It’s 8:30 in the morning and you have a doctor’s appointment for your 3 year old at 10am. Plenty of enough time to get ready and be there on time, right?
Nope. Because you have a 3 year old. Their understanding of time is like your understanding of quantum physics. They don’t care where you have to be or what you have to do.
Currently, their biggest mission is to pretend their mini waffle is a spaceship and it’s flying through a maple syrup rain storm. Which if you were to translate that to reality, means their flinging mini waffles around and maple syrup is flying everywhere. Including in their hair.
Hope you had a bath worked into your time frame.
You need to get yourself ready too. So you start to run up stairs to throw on your classiest pair of yoga pants and find a shirt that’s not covered in some sort of stain. But halfway up the stairs you hear the familiar sound. Tap tap tap tap tap…”mommy?? You going upstairs?”
How cute! You’re little one wants to watch you get ready! And in addition to that, open your jar of moisturizer, play with the toilet brush, unfold all your folded clothes that you forgot to put away, pull all the toilet paper off the roll, take off their clothes and run around like it’s spring break in the Keys and ask you 38 times “what are you doing Mommy?”
So what should have taken you 10 minutes to get ready has now taken you 20 minutes. You officially have 30 minutes to get your kid dressed, bathed and in the car.
You start filling the tub. You and your 3yo go into her room to grab an outfit. She wants to “help”. She proceeds to grab handfuls of clothes and starts throwing them behind her without looking. You scramble to try and catch them while yelling at her to stop throwing clothes.
Finally, she’s found it. It’s perfect. Her Banana costume from Halloween. But wait, that’s not all…she wants to wear it with her tutu and her princess shoes. Fashion world, brace yourself. There’s a new up and coming trend-setter.
You try and explain to her that she has to wear actual clothes and not a costume. Let the temper-tantrum begin. Fast-forward to after you bribe her with candy to not wear the banana costume and she accepts this trade, to the realization that this entire time the tub has been filling up and you forgot about it.
You run down the hall and realize how grateful you are that someone, many years ago, created the overflow drain. You turn off the water, throw your kid in it and start to de-syrup her.
You look at the clock. Uh oh…you only have 10 minutes to get her dressed and in the car.
***Enter Panic Mode***
You pull her out of the tub still soapy and dry her off. You put on the agreed upon non-banana outfit and quickly run downstairs to get her shoes on. And then it happens…
“I HAVE TO POOP!”
Noooooo! You accept this new road block and initiate your super mom powers. Like a well-oiled machine, you pick your child up and, while carrying her to the bathroom, also removing her shoes and pants. You see everything so clearly suddenly. You place said child on the potty and proceed to grab 3 wipeys and 2 squares of toilet paper.
Like a lamaze coach, you instruct your daughter, “FOCUS! Now SQUEEZE! Good job! Now SQUEEZE AGAIN! You did it!!!” You clean her up and somehow get her pants and shoes back on in record breaking time.
You carry her like a football down the stairs while also carrying your purse in the elbow of your other arm, a coffee in one hand, cell phone in your bra and keys in your mouth.
When you drive, it’s like you’re the only one on the road. You’re laser-focused. You weave in and out like a Nascar driver. You see people flicking you off and horns honking, but you won’t be distracted. You have an appointment to make and you WILL arrive on time.
You park at the doctor’s office. You quickly unbuckle your kid, grab your purse and run inside. 9:59. You did it! You run victory laps in the waiting area. High-fiving other moms and cooling your face off in the water fountain. Was it worth endangering the lives of others as well as your own family to make it to your appointment on time? Hell yes it was. For today, you are on time and responsible. Way to go, super mom!