Mama's need to stick together

This morning I went to drop Jake off at school. One of the moms of a baby in the class I taught this year happened to be walking in beside me so we started to talk. She asked me how I was doing and I said "good" and then she said "well, you look exhausted." Now, she wasn't lying. I am exhausted. Emma still needs two middle of the night feedings and they last anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour. Not to mention the fact that the past two mornings Jake has decided to wake up at 6am instead of 7am. So, yes I'm not getting enough sleep. Is any mama of young children getting enough sleep out there?

My point is that I was a little offended she said that. Even though it was completely true. Sometimes you just want people to lie to you and tell you that you look great. Just like I was lying when I told her that I was doing good. What I should have said was something like "well, i haven't showered in over 24 hours, I've been wearing the same spit up covered pants for three days now because nothing else fits, and I'm seriously questioning everything I thought I knew about parenting." I mean really who wants to hear all that when they're asking you how you're doing? All they want to hear is that you're fine. Right?

Or maybe, just maybe, if I had not pretended that everything was perfect, and I had just told her the truth she would have felt empathy for me (she has four young kids herself). Perhaps she would have even admitted that her life is nowhere near perfect and that she's had days where personal hygiene took a backseat to crying kids, housework, or locking herself in a closet somewhere to get a quick nap or scarf down an entire bag of Hershey's miniature candy bars.

Why do we all feel the need to make it look easy when raising kids is really, really hard? Somedays I really just want to let Emma cry it out in her crib. Other days I really just want to hold her while she sleeps so I can look at the cute little dimples on her hands. Plus, that's the only time I get to see the sweet little drunken smiles that she makes in her sleep. It's hard to find any sort of balance in your day when you have to choose between reading "If you give a pig a pancake" for the eight hundredth time or tackle the mountain of laundry building up in the bedroom.

I think it's time for mama's around the world to unite and stop pretending that this is an easy job. It's hard. And from now on if you're brave enough to tell me I look exhausted when you see me, then I'm going to be brave enough to tell you that things aren't always "fine."