What “Real Moms” know.

I have come to identify myself as a “Real Mom”.  I am not a Real Housewife from Hollywood; I am not the freakishly odd super soccer moms that you might run into at the soccer game or PTA.  I am a REAL MOM!  

The “PERFECT” Meany moms have “it” all together, so it seems from the outside.  They have the nicest houses, the fanciest SUV’s or mini vans, the nicest clothes hair styles, fake nails and the biggest amount of debt on the block.  Their little perfect children are in every sport, and she volunteers for everything everywhere.  She is the one that gives you a snooty look when you try to volunteer and makes you feel completely uncomfortable and unwelcome.  She has her little click of like-minded “Perfect” Meany friends and they will cut you down with their evil snotty comments at the bake sale if you try to bring in your sad little homemade real cake next to their designer organic fancy and yet utterly expensive bakery tortes.  Those are the meanies, and they are not real.  

A real Mom is nice.  A real mom loves her children unconditionally but does not really feel the need to give their little one EVERYTHING in the entire universe BUT wants them to appreciate what they have.  Maybe your reason is twofold; #1 It is not good to over spoil your child like that and #2 you just cannot afford it!  

Yes I am a Real Mom; I have been a teenage mom, a single mom, a working mom, and a stay at home mom.  I did all of those things just for my children, nothing else.  Something came over me when I had my first child.  I held her in my arms and instantly realized that everything I do will affect her life and now not only do I hold a most wondrous gift from God but also a HUGE responsibility.  

Like all real moms my first child was my love, my sweet and my guinea pig.  She was my practice child.  I am joking of course, well to some extent.  You would be surprised on what a quick call to Granny can learn ya in a tight spot.  Now some of the mistakes I made then would now probably be just quite scary.  

I remember I was living in North Dakota in the dead of an 80 below winter and I had to take my new baby to one of her first check-ups and I went out started the car 20 minutes in advance so it would be nice and toasty warm for my baby girl.  I carried her out all bundled up in her snowsuit buckled into her infant seat covered with a few baby blankets to keep the cold wind off of her.  I put her in the warm car, and uncovered her face and she was screaming at the top of her little lungs but I could not hear her because I had so many blankets over her face.  (I wonder now how she was breathing.)  

My sweet baby girl has a funny little rash all over her body, and I want to know what it could possibly be.  The doctor checks her out and starts laughing hysterically!  I ask him what on earth is so funny?  He calmly turns to me and tells me with a slight smile on his face that it was a heat rash.  A heat rash, I wonder?  What does that mean?  How does a baby get a heat rash in the dead of a nasty cold North Dakota winter?   He sweetly tells me that I have been over dressing her.  I over momed my baby!  OK so now I learn that she needs only ONE extra layer than I do.  Whatever I am wearing I just add another layer of clothing or blankets to my baby.  Not five or six like I had been doing.  But hey, can you blame me?  I just moved to North Dakota from California for goodness sake.  I am so not used to the below freezing thing.  You can over mom, OK I get it.  First lesson learned.

 So while I am sitting in the waiting room with my sweeter than any button baby girl not a care in the world and a “Perfect” mean mom comes in…I get my first lesson in how the mean moms try to put you down to build their self up.   The meany strikes up a conversation with me about my cute baby girl and asks where her Daddy works.  I have to sheepishly tell her now that I am on the spot and at a loss for words that her Daddy lives in California.  She gives me her best “Bless your heart” and then tells me that it’s OK not every baby is lucky enough to have the momma and the daddy in the same home.  She said she thinks I will be fine and she just would not know what to do if she lost her wonderful fabulous most perfectly awesome husband.  How he is so successful and she can afford to stay at home with her little ones.  I leave the doctor’s office with some rash cream for my baby girl and some low self esteem from the freak show in the waiting room.  But at the time I don’t know that she is a just a mean mom.  At the time I think she is perfect and how I just want to be the perfect little mom with the perfect little life like she is.  Envious, the green monster...

Two weeks later I spot perfect little life mean mom at a parking lot at a strip mall.  She is getting out of her perfect fancy I can never afford SUV and yelling, no screaming at her kids like the wicked witch of the west.  I sit in my car watching her stomp into the payday check cashing place screeching out cuss words belittling her perfect little children every stomp of the way.  Second lesson; don’t let the meanies suck you in, because the grass is not all ways greener, shall not covet, don't judge a book,walk a mile, and glass houses....It could have been a week moment for that "Perfect" Meany, but it was a defining moment for me. I learned that Real Mom's are not perfect but we want to be.  I learned that I will never be perfect so I should not hold myself to such a standard.  Maybe I should concentrating on living life you know like God intended but know that even though I may not be perfect it is still OK.   I so don't ever want to be a "Perfect" Meany Mom anyway.