Mom Late: WHY MOMS ARE LATE!
I’m late a lot. I’ll admit; it’s mostly my own fault. Late to work; late to events; late to appointments. Then I had kids. Now…I’m really late. Now, I’m “mom late.”
WHY DO I NEED TO BE ON TIME?
Sometimes I really wonder where our fascination with being on time came from. We set our clocks by satellite now. We know what time it is all over the world. Only a couple of decades ago everyone was good with being plus or minus 5 minutes, and the time was good enough.
Only a couple of decades before that, houses may not have had a clock at all. And only a few decades before that, time was told by the sun…ok…I might be exaggerating a little.
But, you get my point. Now, all of us are on the exact time…to the second. Now, if I’m running behind, everyone knows that I know it.
I believe that moms need more grace and humor in their life. We share #momfails and #momhumor. We even share #momhacks and #momtips.
I’m here to start a new trend: being mom late #momlate
MOM LATE
So, what’s “mom late”?
Well, there is the ordinary sort of late. You know, where you didn’t get out of bed on time, you didn’t set the alarm correctly, or you just spent way too much time binging that show and didn’t get out the door.
Plus, there are the less ordinary types of late. Truly unavoidable events such as trains that never end, car accidents, power outages, or winter weather.
Mom late on the other hand, is a kind of late that derives from having small children.
Mom late is when you, as the mom, wake up hours before your children, prepare all of the clothing, meal plan the entire day, schedule the activities, and even gas up the minivan just to still arrive late.
Those tiny humans in your life commandeer your best laid plans and make new ones. You show up looking like it’s your first day on the mom-scene –an amateur.
Mom late is having the mature capacity to know when and where you should be but lacking the physical force to achieve it. You are unable to get there because of the combined hurricane-like strength of toddler mayhem.
Mom late is having the foresight to leave far earlier than necessary to reach a destination at an appropriate time only to be prevented from reaching your destination due to completely irrational tiny humans.
What am I talking about? What is mom late? Well, here are some examples.
WHY MOMS ARE MOM LATE
I am perfectly capable of admitting that I am frequently late to events and activities. But, I have to admit that there are also plenty of times that my lateness is not a result of my planning or lack thereof. Instead, sometimes I am late because my children have banded together to make leaving, or arriving for that matter, impossible.
Here are just some of the reasons why moms are MOM LATE:
1. CAR KEY HIDE AND SEEK
Your child chose to play hide and seek with the keys.
A couple of Fridays ago I took the kids and the family van to get groceries. I came home, put the groceries away, and went about my weekend.
On Monday morning, when I needed the van again, I reached for my keys.
Gone.
Clearly I made it home. Clearly the keys made it into our home. However, the keys have been gone ever since.
I have a sneaking suspicion that I will one day find them at the bottom of an air vent or beneath a pile of Legos.
There is an educated hypothesis brewing in our household that our youngest toddler found the keys and decided to play hide and seek with them.
So, instead of being able to use the family van on Monday morning while I was trying to get to work, I spent 20 minutes dumping my purse, emptying out the key drawer (the “safe place” where we keep our kids away from the keys now that my kids are able to get into), and crawling around in the crumbs littering the floor of the van.
I was late that morning. Didn’t find the keys; still haven’t found the keys.
I was ready to walk out the door: hair done, makeup on, clothes ready. But, I was late. Mom late.
2. Lost Shoes
Among my other negative qualities, along with being chronically late, I am also terrible about leaving my shoes around the house.
While this negative trait is quite inconvenient if you wish to roam around our house without tripping over shoes, leaving my shoes in unexpected and random locations is quite convenient when I need to leave in a hurry.
I always have at least 1 pair of shoes by the door, and I sometimes have as many as 4 stacked up in our laundry room.
My children share this trait. Shoes litter every room of our house. They are rarely in pairs, and they are rarely conveniently located.
This problem is compounded when all of us need to leave the house, at the same time, in a hurry.
I have 3 children. Each of them needs 2 shoes.
Presumably, those shoes should match.
But, when moms are ready to leave: kids dressed, hair combed, bellies full, bathroom break taken, you know that we still have to conquer the shoe problem.
I have lost years of my life searching the house for the shoes that were supposed to be in the shoe rack. If you are a mom like me, you often find one in between the couch cushions and the other in the dryer, or some other strange location. Multiply this hunt by 6 feet.
And, if you have a sneaky toddler like I do (note #1), then, even if you put those shoes all together, by the door, so that you could all proceed calmly and orderly to the exit, it is likely that the little toddler has since donned the shoes and stomped like a dinosaur around the house leaving them strewn about in the same kind of chaos that they would have been had you not taken the time to set them up for an orderly exit.
Rant over.
#momlate
3. FORGOT ABOUT MOM
Moms put their children first. Moms let their children suck the life out of them, and then they offer those little parasites a homemade snack.
