This may be my favorite post to date. I had so much fun writing this piece because this right here is as real as it gets, folks. I, my friends, am a hot mess mom. This post was inspired by two real life events in a week’s time that I completely forgot. Sadly, these were not isolated events, and most days I wonder how I am even allowed to have kids and be an adult with my scatter-brained tendencies.

I was lamenting to a group of my friends about my problem, and she confessed that she could relate and suffers from “Hot Mess Mom Syndrome”. Ah ha! An actual title for my condition! I have now self-diagnosed myself and have joined the ranks of other moms suffering from HMMS. Hot Mess Mom Syndrome is real, my friends, and I have come to realize that I am not alone. We make up an army of sleep deprived, chronically late, scatter-brained, spit up ridden women walking around society, barely holding it together.

No one can be a perfect parent all the time. For example, recently one of my friends has been struggling to get her little ones to sleep and take naps. Correspondingly, she told me that she thinks that they might be going through sleep regression ages. Apparently, sleep regression is the time when a baby’s sleep patterns start to shift. Usually, this involves them waking up during the night, and they might also have a hard time going back to sleep.

Do you have any tips for helping your children get to sleep? So far, I have told my friend that she should do some research into sleep training techniques, but I will be more than happy to pass on any suggestions you might have.

So, are you a Hot Mess Mom? Maybe you don’t know for sure or you are in denial. I will help you identify the symptoms. The stories you will read below are all TRUE stories of mine and ones that I have gathered from readers and friends. None have been embellished or fabricated. They are all the hallmarks of a true hot mess mom.

You might be a hot mess mom if…

you are avoiding the library right now because you owe too many late fees.

you’ve missed multiple appointments in a week including volunteering in your child’s classroom, even though they are written on your calendar, you have alerts on your phone set, and you have reminded yourself more times than you can count.

your daughter says we should have slow cooker meals every night so we can actually “stay on track and be on time.”

your friends tell you that something starts thirty minutes before it actually starts because they know you will probably be late.

you leave all your groceries in the cart in the parking lot because you’re in a hurry to get home. Then you don’t realize it until you are home and have to go all the way back to the store.

your son is going through a “scared of the bathtub phase”, so you take the soap out to the slip and slide and call it good.

you don’t even remember the last time your kids wore matching socks. Who are we kidding? What socks?

when you start feeding your baby colorful solids, you’re disappointed that the spit up doesn’t blend into your clothes anymore.

you have 3 laundry baskets full of clean clothes in your bedroom, and a load in the washer that you have washed three times.

your kid is probably going commando today because you haven’t washed his underwear.

you are late getting your daughter to the bus stop so you drive her from stop to stop until you catch up to a bus stop at which point you can have her jump out and get on before it drives off….please don’t ask why you didn’t just drive her to school….obviously, no time for logic when you have to race to the next bus stop!

You give your daughter your underwear to wear because you haven’t washed hers.

you put your cell phone away with the baby’s laundry, and then spend an hour looking for your phone.

you accidentally say, “I love you” as you are getting off the phone with a complete stranger.

you look in your rear view mirror at your baby girl and realize you rolled her window down instead of up while going through the car wash.

you had to abandon your cart at the grocery store and do the walk of shame again because you forgot your debit card and Lord knows you don’t have enough cash.

you took your girls to a martial arts demo for their school and went home thinking you would just take a quick nap. You wake up 4 hours later to their instructor banging on your bedroom window. 5 years later and you still can’t look at that man without feeling a flash of shame.

you get up and pack your son’s lunchbox on a non-school day

your 4 year old sneezes and then screams for a tissue. You rummage through your purse (because of course you don’t actually have Kleenex) and pull out one of many stuffed receipts.

you leave work early to take your child to a doctor’s appointment. You get 2-3 blocks away and realize you forgot the kid at the babysitter’s and have to go back to get her, and you are late again.

your kid almost always has a temporary tattoo or marker somewhere on his body.

