What Real Motherhood Looks Like

I thought this link-up was so neat when I saw it a month ago.

There seems to be two mom-blogging camps on the internet: those with picture-perfect children in every way, and those that whine about their kids driving them nuts but then exclaiming "Sooo worth it!" at the end.

The truth is, there's a lot of in-between. Life isn't picture-perfect children doing some Pinteresty craft every day in your beautiful kitchen with the fresh flowers and amazing organizational chart on the wall (uh, we don't do crafts at all over here. Or fresh flowers).

My kid doesn't drive me nuts (usually). She doesn't barge in on me in the bathroom. If she's "too quiet" she's generally 'reading' her books, not getting into something bad. I've showered almost daily since she was born. Go me.

But some of motherhood day-to-day just isn't picture-worthy. Until now. Today the mundane of our lives is getting some time on this here blog.

Linking up with this once-a-monther thing

Let me just explain the lay of the land for our apartment. It's on the 2nd floor, but we have our own private staircase. It connects to a one-car garage that my husband has the only opener to (he leaves super early, and that way never has to scrape the ice off his car in the winter). I park in a spot out front.

I do all my "big" grocery shopping at night after B is home Cora is in bed. But Aldi isn't open past 8, so I take Cora there in the mornings some times (38¢/lb. bananas and $1.69 milk gallons, holla!). She does great at the store. It's just when we get home . . . getting everyone and everything to the top of the stairs into the living area is a bit of a feat.

Also, our staircase is 16 steps, which is 2 steps more than a regular staircase, so the least trips up and down the steps, the better. I'm sure there are more expedient ways to do all this, but this works for me. Sorta.

I present to you: How To Enter Our 2nd-Floor Apartment With 3 Bags of Groceries, 2 Water Bottles, One Purse, and One Young Toddler

1. Get baby out of car.
2. Put baby on sidewalk. (She doesn't know how to step off it on her own yet.)
3. Grab a few things and open door to apartment.
4. Grab rest of bags from trunk
5. Herd baby into apartment. (Occasionally she'll want to ring the doorbell and clack the door knocker, so put your bags down and pick her up to do that.)
6. Close door. Start herding baby up the stairs. Use bait if needed. Stay behind baby because you don't want a repeat of that one incident. You know the one.
7. Haul groceries up in various shifts to various stairs behind baby.
8. Keep encouraging/bating baby who has begun throwing things. Yell occasionally. Drop stuff.
9. Baby reaches the top and starts closing the gate. You and some groceries reach the top. Throw them over the gate.
10. Go back and get the other groceries that are on steps 6, 8, and 9.
11. Arrive at the top and latch-close baby gate.

Six minutes and 18 seconds later, you have officially made it from car to apartment with all your chattel. Even though I work out and run 3 miles every other day, this still exhausts me.

Here is a helpful video that I tried to shoot with one hand while trying not to impede the actual task at hand.


On the upside, we bought a house with a 3-car garage that attaches right into the kitchen/great room. Can't wait until we move in!

This has nothing to do with the rest of the post, but sometimes you look stupid when you attempt to kiss your kid: