Confessions of a Mom With a Short Fuse

“Put your shoes on!”

Silence.

“I know you can hear me. Put your shoes on!”

Silence.

You’d think we lived in a mansion and she was hanging out in the east wing.

“HELLO!?!?”

Still silence.

I finally find my daughter.

She’s brushing the dog’s hair.

Naturally.

Instead of calmly asking why she hadn’t answered me, I completely lost my patience. There is rarely an in-between for me.

The yelling lasts 30 seconds, but the guilt lasts all day.

Somehow, Instagram always seems to know when I’ve had a rough morning. That’s usually when another gentle parenting post appears, reminding me to stay calm, regulate my emotions, and speak softly.

Instead of feeling inspired, I usually end up feeling like I’ve already failed the day.

Every time I read one, I nod along.

Yes.

That’s exactly the kind of mom I want to be.

Calm.

Patient.

The mom who never has to ask twice.

And then it’s 7:48 on a Tuesday morning and someone still isn’t wearing shoes.

Am I doing years’ worth of damage in thirty seconds?

Is this the part she’ll remember?

Is this the story she’ll tell one day?

Or am I holding myself to a standard no human could actually meet?

I don’t think gentle parenting is the problem.

I think comparing my hardest moments to someone else’s best parenting moment is.

Social media has a way of making patience look effortless.

Real life rarely is.

By the time I’m asking about the shoes, I’ve already packed lunch, started the laundry, scheduled appointments, figured out dinner, fed the dog, and mentally planned the rest of the week.

It isn’t really about the shoes.

It never is.

She doesn’t see the grocery list running through my head.

She doesn’t know I remembered spirit day (thanks to the parent chat), the dentist appointment, and that we’re almost out of milk.

She just sees Mom yelling.

I don’t want my daughter to remember me as the mom with the short fuse. I want her to remember the fact that I made a point to apologize. I hope she remembers the times we had fun, laughed, had an adventure.

Tomorrow morning I’ll probably ask her to put her shoes on again.

And again.

And probably one more time.

I just hope I say it a little more softly.

The Answer to “What Are We Going to Do Today?”

I’ll admit it—I never really understood the obsession with neighborhood pools.

Every spring I’d hear people talking about waitlists, memberships, guest passes, and opening day like it was a holiday. I pictured crowded pools where you’d spend half the day searching for a chair while someone else’s kid splashed you in the face.

With just over a month left of summer, I can confidently say joining a pool was one of the best decisions we made all year.

I have to give my neighbor credit for finding it. She created a spreadsheet comparing pools all over the area and somehow found the perfect fit. It’s about ten minutes away, there wasn’t a waitlist, and somehow it’s never so crowded that you can’t find a chair. Even better? We convinced a few of our neighbors to join too.

The pool has given me the perfect answer to “what are we going to do today?”

It took away the pressure of constantly coming up with the next activity. Instead of wondering how to fill another summer afternoon, we had somewhere to go where the hours somehow disappeared on their own. She is constantly moving and having a blast. I don’t hear “mom, i’m bored” very often and thankfully she has made some friends at the pool so she isn’t constantly asking me to play.

I’ve actually been able to sit in the sun and read a book. Chat with friends. Drink a seltzer. Relax.

Relax.

I honestly didn’t know I remembered how.

Before long, we had our routine. Grab the noodles. Walk down the stairs. Find our favorite spot. Sunscreen. Jump in. Repeat.

Our daughter has met some really nice kids and we have met some fun people. Somewhere between sharing a seltzer with friends while the kids invented elaborate pool games and hearing “Mom! Mom! Mom!” a little less often, I realized we’d settled into the kind of summer I’d always hoped we’d have.

At the beginning of the summer, it was a lot of “Mom, watch this!” and “Will you come in with me?”

Now she barely waits for me to unfold my towel before she’s running off to find friends. She’s jumping off the diving board, swimming for hours, proudly asking for my card so she can buy ice cream.

Somewhere between June and July, she got a little braver. A little more independent.

It hit me one afternoon when I realized I’d finished an entire chapter of my book.

Not because she needed me less.

But because she didn’t need me every thirty seconds.

For the first time in a long time, I relaxed while she played.

I didn’t realize how much I needed that too.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m still the mom chasing her down every time she climbs out of the pool to reapply sunscreen. Future sunburn complaints are not on my summer bucket list. I’m still constantly trying to get her to drink water. She still insists she isn’t thirsty until she’s practically melting.

