What if Motherhood Were Like the Brownies?

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I think that motherhood should be a little more like being a member of Brownies or the Boy Scouts.

Admittedly, I was never a member of either, but I think I get the gist of it: you do things like walking elderly people across the street (you know, like in the movie Up!), and you collect badges on a cute little sash for all the things you do. Well, what if Motherhood were like that? Except, instead of getting badges for the things you do like throwing stellar birthday parties or making your own Halloween costumes, you get a badge for things that happen to you. Allow me to explain.

The other day, we had plans to meet a friend at Chick-Fil-A for lunch. As I’m getting my boy’s shoes on, preparing to head out the door, my toddler spits up. “Ok, no big deal,” I thought, he spits up all the time. He probably just ate too much too fast. He’ll be fine. When we pulled into the parking lot of Chick-Fil-A, he spit up again. And for some reason I still unbuckled everyone and walked inside to continue our lunch plans. Well, the spit up never stopped. It just got worse and worse.

He threw up all over the floor and all over me as I was ordering our food. The sweet people at Chick-Fil-A were incredibly kind and helpful. My friend was super gracious and helpful too, but I was embarrassed and covered in vomit. 

I drove home with the lovely smell of spit up all over my clothes. And all I could think was, “Well, that’s never happened to me before. This must put me on a new level of parenting or something.”

I’m sure you’ve thought the same thing. Maybe after your toddler found scissors and decided they needed a trim? Or you walked in to find your child playing with their poop in their crib? Or how about the time your son dropped his pants in the middle of an outdoor shopping mall to “water the bushes?” 

The situations in the previous paragraph have never happened to me. But when I hear my friends tell me about them, I want to give them a badge or a trophy of some kind for just living to tell about it and maybe even laughing about it a little now too. 

So if we were sitting around at our motherhood chapter of the Brownies meeting, what kind of badge would you be earning and proudly sewing onto your sash? Would it be the “My daughter ran away in Target” one or the “my 3-year-old walked in on us” badge?

2 COMMENTS

  1. I’m on board, 100%! Just the last two weeks of my life I think I’ve earned several badges. ??‍♀️??

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