Has This Ever Happened to You?

I took a bath with a dinosaur today.

As I slid down into the lukewarm water, a plastic dinosaur floated by me.  My bath water is always lukewarm because I can't manage to get in the tub when I want to.  Someone needs a diaper changed, or someone needs a drink and a snack, or someone needs help getting their head unstuck from the arm hole of a shirt.  Sound familiar?

I watched as the dinosaur "bobbed and weaved" around the Barbie that was floating at my feet.  I couldn't help but notice the alphabet foam letters stuck to the wall, forming a "bath toy" perimeter around me.  Suddenly, Cam threw open the door and ran into the bathroom.  He launched his toy truck into MY tub, laughed, and then promptly left.

In that moment, I thought, "It is apparent I am a parent."

Do you ever have moments like that?  When the reality of your situation hits you like a baby boy's truck flying through the air, and you realize with uncanny certainty that you have become the mother you always thought (or never thought) you'd be?!  Does it become blatantly apparent to you that...well, you're a parent?  Do you think to yourself, "Wow.  I am such a mom!?"

Like when you talk extensively with a friend and "fellow mommy" about stretch marks, vacuum cleaners, and curing diaper rash; or when you go to the grocery store with bedhead because you're out of milk and your kids cannot live without it, even for a minute...you feel like such a mom.  When your husband comes home from work and politely asks, "Didn't you wear that yesterday?", or when you insist that pancakes are a legitimate dinner item...you feel like such a mom.  Your four-year-old weeps and wails because she can't wear panties with "Thursday" embroidered on them when it's a Tuesday, so you promise to wash "Tuesday" while she's at preschool if she'll "please, just wear Thursday" for now and then change later...you feel like a mom then, too!

You feel like a mom when you take a bath with a dinosaur.

And that's okay!  The graham cracker in your hair, the spit-up on your shoulder, the house smelling like poopy diapers, the sippy cups, the missing toothbrushes because the baby is a "klepto," the preschool crafts, the messy kitchen, the stinky fridge, and the dinosaur in the bath tub--it is all okay.  It's the "evidence" that you are a mom--and when you get right down to the nitty-gritty core of it, being a mom is pretty awesome-saurus!

Don't you extinct?...err, I mean, don't you think?!

You can read more about the author, Aleisha McDaniel, right HERE!