Goggles have the same magical ability as socks in the dryer. They simply disappear.

Compared to a lot of the pools in our area, this one wasn’t nearly as expensive as some of the others. Looking back, it may be the best money we’ve spent in a long time.

We thought we were paying for a place to swim.

What we actually bought was a summer.

Long afternoons.

New routines.

New friendships.

One less thing to plan.

A little more independence for my daughter.

And, maybe unexpectedly…

A little more peace for me.

Mastering the Monkey Bars

My daughter has officially finished kindergarten. Which means I am officially a mom of a first grader.

So many thoughts have been running through my head lately. Mostly, how much this kid has changed in just one year.

Her confidence.

Her skills.

Her independence.

I’ve been thinking about the beginning of the school year. This tiny five-year-old embarking on the unknown—for both of us.

I worried she was too young.

Would she fit in?

Would she make friends?

Would she be intimidated?

All normal worries, I think.

It was new for me too.

I was meeting new people, navigating birthday parties, soccer teams, school events. Palmer made friends quickly. I started recognizing familiar faces at pick-up. She found her routine, and somewhere along the way, so did I.

One of the biggest takeaways from this year was her persistence.

I didn’t realize the monkey bars were going to be such a big deal in kindergarten. Apparently, that was the thing to do.

My daughter wanted to do the monkey bars so badly, but she found them challenging.

Every day after school, she and her friends would run to the playground. Some kids had already mastered them. Some hadn’t. Every week it seemed like another child could make it all the way across.

I watched her get frustrated.

I watched her get discouraged.

But I also watched her keep trying.

Then one day, out of nowhere, she yelled, “Mom, look what I can do!”

I looked up just in time to see her swing across the monkey bars with a huge grin on her face.

She had finally mastered them.

But the monkey bars are just one thing.

This year she mastered making friends.

She mastered being brave.

She mastered navigating a new school.

She mastered being a kindergartener.

And somewhere along the way, I learned a few things too.

I learned to let go a little.

I learned to trust her.

I learned that she is capable of more than I sometimes give her credit for.

As I watched her fly across those monkey bars, I realized they weren’t the biggest thing she learned this year.

They were simply the last reminder of how far she’d come.

The monkey bars were just the proof.

The Hunger Games: Arlington Summer Camp Edition

I didn’t realize registering my child for summer camp would require strategy, speed, and emotional resilience. I had no clue how competitive camp sign-up is in Arlington, Virginia. Honestly—not just summer camp. Any activity.

Swimming classes? I go to my friend’s house, her husband stays home from work, and the three of us sit there with our computers and phones open trying to see who gets the best spot in the queue. It’s stressful. I imagine this is what it feels like trying to get Taylor Swift tickets.

I have never hated seeing the word “waitlist” more than I do now. It basically means nothing. Here is some fake hope you might get the spot. Good luck, sucker. Never once have I been on a waitlist and actually gotten off of it.

And the sticker shock. Lord help us. For the cost of a one-week camp that isn’t even full day, she better come back speaking another language fluently and understanding how to do taxes.

One week of camp. 9:00–12:30. $850.

Get the f out of here.

You know what I want to spend $850 on? A blow-up pool, wine, and cheese. The last two are for me.

Seriously though, it’s a little ridiculous how insanely expensive these camps are.

Here I go sounding like a boomer, but when I was a kid, we played outside in the neighborhood until someone’s mom yelled our name or the sun started setting. Those were the good old days—freedom, bikes, sprinklers, and drinking from the hose like it was completely normal.

I went to camps as a kid too, but I know for a fact it wasn’t like waiting in line for the newest iPhone. And it definitely wasn’t this expensive.

Now summer feels like a competitive sport for parents.

Who got into what camp?
Who remembered registration opened at midnight?
Who made the spreadsheet?
Who somehow already has their child signed up for tennis, STEM, art, coding, and wilderness survival camp by February?

Meanwhile I’m over here just hoping mine has a fun summer and remembers to wear sunscreen occasionally.

My daughter will probably do a tennis camp like she did last year, spend endless days and nights at “Grumps and Dipper Camp” (my parents), hang out with me, see friends, and hopefully go to the pool regularly—if we can get into one. That’s a whole separate Arlington issue.

