Often in my life as a mom, I’ve found myself taking a few minutes after the dishes are done and before I dive into tubby time to take a deep breath. I also either inhale a chocolate bar or chug half a glass of wine. Whichever I choose depends on the kind of day I’ve had. Sometimes it’s both. It’s my slow descent toward either diabetes or alcoholism. Not really with alcoholism, but diabetes might be a real possibility…

Before mommyhood, I wasn’t a stress eater. I think that’s because the things that stressed me out were tasks. Tangible action items I could go about completing as long as I buckled down and did them. Attend a planning committee meeting? Check. Finish an article or research paper? Done. As long as I planned my time accordingly, I was good. Hell, I was kind of annoying. In college, I would finish papers a week before they were due; I was that good at time management.

Now, though? Time management is a foreign concept. You can’t “time manage” being a mom. No matter how hard you try. Get the kid to sleep by 8? Sure, if C doesn’t have to use the potty five times or if J will stop talking through the bedtime story. Get the house clean? Sure, J doesn’t insist that we watch the SAME EPISODE of Blippi for the 500th time.

There’s no more shutting the world out by blasting music and banging out a paper. There is no more on time or showing up early. If we do show up early, it’s 100% an accident. Heck, there are no more running quick errands. Now that I’m home with J, every time we have to leave the house, he wants to know where we’re going and what we’re going there for. The only place that doesn’t require a detailed explanation is the library.

As moms, we all have to find our coping mechanisms to help keep our sanity when all feels lost, and the kids won’t stop screaming for five minutes so we can have a complete, uninterrupted thought. Speaking of uninterrupted thoughts…it has taken me FOUR days just to write this short little post. In the time since I started writing this post, I’ve eaten three Snickers bars (two full-sized, one snack size), Gummy bears (chocolate is not my only sugar-based vice), and five Lindt milk chocolate balls. Two of those Lindt balls were consumed in the last twenty minutes while I multitasked signing up for a warranty on a device, checking for an update on my community post about my broken printer, starting Home on one tablet, and Pinkfong and Baby Shark’s Space Adventure on another, then turning off both tablets ad getting the boys in the tub.

If I weren’t already exhausted and didn’t have to finish tubby and get them to bed, I might go back to the kitchen for a glass of wine… Alas, the bottle will stay corked until Thursday, when our families descend for Thanksgiving. That doesn’t mean I can’t have one more Lindt ball, right? Sign me up for the insulin shots now, people!