on any given day you are likely to find random disgusting things in your purse: rotten half eaten food, sports bras, old permission slips, rocks, bubbles from a wedding you attended last year.

you’re driving your middle school kid to her choir concert, but you’re actually heading to the grade school she no longer attends and don’t realize it until she says “you know my concert is at the middle school right?”

your daughter tells you she doesn’t think you can handle having any more than two kids, and you are offended until you realize she’s probably right.

your 12-year-old son asks to go out to eat. He says, “Mom, it’s not that I like their food better. It’s just that the restaurant never says ‘I’m tired. Make yourself a sandwich.

you tell your kids you aren’t mature enough to have kids playing soccer. You can’t get dinner done and children to practice on time…..ever….its one or the other!

you try heating your coffee in the freezer.

you show up at the ER with your kids, and you are all dressed in sledding attire, and they mistake you for a homeless family.

you tell your child as you are trying to leave, “Just find clothes and put them on, I don’t care if they’re dirty.”

you can never find your phone or it’s always dead, and let’s don’t even talk about finding keys or children’s shoes.

you’ve totally embraced and mastered the dry shampoo and messy bun look.

you take your kid to school on a day when there in fact is no school.

you forgot your kid has a birthday party to go to in an hour and you have no present.

your kids have been wearing the same clothes for three days.

your daughter has ballet in fifteen minutes and her leotard and tights are dirty, so you put her in winter tights and a bathing suit.

you forgot it was picture day…again, and you sent your cherub in mismatched clothing and bed head. You’re fairly certain you won’t be ordering pictures for the family again this year.

you realize you are wearing the same outfit as the day before, not realizing it is a new day.

you get all your kids out to drop them off at vbs (15 mins from home) and realize the 4 year old is not wearing shoes.

you get to the parking lot at IKEA and realize you are short one kid. Thankfully she knew what to do.

you take a ten minute nap with the baby and wake up covered in stickers.

you find your deodorant in the refrigerator.

the secretary who signs in tardies at your child’s school knows your life story.

you go to the store with children who are wearing things like swimsuits and sweatshirts but not shoes.

your car constantly looks like you are getting ready for a yard sale and it takes you ten minutes to clear a clear spot for a passenger to sit. A bonus is that you almost always have an extra pair of pants, a jacket, or shoes handy because it was left in the car.

you’ve lost the permission slip again.

you might be a hot mess mom if you keep shopping with spit up and a pee all over you and you forgot the diaper bag at home. So you and the baby wear the pee proudly. You’re no stranger to having stains on your shirt and going out anyway.

you actually remembered the diaper bag this time, but forgot the diapers.

you make a to-do list and write down items you’ve already done, just to make yourself feel better.

you meet a friend for lunch and forget to order your toddler food.

You are actually on time somewhere and you feel like you’re Queen of the world. Hey, you probably forgot something, but who cares. YOU ARE ON TIME!

when a visitor knocks on the door, you shout to everyone to put on pants!

Seriously though, I hope this brought some joy to your day and made you smile. We moms often heap so much guilt upon ourselves for not doing everything perfectly. The truth is, as one of my dear readers reminded me, is that God still uses women even in our “hot mess” to accomplish his will. We are doing his work of raising beautiful children, nourishing our families, providing homes filled with love, and sewing seeds that will continued to be watered throughout their childhood. That’s the joy of being a parent. It’s all about trying to provide your children with a good life, but it can be hard, especially when you don’t have enough money to give them a good education or a proper diet because the food is too expensive. But there are things that can help you through this journey. Government programs and initiatives, and even raising money through these fundraising ideas are all suggestions you can consider if you truly feel like you’re in a “hot mess” situation. But trust me, you’re doing great, even if you’re going through difficult times. Motherhood and adulthood can absolutely be messy along the way, but it sure helps to laugh at ourselves from time to time. Real life is just too funny! Hey, if nothing else, our children will leave childhood with great stories to tell about their Hot Mess Moms.