And honestly? That sounds pretty great to me.

Because when I think back on my own summers, I don’t remember enrichment. I remember freedom. I remember boredom. I remember popsicles, bikes, catching lightning bugs, and staying outside until it got dark.

I understand how important camps are for working parents, and I truly give props to the parents who make the spreadsheets, stay on top of registration dates, and somehow manage it all. But sometimes I wonder if we’ve made childhood—and parenting—a little too intense.

Maybe kids don’t need a perfectly curated summer.
Maybe they just need one that feels like summer.

Momxiety Moment: The Hit Was Quick. The Overthinking Was Not.

It happened fast.
An “oh shit” moment.
A collision with a teammate.

Let me preface this—this is kindergarten soccer. These are not aggressive athletes out there.

I’m not usually the mom who spirals every time my kid gets hurt.
Most of the time, I’m the “you’re okay, shake it off” mom.
But this hit… wasn’t one I could brush off so easily.

My first instinct? Run onto the field and grab her.

I’m trying to console her while also assessing the situation.
Was I looking for signs of a concussion?
Was she more scared than hurt?
Or was I doing what I always do—jumping straight to worst-case scenario?

Of course I was. Because that’s who I am.

You’d probably think in this situation the worst-case scenario would be a concussion. And yes, that crossed my mind.

But what I was really worried about?

That she wouldn’t want to play soccer anymore.

Through the tears, I hear:
“I’m never playing soccer again!”

Dammit.

Now what?

She seems okay… so do I encourage her to go back in?
Do I give her space and hope she forgets about it by next weekend?
Do I push? Do I protect?

(Quick shoutout to the parents who come prepared, by the way. I’m lucky if I remembered her water bottle—ice pack and Band-Aid are not part of my game-day routine.)

She sat on the bench with an ice pack next to the teammate she collided with. That felt like a small win.

Then I overhear them talking:
“If you go back in, I’ll go back in.”

Okay… okay. I like where this is going.

And just like that, the girls decided to go back in and finish the game.

This might sound a little dramatic… but I was so proud.

Because the hit was scary—but that’s not what stayed with me.

It was the going back out.

It’s hard being a parent. We want to protect them from everything. Every fall, every hurt, every moment that might shake their confidence.

But we can’t.

What we can do is stand on the sidelines and watch them decide who they’re going to be in those moments.

And she chose to go back.

On her own.

And that… was pretty awesome.

Somewhere, a Mom Is Doing More Than Me (And I’m Not Okay)

Nothing humbles me faster than another mom casually mentioning her color-coded routine.

I’m lucky if all of my kid’s socks match. And honestly? That’s a win.

In the world we live in today, everything is posted on social media—which can be helpful… or not.

There’s something I like to call the “highlight reel vs. real life.”

Seeing a mom up at 5am making bagels from scratch and hand-cutting dinosaur sandwiches—oh, and don’t forget she squeezed in a workout and meditation before the kids even woke up—that’s the highlight reel.

You know what’s happening at our house at 5am?
Nothing.

Because we are still asleep.

And when we are awake? Breakfast is somehow the last thing we think about. I spend an ungodly amount of time just trying to get my kid out of bed, followed by the 30-minute “please get dressed” dance.

Somewhere in there, I’ve reheated my coffee at least four times.

That’s real life.

With all jokes aside, there’s this internal pressure to do everything “right.”
This invisible standard we hold ourselves to.

But… what the hell is “right” anyway?

The mental toll is real. We compare ourselves constantly.
WHY?

Linda has her life together. Good for Linda. Truly.
But why does that automatically mean I’m not doing enough?

We overthink every decision. We question everything.
And somehow, we end up feeling guilty… even when we’re doing our best.

That makes zero sense.

The truth is, we don’t actually see what people are going through.

What we see on social media is a small, controlled snapshot.
A highlight. A moment. A fraction.

It’s not the full story.

No one is posting the 30-minute meltdown before school.
Or the third snack request five minutes after breakfast.
Or the moment they hid in the bathroom just to breathe.

Everyone is struggling with something—we just don’t always see it.

And then there’s the validation piece.

Moms don’t really get it.

We’re just expected to do a good job. That’s the baseline.

But my version of a “good job” might look very different than Debbie’s—and that’s okay.

Did the kids eat?
Did they survive the day?

Okay then. Good job.

