Pinterest Moms Do Not Really Exist 'Round Here

I am old enough now to have idly watched a few motherhood trends in my lifetime. When I was around 14, the trend was working mothers and latch-key kids. Remember that term? It was almost a profanity at the time. Like "Oh, Sarah is a latch-key kid", followed by a slightly judgmental look toward the parents or parent. This evolved into parents who both worked as a norm and the dreaded "daycare children". The phrases that spewed out of this conversation typically were, "It's not daycare, it's an 'Early Learning' facility"; followed by the opposing team of mothers who say "I stay at home so I can raise my own children." Now we have a new fad of Pinterest moms.

I'm going to tell you where I have fallen on the spectrum of all this competitive mothering: Everywhere. I was a "latch-key kid" who also watched my 2 year old sister while my mom worked starting at age 10. I have had Natalia in daycare since she was 4 months old at one of these "Early Learning

Not really much of a babysitter,
but cute - until he eats poop

Centers" because Jeremy and I both work full time, sometimes Natalia will stay home by herself for a couple hours (with the dog like Katie Nanna in Peter Pan) and I am a huge Pinterest fan. So there. Look at me all askew you stay at home moms who raise your own children that don't have to lock themselves inside the house with the dog. Here's another tip for you: I notoriously get NOTHING done on my days off too. Nothing except cruising Pinterest, that is.

So I was reading an article in Marie Claire while sitting on the toilet the other day (it's the only time I get to read the magazines and I'm a fast reader), when the topic was this new flavor of mom - The Pinterest Mom. Here is my synapses along with the magazine's of her typical day:

She wakes up before her children to get in a workout, blog a bit (they are all bloggers) to bring in an extra 3 G's, drink a cup of green tea since coffee is so passe, then shower, put on natural looking makeup by contouring and highlighting, all topped off with a sock bun. At 8:30 the children are awakened to a paleo breakfast (which they LOVE), dress in homemade outfits of ruffles and chevron, then she will home school them at two grade levels above the standard while incorporating Jesus and morals. When the kids start to fight over who is the kindest sibling, she promptly stuffs both of them in an over-sized t-shirt to "hug it out" as they stare at a bottle of glitter until they are calm again. 

Nope! Didn't feed the dog, have no idea who is picking up
the child and the calendar is totally blank. Another
Pinterest craft that wasted 3 hours of my day.

The afternoon of Pinterest mom is full of learning interactive field trips to local areas, a quick game of kick ball organized by her and the other Pinterest moms, then it is on to the children's extracurricular activities: Cello, soccer, and Spanish lesson - which the kids again LOVE and never say "I can't go because I have diarrhea and need a nap". It's hard to argue with a tired kid who has diarrhea on the way to tutoring, but I'm sure Pinterest Mom's children have exceptional bowel habits too.

Pinterest mom rounds out the evening with a crock pot meal that she had the

forethought to make during homeschooling, quality time with her husband where they write little dry erase notes to each other on a crafted picture frame followed by an impromptu game of Nerf-gun, sexy hide-and-seek around the house because the children are bathed, dried, coiffed and in bed all at the same time in under 20 minutes right after dinner and chores. Oh yeah, I forgot about the kiddos legibly filling out their age-appropriate chore chart. 

Whew. She is one amazing lady and according to the blog-sphere, there are a lot of these super Pinterest moms out there. You know what I say? Bullsh!t.  I mean, I could get on this blog and tell you all about how I cook a crock pot meal, have Natalia do chores AND get some sexy time in with my husband. Yeah, that happens, but it is not all on the same day. We still have a front office room that is half gray, half yellow-beige because we just haven't got around to painting it over the past year. 

Forget stripes! This is the new trend.

I didn't even take off yesterday's
makeup.

My house is usually a partial mess and the garage is an explosion of shoes, paper towels and saw dust from last month's project. The walls of the garage are also decorated with dead smooshed spiders that no one wants to touch. I don't know, maybe this is like a Godfather way of sending a message to the other spiders. Like "Don't mess with us, or we will kill your family." I didn't use the crock pot last night because it is still "soaking" from my crock pot meal a day and a half ago. On the other hand, Natalia and I did finally catch up on the Bachelorette all the way to the "After the Rose" episode. Natalia will do some chores today and the Roomba will vacuum my floors for me while I scour through that crock pot mess. That is, unless we

Our "something better to do"
on Friday. We also managed
to blow our budget at the same
time. Score!

find something more fun to do that probably involves ZERO learning.

A lot of the times I forget to pay Natalia's allowance, I forget to work out and I never get to bed on time. I only wash my hair a few times a week since it takes 20 minutes to dry and style and is super boring. I could tell you it is because I am trying to make my hair healthy by not over styling it, but that would be a lie. I'm lazy to the core. I'm also tired all the time and uninspired to do very much at home. Except Pinterest to look at homes and mom-blogs of women who, evidently, have it together. 

So here I am, a working mom with a messy house, undone laundry, a dog who eats poop and jumps out of the Jeep and into Natalia's summer tutoring class

at Huntington to the delight of the kids, and a husband who is grumpy because our schedules are totally opposite right now. I have terrible arthritic knees and severe endometriosis which makes me feel like I need a marathon sleep of 14 hours. Yeah I blog, but I dare you to count all the run on sentences here along with poor punctuation.  You can't count it, but I don't want to hear about it.

Okay, so this is a bit of a rant, but I doubt these Pinterest moms really exist. I'm thinking a compilation would amount to this whole package, but this is an unrealistic goal for all of us. I think the intent was good, but this has evolved to a "pasted on lip gloss smile" competitive-mommy showdown of perfection and guilt wrapped up in witty and humorous comments. Things like "my weakness in life is baking too many goodies that always turn out picture worthy" (smile, winky-face). Let's just stop this already! We don't have to be perfect. Isn't that what we tell our kids? This hodge-podge of kindness and insanity is what makes them "perfect" in our eyes. Most of the time my goal as a mother is just to prepare Natalia to move out, not annoy people, keep a job and pray. That's it! That's all I got. 

I love how pretty Pinterest is and how you can go from "six pack abs girl" to recipe for puppy chow in seconds. I love the ideas because I am an idea girl. I am just not a follow through girl. That being said, feel free to check out my boards on Pinterest. They are this "pie in the sky" version of what I would like to be someday when I grow up. Just don't expect any of that perfection here. I'm too busy eating pie crust, not working out and writing on this blog that makes no money while Natalia watches TV next to me.