Some days, I feel like I have this mom thing down. Everyone sleeps through the night — not in their own bed — but through the night nonetheless. Then there are other days when everything I thought I knew goes flying out the window and I realize I’m Jon Snow beyond the Wall.

Thursday was unseasonably warm for mid-February, so I took J to the park. As we were walking up to it, I overheard two money talking about how they just wished their kids would listen sometimes. “Mom just needs a win.”

And isn’t it something how little it takes for we moms — and dads — to feel like we’re ok. That we’re on the right track and everything really is going to be ok. Right now, as parents to tiny humans, it’s hard for everything we do wrong to feel like an epic Bay of Pigs level failure.

It occurred to me the other day that the reason we think our failures are so epic is because when our kids feel, they feel BIG. That morning, for example, a different van picked C up for school. The seatbelt on his usual seat was broken — the strap that allows me to loosen and tighten the straps was broken — and this was unacceptable to young C. He had a total meltdown. Was damn near inconsolable. It took about fifteen minutes to get him into buckled into another seat.

After the bus was gone, I talked myself down for calling the bus company and yelling at the dispatcher about the broken seatbelt. I also talked myself down from posting a rant on my town’s mom’s page. Instead l, I took a deep breath, messaged C’s teacher in the app to let her know he’d be coming in hot so that they would be prepared to console him. Then I took J to the park.

What I’ve learned in the almost five years that I’ve been mom-ing is — can’t believe C will be five soon😬🥰 — if my reactions are as big as his, then we’ll never grow. Him as a boy who needs to learn how to manage emotions and me as his mother who needs to teach him how.

So yea, some days you’ve got it all together. Some days you don’t. And some days, it starts well only to fall apart and come back together again…and then maybe fall apart again by bath time. It’s the cycle we live in now as parents that won’t end until…we’ll I don’t think it ever ends.

***inhales deeply, long exhale, followed by a looooooong sip of wine.***