How to Be a Great Mom

I have three kids who are seven, six and four, and I have totally got the mom thing figured out. It really isn’t that hard. I find my everyday life is filled with peace and calm, and my kids are stable, well-rounded, and always go with the flow. I am going to share some of the steps you can take to reach new heights as a mom, while being happy and positive.

Here is a list of things you can do to be a great mom:

• Master your morning routine: Most of my mom friends talk about how they feel rushed in the morning. The easiest fix for this is to wake up earlier. If you find that you are yelling at your kids to put their shoes on for the 85^th time in five minutes, whatever you do, don’t raise your voice at your kids or lose your temper. Your kids deserve the best version of you in the morning, so just try harder to be more patient.
• Dress to impress: Resist the urge to put on yoga pants and throw your hair in a ponytail and start your day. Just dropping off the kids and don’t want to go all out? Didn’t sleep last night? Not feeling it today? Those are not excuses to walk out of the house looking sloppy. Great moms wear makeup and wouldn’t leave the house without taking the time to prepare for whatever the day will bring. They dress to impress. You never know who will be watching and judging you, so you should always be prepared. This applies especially to moms of newborns. Fake it ‘til you make it.
• Eat healthfully and demand that your kids do too: Lunchables? Processed foods? Oreos? Sugar-filled junk food? I don’t think so. Don’t let your “busy-ness” carry over to your diet or your kids’ diet. Every day be deliberate in your food choices and don’t accept anything less. All organic, no processed foods, no artificial coloring or flavoring. It’s easy. Plan ahead. Maybe just sleep less, prep more.

• A little Mom-petition never hurt anyone: People put too much emphasis on everyone getting along all the time. Strive to be the best at everything, and be sure to let those around you know all that you do well. Don’t be afraid to mention your list of accomplishments (in a subtle way) in social settings. Post often to social media with pictures and narratives to let your friends know all the things you are excelling at on a daily basis.
• Keep a clean house, always: Listen; everyone’s kids make messes around the house, leave socks and shoes here and there, and open wrappers and leave them where they are standing at that moment without a second thought. Your job as a great mom is to keep a clean house at all times. You never know who might stop by, and you can’t have any peace if your house is cluttered with kids’ messes. Do you feel like while you clean one room, they mess up another? You should just clean faster.
• Fill their days with engagement and learning: Have a free weekend? Fill your time engaging your kids and enriching their lives. Downtime is made for learning and growing. Television and screen time are fillers that great moms don’t need. They spend free time doing activities that expand their kids’ minds and challenge them. Great moms don’t “coast;” they take every free moment to do something entertaining and engaging.
• Patience, mama: I touched on this earlier, but you should have a never-ending supply of patience. Have you heard “Mom, mom, mom, mom, mom” 1,862 times today? You are needed and instead of feeling exhausted, this should make you feel energized. Your children deserve your patience — always. They need to know that you are here to respond to their every question, whim, and desire the minute they speak your name. Great moms feel like rainbows and butterflies when they hear, “Mom, mom, mom, mom, mom” because they know they are needed. Especially when you’re on an important phone call, drop what you’re doing and answer them. You never know when that one time you didn’t answer them might lead to a life of destructive behavior, and eventually, jail time.
• Be on time for everything, always: This is a big one for great moms. Be on time. For all the things. You might lie to yourself and think dressing three or four kids in the morning takes a lot of time or is a little bit stressful. You might say your kids do everything they can to sabotage the process. Shoes don’t match, pants on backwards, hair is a mess? Great moms plan for the surprises and always show up on time. Tell yourself to be on time and don’t accept anything less.
• Make a home for your husband or significant other that is welcoming and stress free: Your job as a mom and wife is to make your spouse feel appreciated and loved at all times. Great moms make their spouse’s lives easy and carefree. Why stress them out with things that you can handle on your own? And great moms can handle it all on our own.
• Last but not least, Happy April Fools’ Day!

Hopefully you realized (by suggestion #1 or #2) that this blog post happened to fall on April Fools’ Day. Luckily for me, I am SO far from being a “great mom,” that coming up with this little list of things was easy because they pretty much never happen in our house.

We are all in this together and it is so HARD. Every day. We are all great moms.

We are impatient and lose our temper and snap at our kids and our spouses on an hourly basis. We put on PJ pants and a ponytail, and give our kids some screen time to have five seconds of sanity and just do what we can to survive. Our houses are a mess and we are late to All. The. Things.

Please stop here and take a breath and know that you are everything to your kids. You are all that they need. And their expectations are minimal. Just love them. Love them in a lazy way some days, when you are just in survival mode. Love them in a way you knock it out of the park every once in a while, and instead of thinking “Why can’t I be like this all the time?,” think “I am a great mom” on the good days and the crappy ones.

When April Fools’ Day falls on a Monday like today, I can promise you I will show up late for school, put my hair in a ponytail, forget makeup, feel exhausted and snap at them in a way that is disproportionate to the behavior, then feel guilty about it the whole way to work. Then feel guilty about dropping the mom ball, yet again.  

I think maybe we are all the fools this April Fools’ Day for putting so much pressure on ourselves. Some of my best days have been the simple ones. Where I’ve screwed up with the mom thing throughout the day and my daughter has looked at me and said, “I love you mama. This was the most fun day,” even when we’ve done something silly like go to Target, and I’ve just yelled like a crazy person about everyone not getting their shoes on.

Your kids just love you — all the time. Even when they are saying mom fifty times or they aren’t listening or you feel like things are falling apart a little bit. You are doing it right. We are doing our best. It’s enough. It’s really enough. Happy April Fools’ Day to all of my mom fools out there! You are a GREAT MOM.