Moms make sure that their children eat first, sleep first, and have the best education.
Sometimes moms put their kids first so much that they actually forget about needing to take care of themselves.
I am notorious for setting out adorably coordinated outfits for my children. Then, in the morning, I make sure that my children are bathed, dressed, brushed, and fed.
I put their shoes on, I make their breakfast, and I look at the clock.
Oh no.
I’m now mom late because I forgot to get myself ready!
Time to go, and I haven’t dressed, bathed, or brushed myself.
Now, I am screaming at the kids to get in the car while I am trying to find anything clean or presentable to wear in public myself.
Want to know why mom showed up to the party in yoga pants and a messy bun but her kids are all adorably JCrew-coordinated?
It’s because she didn’t want to be mom late. So, instead, she decided to come with a faint spit-up stain, dry shampoo, and a bottle of Febreeze.
Or, maybe she chose to show up mom late, because she took a quick 15 minutes to brush on some makeup, curl her hair, and switch from her mom uniform (joggers and a t-shirt) to actually put on a pair of jeans.
Want to know why she’s mom late today? Might be because she completely forgot to take care of herself because she was way too busy taking care of those little ones!
4. WAITING FOR THE BABYSITTER
Are you an employer wondering why that one employee is always late to evening meetings, client events, or networking sessions?
Wondering why one of your mom employees is always just a few minutes late in the morning?
Well, it might be because she was waiting on the babysitter.
Moms can’t just leave their house. They can’t just get themselves ready and walk out the door.
Society tells us that it is bad to just leave our kids home with the doors locked and a few bowls of Goldfish on the floor.
The television is not an approved childcare provider.
Plus, babysitters cost money. I don’t want to pay my babysitter for an extra hour just so I can show up extra early to entertain past clients.
Or, even if I do ask her to show up a little early, I still have to go through the list of emergency contacts, one hundred hugs and kisses, and where the special lovies are.
Plus, the babysitter could have been caught at a train, stuck behind a car accident, or delayed by the weather just like the rest of us might be.
I am not completely in control of my own fate.
Sometimes I am mom late because I am waiting on other people.
Mom late
5. CAR SEAT DRAMA = MOM LATE
Ever tried to put a toddler in a car seat? Even though toddlers have literally never ridden in a car without a car seat, they still act like the car seat is a new and dangerous experience.
At the end of Disney’s Peter Pan, the crocodile is trying to eat Captain Hook. Captain Hook ends up in the wildest of positions avoiding the massive jaws of the hungry crocodile.
To a toddler, a car seat is like a crocodile that will clench its jaws around them if they relax into it.
There is screaming, flailing, and writhing to avoid its deadly clutches.
Or, ever played whack-a-mole? A loose toddler in the car, can be quite difficult to catch.
They can climb over seats, fit into nooks, and evade reaching fingers better than a darting fish.
All just to avoid being buckled into a car seat.
This wild ordeal can go on for ages and is often only remedied by brute strength or bribery. #momhack
Want to know why I was late today? Couldn’t catch my two year old as he leapt dexterously over the seats of the van
6. THE BLOWOUT
I have already admitted that one of the things that I will not miss about having a new baby is the blowouts.
Baby poop up the back, out the sides, and through the clothes is gross.
And, it always seems to coincide with car rides. Either before or during.
Blowouts are always a result of needing to be out the door and going somewhere less convenient than your own home.
Thus, when you are trying to make it to a venue, an appointment, or even just work on time, your child will wait until 1 second before needing to drive out the driveway to have a diaper explosion that ruins not only the diaper, but both yours and his clothes.
So, you have to change the baby, start the laundry, and change your own clothes before you can set foot in a public place. Thus, you are now mom late.
EMBRACE BEING MOM LATE
Sure, most of the time that I am late, it’s just because I didn’t plan far enough in advance. Sometimes, I am not reasonable about estimating the actual amount of time it will take for us to reach a destination.
Honestly, I am not all that sure why we are so fascinated with being on time as it is!!
But, I can’t take all the blame. Sometimes, I wake up hours before the rest of my household, have all of the shoes, clothes, and hair accessories ready to go, and we are still late.
Living with children requires all sorts of compromises. Moms forfeit all sorts of rights and privileges that they used to have. You know…back when they were cool.
Moms need support in their lives. Thus, they have to share mom humor, mom hacks, and mom fails.
But, when those tiny humans thwart all your plans to be a responsible and punctual participant in public events, then you are “mom late.”
There is no getting around it. They are going to hide the keys, lose the shoes, and fill the diapers.
You can’t show up to school without shoes, law enforcement is not a big fan of leaving your children loose in the car while you drive, and your employer probably doesn’t want to smell that big green stain down the side of your dress all day.
You wouldn’t trade it for anything. So, have a laugh. No excuses or explanation necessary. Just claim #momlate!
