Parenting isn’t always pretty is it? With a 3 year old and a 7.5 month old who is generally covered in food, I totally get that. So does Sloppy Copy Mommy!!
*****
Sometimes sloppy seconds seem to be part of the mommy code.
It starts first thing in the morning. Food left on your kid’s plate again? Better not let that go to waste. In fact, why even bother fixing yourself a plate? What goes on the kid’s plate is just going to get slobbered on and then left, and then you’re stuck with it. So choose what goes on there wisely.
(The odds are even greater that you’re eating leftover, slobbered-on bits of grapes and goldfish crackers if you take your kids to their grandparents’ house to eat…Waste not, want not, starving children in Ethiopia…Eating baby slobbers is better than your kid being judged by your parents or your in-laws. So you take one for the team.)
The sloppy seconds continue as you attempt to leave the house. Seconds before you have to run out the door, you realize that the remnants of breakfast are still sitting on the table, but there’s no time to mess with that today. Alas, you leave it rotting there, wishing the maid would swing by and clean it up, but knowing deep down that you’re the maid, and your maid sucks. Then, approximately 5 seconds before you walk out, your little one wipes peanut butter all over the side of your slacks, smears her snot on your sleeve, and you spill your coffee down the front of your shirt. You look down and realize you already had toothpaste on your shirt, anyway, so really…no big loss. Just a few seconds, but now you’re extra sloppy.
No time to clean that up, either. You’re on a schedule. You end up going shopping to buy the big one new shoes for school. Your “out on the town” outfit consists of the jeans and (now dirty) shirt you bought for good luck during exams the last week of college in 2000. (I like to refer to those years “the years when I went shopping and enjoyed it”.) Sure, your clothes have holes in them and they are worn, but, to your little girl’s horror and dismay, you don’t actually grow anymore. Therefore, you don’t ever really need any new clothes.
This is convenient, because you never know when you’re going to wake up and nothing fits the big kid. Again. Then, suddenly…surprise! Time to purchase another wardrobe for she-who-is-also-killing-your-grocery-budget.
On the way out of the store, your youngest decides to throw a kicking, screaming tantrum because you didn’t buy HER any shoes. She lays right down in the floor and wails like the spoiled kid you’re not going to let her become. A white-haired, sour-faced old lady across the store glares at you while you pick your flailing kid up and drag her to the car. These sloppy seconds are brief, but they last for hours and hours.
My only consolation in these moments is that others have them, too.
How do you get through “sloppy seconds” days?
*****
Jessica Cavalier blogs at Sloppy Copy Mommy. She has two curious, crazy little girls, the world’s most patient husband, and a trash-stealing dog. When she’s not wiping butts, cleaning up spills, and avoiding housework by reading her girls lots of books, she works as a high school reading specialist. You can find her on her blog, on Facebook, and on Twitter.
