Five Things I'm Forgiving Myself For In Motherhood/FTS

I am so fucking tired right now you guys. As I type this I'm sitting on my filthy couch that's covered in various kid juices and secretions, several stuffed animals, ancient cracker crumbs and a variety of hair.

The baby is sitting in his vibrating chair to my left. He's cooing and smiling in between fits of whimpering because he wants to breastfeed. He's cluster feeding, which is a sweet euphemism for "sucking the life out of my once perky breasts". As I try to give him a binky, he smiles at me, which melts my heart, then projectile barfs through his baby grin onto my last clean tank top.

My three year old is digging into a box of cereal that I didn't know we owned. Where did she get those chocolate peanut butter Cheerios? She is sticking her hands in and out of the box, coating them in sugary goodness, then letting the dog lick her hands. If that wasn't gross enough, after he's done sopping up all the probably-really-bad-for-dogs flavors off her skin, she goes in and gives her hands an extra lick. You know, one to grow on. Gag.

Also the dog, who is really a sweet fella, has pissed all over the kitchen and on the (brand fucking new) carpet upstairs because I can't take him out enough nowadays.

While this scene is a super common experience for most moms (I'm excluding the Kardashians, because they have staff to deal with barf and dogs and sugar meltdowns) I have to admit that a number of these things I'm witnessing right now would cause such guilt I would cry during the three minute shower I would allow myself to take every four days.

But now I have a new philosophy. And that philosophy is called:
Fuck That Shit.

What Fuck That Shit, or FTS for short, refers to is the guilt that moms feel because we're not perfect. I actually talk a bit about this in a previous post about being a garbage mom, which you can check out here.

I put together a short FTS list of things I am forgiving myself for as I meander through mothering two kids in diapers.

5. Supplementing formula if I need to.

When my daughter was five months old her pediatrician recommended I start supplementing with formula to get her weight up. A pretty innocuous thing to say, but to me he might as well have just said, "You failed, asshole, you're letting your baby down because you can't keep up with her need for breast milk. Good job, shithead." It sent me into a shame and guilt spiral for weeks on end. I remember sobbing to my husband that "I can't even nourish my baby, and it's my only job!"

The thing is, Charlie is HUNGRY AF y'all! Like, all the time. He's a big boy, and is super healthy. So at three months, a week or so ago, I decided I would get some formula for supplemental needs. So far he's had about six ounces total, and it's great! He's not starving and I've given myself permission to not feel like I failed because I simply can't produce a Big Gulps worth of breast milk every time the kid needs a snack!

4. That my daughter is almost three and refuses to potty train.

I read a potty training book that claims the ideal window of time to potty train is between 24 and 30 months. So I tried. I had her run around bottomless for a full day, asking every five minutes if she had to use the potty while holding the potty ready to catch her urine at any time, like a rookie left fielder never taking their eye off the ball, even for a second.
She said no every time. I had her sit on the potty to read a book. Nothing happened. I had her watch me use the potty, smiling like a goddamn freak as if to say, "Look how FUN THIS IS!" Nothing. 
Then she goes to sit on our bed and pees all over it. Like, alllllll over it. The pillows, the comforter, even my headphones that were tossed on there haphazardly, were soaked through.
Not a drop in the potty.
A river on our duvet.
Fine, she's not ready. And it turns out that old adage is true: you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him pee on the damn potty if he doesn't want to pee on the damn potty! Horses can be real stubborn assholes when they want to.
She turns three next month, and even though shes used the potty before successfully and effortlessly, she still doesn't want to give up those diapers. I mean, yeah, who doesn't like to crap their pants while eating a peanut butter honey sandwich, she is a Cobb after all!
My hope is that one day she'll just end this charade and join the ranks of those who sit on the pot and check their email. Until then, I have to have faith that by college she will be potty trained.

3. Having a friggin' drink!

I have said this before and I'll say it again, but HOW THE HELL DO PEOPLE WHO DON'T DRINK RAISE KIDS?!!! I mean, they are better than me in many ways I'm sure, but you guyyyysssssssss, it's so hard. So I forgive myself for having a drink or two after they go down. And sometimes...even when they are still awake. And sometimes...starting at 3:00pm. But to be clear, I never EVER get drunk, or even really buzzed, I always pump by boobs off and have a booze free supply ready to go, and I took a kid CPR class. So, we good?

2. Not hurrying up and trying to lose all the baby weight right away.

I'll admit that when I was pregnant with Bo I was crazy, super fit beforehand and took five Yoga classes a week during my pregnancy, so getting back "in shape" was not a big deal. But with my Charlie bear, it wasn't quite the same experience. I was barfing out my soul with him the first trimester, the hot Yoga studio where I worked took away the only class I could take around the sixth month. So I didn't quite maintain. And I ate a shitload of chocolate. However, I gained about 50 pounds with Bo, and with my little man I only gained about 30. There's probably a solid 18 to 20 pounds of that still chillin' on my frame, but this time around I am not sweating it. Like, literally I'm not working out so there isn't any sweating. Except for when I go to try on new jeans, then I sweat a lot.
I know that I will lose the weight eventually. But for now I'm letting my husband enjoy my enormous boobs and telling myself he would be sad if they went away, so I better finish this pizza!

1. Getting a sitter so I can take a break.

With my first kid the thought of getting a sitter, a person who was not me or my husband, to hang with my kid so I could go off and do something silly like, oh I don't know, work, would propel me into a guilt fit something fierce.
When Bo was about four and a half months old my husband and I booked a commercial together! That's great, right? Well my postpartum self almost called my agent in a panic and canceled because the thought of not being with my baby all day was absolutely insane! My baby might think that I abandoned her, which will no doubt lead to her giving hand jobs to truckers for crack money down the road! I'm a dead beat mom for taking work, I'm a monster!
But it turns out, she was a baby and didn't give two shits.  She's like, "Where's my milk? Where's my binky! Where's my napping place? Who are you? I don't care! Cool!"
Nowadays I'll ask a sitter to come over to watch my baby for a few hours even when I don't have a damn thing to do. Literally, last week, I called her, got in my car, drove two minutes away, sat in my car in front of a Target and listened to a podcast. And it was glorious, and totally worth it.