Water Damage, Not Mom of the Year, and FF!

A blogger's nightmare: water spilled on the laptop! It's currently buried in rice, hopefully healing. But, that's why you haven't seen as much of me for the past few days. At least my blackberry has been replaced from the spilled milk incident! Not a whole lot of luck with electronics this week. Or maybe everyone in my family just needs to use sippy cups.

If you are here to see who this week's BFF is, you can find that post HERE.

Toay is the last day to vote for Not Mom of the Year! It's a really tight race. I'd appreciate your vote HERE. Thank you so much!

Finally, if you are here from Friday Follow(or if you've followed recently and I haven't followed back yet), please make sure you comment and leave me your link. I'll get to them this weekend after my laptop is running again!

Welcome to the 9th Friday Follow hosted by our awesome hostesses, Shell from Things I Can't Say, Terri from That's What She Said, Tami from Hearts Make Families, Harriet from Harriet and Friends, and Ian from The Daily Dose of Reality. Thank you everyone for being willing to host! Please stop by and see these awesome host/hostesses.

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Thanks to Tammy at Tammy's Two Cents for coming to her lil sis's rescue and posting this for me!

REAL Moms ROCK! UPDATED

Updated: I'm one of the 10 finalists for the Not Mom of the Year Contest. Could you pretty please vote for me? Go here to vote.

Last Monday, I joined in with The Mommyologist and Life Without Pink for their Not Mom of the Year Contest.  In doing so, I wasn't saying Oh, look at me, I'm the worst mom in the world and I'm proud of it!  My point, that soooo many of you agreed with I totally love you, was that we all probably have this ideal in our heads of what "Mom of the Year" looks like. And none of us can really live up to that. And so, we are Not Moms of the Year.  We're REAL moms.






Thank you for making this my most-commented on ever post here(you know, with the exception of some giveaway posts and the day that I was featured on SITS...but the most commented on "regular" post). I'm going to join in with Kerri's Klutter for her Comment Love Letters this week(even though her linky doesn't go up until Tuesday) so that I can share bits and pieces of some of the comments that the post received- because I think they can make us all feel better about not being able to live up to some impossible standard of Mom of the Year.

If you missed my Not Mom of the year post, you can check it out HERE.  

Dear Shell, sweetheart, you come sit right over here by me. I'm quite possibly the other bookend to your not mom of the year! This makes me feel like I'm really more in the "normal" category than I thought. I love when bloggers write about the real side of motherhood.


Don't tell anyone, but my kids had ice cream for dinner last night, I was too tired. Shell, we sound so much alike! Can you imagine if we lived near each other? Our naked kids could play in the mud together and popsicles for snacks (and maybe a meal or two). I think we could be very good friends. And our kids could run around the house near naked together... Love the very thought! You know what? The two of us are obviously identical souls separated at birth. I kept wondering how you'd been spying on me while describing your own "Not Mom of the Year" antics.


And your description of Mom of the Year? Total motherbitch. I wouldn't be able to put up with her for one second!! You know the Mother of the Year doesn't exist right? She's just a better liar. eff mom of the year! Mom of the Year? Isn't that a little statue made out of some non-recycleable material and only shows up in the stores around April just in time for Mother's Day? If your description of Mom of the Year exists, I guarantee I wouldn't like her!


Mom of the year also has an extra 30 minutes a day because she doesn't pee, poop or sweat. Mom of the Year does not take into account the fact that kids are a major challenge. Mom of the year only exists where Kid of the Year does... in our imagination! LOL Lol, those kids of the "Mom of the Year?...... yeah, they grow up to be serial killers....


I think most mom's of the year are Stepford Wives incognito! that mom of the year sounds boring and needs a romp in thesack. I think mom of the year has about 2 weeks left before she goes crazy. It would be hard being so perfect all the time. Mommy of the year sounds like one hellatiously exhausted lady. If she does exist, she deserves a nap. That mom of the year? I'd like to punch her in the face.


It would such a drag to be perfect everyday. And then what would you blog about and who would want to be your friend?? Ive never met a mom of the year...I think its a myth...like bigfoot If there is anyone person that does all of those things, well she is probably lying. Or needs to be shot so the rest of us don't look bad. Cause that other person isn't real and if she is I'm gonna kick her a$$!!!


If Mom of the Year really exists, she's probably got her own secrets anyway. A closet alcoholic or something. No Mom is that perfect. i'm a little frightened of your mom of the year. she sounds.. repressed. like one day, she's going to be in the middle of making brownies and there's going to be this little snapping sound and her eyes are going to get all cold and soulless. and before you know it, she's stolen some jacked-up truck and drives it through the front wall of the department store.


I think we all do the best we can and at the end of the day, if the kids are fed, mostly clean and clothed and know that they are loved, then we all get to be "mom of the year"! I'm a good mom but far from perfect. The kids are happy though and that is what really matters. The cool thing about Mom of the year, I think the kids get to nominate and it sounds like you are doing a fabulous job!!


I say as long as people do good by their children, love them, teach them good things, take care of them ect, they are wonderful. Keep up the great work. Your kids are learning that they are wonderful the way they are. They are loved and valued more than activities. They are learning to be together as a family unit.


You are the perfect mom for your boys and that's all that matters! REAL moms are the best moms! :) In my view we are ALL Moms of the year, because we are real, we love our children and they love us just the way we are. And, then like you said, - you just love them - and that's when you really become mom of the year - when you love them when they are so stinkin' unlovable! And still encourage them!