You don’t have to keep up.

You don’t have to match anyone else’s routine, energy, or expectations.

You just have to do what works for your family.

Because the truth is, the more we compare, the heavier it all feels.
And the heavier it feels, the more it steals the joy out of motherhood.

Maybe we’re not supposed to keep up with other moms.

Maybe we’re just supposed to keep up with our own lives.

And if everyone is alive at the end of the day… I’m calling it a win.

10 Things I Overthink Daily As a Mom

I don’t just think… I overthink.

In some ways, I think I’ve always been an overthinker—but motherhood takes it to a completely different level. Every little thing you could possibly overthink, you now overthink… times ten.

Motherhood is a full-time, unpaid job. And to the people who say, “But you get to be a mom—that’s payment enough,”—that’s sweet. It really is. But motherhood also tests you in ways you never imagined.

Your thoughts go from, “Where am I going for happy hour tonight?” to “Did my kid poop today?”

And honestly, the amount of time poop is discussed is… concerning.

I love being a mom. It’s rewarding, exhausting, beautiful—and completely maddening.

Here are 10 things I overthink on a daily basis as a mom:

10. Food – Is she eating enough?

How many vegetables has she had this week? Does ketchup count?

My kid is a professional snacker. If there were Olympic medals for snacking, she’d win gold and set a personal record. Meals? Optional. Snacks? Mandatory.

9. Am I doing enough?

She’s in activities—swimming, soccer, dance, gymnastics. She’s booked and busy.

But is it too much? Not enough?
Am I giving her enough quality time? Enough just be a kid time?

Also, let’s be honest—after school until dinner is absolute chaos. Something shifts in these kids and they become… unhinged. So yes, activities help. For her—and for me.

But then I wonder: should I be doing more one-on-one time? Breakfast dates? Mommy-daughter dinners?

And then reality hits—I’m exhausted.

8. Did my kid poop today?!

This should not take up as much mental space as it does… but here we are.

She’s 5½. She says she went. But did she? I wasn’t there. Can I trust her? Has it been days? Is that why she’s not eating? Is that why her stomach hurts?

I think about this way more than I’d like to admit.

7. What did I forget today?

It’s always something.

Library day? Forgot the books. Again.
You’d think I’d have this down by now, but no.

My daughter reminds me immediately:
“MOM. You forgot my books.”

Yes. Yes, I did.

I’ve tried notes, reminders, mental checklists. Nothing works. At this point, I’ve accepted that sometimes… we just won’t have library books.

6. Is this normal?

She’s moody. Is she tired? Sick? Growing? Or just… being a kid?

Is that a rash? How long has that been there?
Did she eat something new? Is it allergies?
Scabies?! (Why is that always where my brain goes?)

Day six of a cough? Obviously something serious.

I tell myself to stop Googling… and then immediately Google it.

5. Are other moms like this?

Do other moms think like this all day?
Or are they just out there… calm?

Because if so, I’d love to know their secret.

Social media definitely doesn’t help. Everyone looks like they have it together, and I’m over here spiraling over snacks and library books.

4. Why is it so quiet?

Silence is never good.

You think, “Wow, this is nice.”
And then panic hits.

You’ve been having an uninterrupted conversation for more than 30 seconds? Something is wrong.

You run in and find:

lipstick all over their face
hair that’s been “trimmed”
something broken

You can’t even be mad. You knew better.

3. Am I yelling too much?

This one stings.

There’s nothing like being exhausted, running on no sleep, reheating your coffee for the 8th time before 10am… and then snapping because shoes aren’t on.

I replay those moments later and think, “I could’ve handled that better.”

Mom guilt is loud.

2. Am I messing her up long-term?

Do we have a good routine?
Is she getting too much screen time?
Am I too strict? Too lenient?

The tablet? Yes, I use it. Especially during dinner when I’m solo and trying to cook. It’s survival mode.

Could I do better? Probably.
Will I fix it tomorrow? Also probably not.

Maybe by 5th grade we’ll have it figured out.

1. Am I a good mom?

This is the one everything comes back to.

Every question, every worry, every overthought moment—it all leads here.

Am I doing enough?
Am I being patient enough?
Am I raising her right?

And the truth is… if you’re asking yourself that question, you probably are.

Because maybe it’s not that we’re overthinking.

Maybe it’s just that we care this much.