now, Huh?”
I remember the first time someone said that to me when I was pregnant with our first. I was 26 weeks pregnant and feeling good, and the cashier at the supermarket told me not to have the baby in line. It was all I could do not to say to her, “Work a little faster and I won’t have to stand here for another 14 weeks until my due date,” because I’m not rude like that (though I wish I could be). It’s annoying. It’s essentially saying to a pregnant woman, “Hey, fatty. Looking huge,” when it’s not even close.
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Hatred of the Phrase, “You’ve got your hands full,”
Anyone with kids has their hands full, but there is nothing like the snotty tone that so many people use when saying this. Yes, I do have my hands full with four kids, but you should see my heart. You should also know that I like having my hands full of hugs and sweet babies and homework and sports and love and all those amazing things, and I also like having my hands full teaching my kids to be respectful, well-behaved, sweet and kind children. I’ll take that over anything else, any day. Except a nap; I’ll always take a nap.
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Making Mom Friends
It is so hard to make mom friends! It’s like dating! Which, incidentally, is something I’d probably suck at if I tried it now after 14 years with my husband. However, I am convinced that making mom friends is tough. There are those who don’t appreciate sharing a bottle of white on a play date (oh, you really think it’s all about the kids, then?) and there are those who don’t bother to get out of their car to meet you before they leave their kid standing in your driveway for a play date (um, ew). And there are those whose social media accounts you’ve stalked and, forgive my French, HELL NO. Making mom friends is hard.
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When your Kids Make Friends in Class
We are going through this with our oldest daughter. She’s at the age where she’s wanting to spend time outside of school with the kids in her class. No, no, no. I have to know their parents – not just meet them. Know them. That’s why I use social media. It lets me get to know which parents I want to even bother with and which kids I will always make up so many excuses for so we don’t have to get together. After all, social media is where people tend to highlight the best of their lives; sometimes someone’s best is really, really bad and there’s just no way.
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Bullies
Hate them. A mother understands that there is a certain level of heartbreak associated with the first time your child comes home from school upset because so-and-so wouldn’t let me play with her today. All you want to do as a mother is march your behind right back into that school and find that child so you can tell her she’s a rotten little monster. And then you want to go find her parents and tell them that your kid is not allowed to associate with their kid because you don’t ‘do’ second-class citizens.
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Going Anywhere Alone
The gas station; the supermarket; the doctor. If you are alone, it’s like a day at the spa. I mean, seriously. A day at the spa. Going anywhere alone as a parent is this marvelous feeling that cannot be described; it can only be felt. And let me tell you this; it feels amazing.
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