Love,
The most fabulous readers in the blogosphere

P.S. Thank God for an admitted occasional spanker! No one ever talks about it, but sometimes, you just gotta whack!

NOT Mom of the Year

When I hear the title "mom of the year," two things come to mind.


The first being that someone is being sarcastic and talking about some sort of epic mom fail that they experienced.


The second being this ideal that I could never, ever live up to. Probably one that none of us can ever live up to. Your idea of Mom of the Year might look a little different from mine, but I'm going to tell you what mine looks like....and why I'm so NOT Mom of the Year.


And maybe even why I think that's okay.


Mom of the Year wakes each morning before her children to get everything ready for the day. She showers, dresses, starts the laundry, has breakfast, works out and is alert and happy when her children wake up.


I am always woken up by a child or three busting into my bedroom, asking for breakfast and a tv show. I bury my head under the covers and murmer to Hubs that I have no clue who these morning people are because surely, I couldn't have given birth to them. Oh, and I do get dressed, but you can bet that I don't look as put-together as Mom of the Year.


Mom of the Year fixes her children a hot breakfast, everything from scratch, organic, freshly-squeezed. All children are dressed in clean clothes that actually match. They sit at the kitchen table together.


My kids love milk(not organic), bananas(again, not organic), and some form of frozen waffles or pancakes(sometimes actually FROZEN and not even heated up in the microwave or toaster because they love them that way and I'm too tired to argue). They are still in their pjs and will be for a while if we aren't headed out the door. Sometimes they might just be in underwear because my kids like to be nudists. And they eat breakfast wherever, as long as it's not on the couches.


Mom of the Year has developmentally appropriate activities planned for the morning. Ones that will enrich, teach, and be fun. She loads her kids up into her spotless vehicle and whisks her children off to swim class, gymnastics, karate, kiddie yoga, Latin, computer- whatever the class of the day is.


Me? Um, what are we doing today? Those classes are expensive and trying to coordinate three children's schedules when none of them is old enough to be somewhere alone is hard. How about...the park? Or the pool? Or playing outside in the yard? Um...let's see? Wanna go to a movie? Get a new book from the library? Um...we haven't been to the aquarium recently, wanna go there? Our plans are more last minute. And that minivan I load them up into? Yeah, it's always a mess. Even right after I clean it out.


At no point during the day does Mom of the Year lose her cool with her children. If they need reprimanded, she does so in a quiet voice, staying calm at all times.


I try that, thanks for the tip SuperNanny. But, sometimes, I lose my cool and I yell. Or say something sarcastic or even....horror....administer a spanking. And I resort to bribery sometimes, too.


Mom of the Year prepares yet another fabulous meal for lunch, followed by naps, rest time, or an art project for her children. She cleans up the house and works on any projects that need to be done.


Well, my kids are peanut butter and jelly addicts. Or you know, dinosaur-shaped chicken. With fruit. They love fruit. Can I get points for that? Followed by a nap for one of my kids and then televisison shows- it's preschool on tv, right? Plus unstructured play time. So, I can clean up the house, too, just like Mom of the Year blog.


Mom of the Year has fun playdates scheduled for her children for after the quiet time and probably some volunteer work to do. She's President of the PTA, runs the local moms' group, and a host of other activities.


Playdates just give me more motherbitch stories. I'll join the PTA, but only because the former teacher in me feels obligated. I got burnt out on running a moms' group so I'm hiding from them now. And besides, I'm still busy blogging you know. Though, I do make sure that they go places where they can socialize and make friends- it just doesn't have the structure of the playgroups.


Mom of the Year has yet a third fabulous meal on the table for her family.


Okay, sometimes I do this, too. Because I can actually cook. Unless it's another one of those 105 degree days and Hubs won't be home for dinner. And then I think ice cream is a perfectly acceptable dinner. I don't let them have chocolate ice cream, though. More points for me.


Mom of the Year has a fun, quiet activity for her children before bedtime. She gives them baths, lays out fresh pajamas for them, reads each a developmentally appropriate bedtime story. She tucks each in with a kiss good-night.


Kids' choice of activity after dinner here, as long as it's nothing too crazy. Baths happen some days- and some days it's more of a rinsing off...or even an "oh well, you're not too dirty, let's skip it." My kids prefer to sleep in underwear(diaper for the baby) instead of actual pajamas. We all pile into one of the kids' beds and read the story of the whichever child managed to ask me for a story first. Send them off with a kiss good-night.


Mom of the Year finishes whatever small chores she didn't get to during the day and prepares for the next day. She spends quality time with her husband and gets to bed at a reasonable hour, ready to do it all again the next day.


Um, yeah, my house is still a mess, so I better do something about that. Or maybe not because they'll just mess it up again as soon as they wake up the next morning anyway. And I'm tired. I want to sit on the couch with Hubs, watch tv, read a book, blog, talk, have a glass of wine, and stay up way too late. I go to bed knowing the morning will come before I've had a chance to get fully rested. I bet Mom of the Year doesn't drool in her sleep like I do, either.


So, obviously, I'm NOT Mom of the Year.


But, do you know what? My boys are loved. They are fed, they are entertained, they learn new things, they make friends, and they are happy.


They tell me more times than I can count each day "I love you, Mommy."


And so, I'm okay with being NOT Mom of the Year.


Check out The Mommyologist and Life Without Pink for more moms who are NOT Mom of the Year.