Today, by 11am, I had already put my head against my husband’s chest and whimpered, “I’m THAT Mom, Lance! I’m thhhhaaaaaaaat Mom.”

Yup. I’m the mom that schedules her son’s neurodevelopmental (it’s really a thing. Not a fun thing. But a thing)  appointment at the same time as her daughter’s first “Rhythm, Movement, Dance and Song” group.  Except, I didn’t actually know that was the name of the group or where it was exactly. And, apparently, I didn’t know what time it even started.

I’m that mom.

I woke early and desperately tried to get Casey to get ready. He laid naked on the ground for a full ten minutes playing with the cords to the blinds with his toes and harassing Peyton before I started just putting his clothes on for him. As soon as I started, he realized that he was no longer grounded from the Ipad (we’ve had to implement grounding for headlocks, no matter how light hearted they might seem), and took off to find it.  This, while the other boys were hounding me for “sports apparel” (THEIR WORDS, even) for a spirit day at school. “Are you kidding me guys? ALL OF YOUR CLOTHES ARE SPORTS CLOTHES!”  I finally tackled Casey down on the stairs and got him to cover up his privates.  Another ten minutes of him not looking for the Ipad as I chased him around with the rest of his clothes later, he was ready to go. Lance came down to a scene where Abby is crying because she now thinks it’s cool to force me to feed her (aint nobody got time for that!), and I wasn’t and Carter and Peyton are BOTH screaming at each other about the computer because one of them wasn’t stuck breathless in the clamps of a headlock. I might rethink that policy. It brings the noise level WAY down. Casey was bemoaning the fact that I wouldn’t let him take all eight of his Angry Birds to the appointment.   Lance tried to sneak up on me as I was angrily slapping peanut butter on bread and in his tiniest, most scared voice said, “Hey…how’s it going?…” then quickly backed away to avoid getting singed when I breathed fire.

No sooner had I gotten Lance and Casey in the car to go to the Children’s Hospital did Lance call me with, “Uhhhhhhhhhmmm, so…..where am I going?”

I finished getting the other boys their sports clothes for spirit whatever and sat down to get Abby to feed herself while I scrolled through my email. Peyton yells to me “Hey, can I get back on the computer? I’m asking because I don’t want you to be cranky with me. You’ve been very cranky this morning.”  Ouch. There is a time in every mom’s life when she realizes that her child is right and needs to reevaluate her methods. If I had only been better prepared no one would have gotten yelled at this morning. Things could have gone so much smoother. Realizing this, I pulled Peyton into a warm embrace and apologized to him for my actions earlier and committed to be the kind of mother that doesn’t ever have to yell.

Just kidding. I did nothing of the sort. I’m not THAT Mom. I said, “You’re right Peyton, come closer so I can punch you in the skull.”  For a minute, all was silent as we all pecked away at our various devices. Scary Mommy’s book dropped today. I love her and had to shout it to the world…on Facebook. While there, I totally forgot about the TIME and my boys almost missed the bus.

I’m that mom.

I’m not sure any of my boys had breakfast. I just realized that.

As soon as they were off, I ran upstairs to get myself ready for Abby’s toddler group. Realizing that I didn’t have the *time (*read: desire) to shower, I hastily washed my bangs (I’m a genius!) and pulled my hair into a ponytail. I ran downstairs to do the same with Abby’s hair as she sat looking at her bowl of cereal nobody was feeding her. She’s such a freaking princess. She also really hates having her head touched now. I go two ugly pigtails done and threw on her clothes. Realizing I can’t find ANY socks for me, I throw on the first two I grabbed out of our mismatched sock bin and RAN out of the door (just as Jill Smokler on the TV I forgot to turn off says on the Today Show, “we have contributors on Scary Mommy” and I’m all THAT’S ME! I’M FAMOUS! She mentioned ME! because I am, as you well know, a crazy person).

We get to the university and as I’m running into the building I see another mom running in with her daughter, too. I say, “Are you going to the group here? Do you know what group it is? I don’t even know where the hell I’m going.” And she says, “Yeaaaah, today is the last day of our signing group…I don’t think that’s the one you’re going to…” So I, late now, run up to the Early Intervention office and to a very surprised  group of therapists and parents I breathlessly say, “Am I in the right place?” Abby’s seemingly always-nervous case worker comes out of her office. I put Abby down and put both hands on my knees as I pant. Two flights of stairs. I’m as out of shape as I look. I stand up straight and without realizing that there’s a small hoard of cute little kids with a variety of disabilities in the room I all too loudly say, “I swear to you, I’m losing my SHIT.”  gasp.

Yeah, I’m that mom.

She takes me down to the music room where I’m relieved to find that I’m not late…in fact, we’re the only ones there besides the music teacher. Man! Am I glad that I didn’t blow this off! She would have had no one come! I introduce myself and fall in love with the very artsy lady that runs the group. She’s very direct. “Oh, I thought you were in our 10:30 group.”

I totally was!  So now I wasn’t ten minutes late, but an hour and twenty minutes early. Fortunately she took pity on me and let us stay for her 9:30 class, that soon filled with moms and cute little toddlers. The class is a community class that we get to go to for fee because of Abby’s diagnosis. We’re so lucky, huh? The rest of those suckers have to PAY.  The moms in the class were super cool, too. And guess what, NOT A SINGLE ONE OF THEM WAS WEARING PANTS. I mean, we weren’t naked, but we all were wearing sweats or yoga pants. My tribe.

I noticed all of them were taking off their shoes. And their kids shoes. It was a shoe free class. I…I had gotten my socks from the missing sock bin. They not only didn’t match, one was my son’s and one was mine. One was pink, one was stained and had grey toes and heels and “PEYTON” written on it. I couldn’t go barefoot either though, because it’s not summer yet and I have not yet taken the time to shave the hair off my toes.  There is much hair.

A “Rhythm, Music, Dance and Song” group is just amazing amounts of silly with a toddler that doesn’t hear well and a mom that has no rhythm and is totally tone deaf. Add to it that the room was warm and we were moving A LOT. I was already a sweaty mess from running up and down the stairs (I kid you not) and having to meet new people (the social anxiety disorder makes me sweat…which makes me or anxious…which makes me sweat more…which makes me want to not meet new people ever because I become a gross filter-free sweat monster). I couldn’t take off my sweater because I didn’t want to be the smelly kid in class. Not that I actually would have smelled, they just would have thought that given the massive pit stains on my favorite grey shirt. (Why do I wear grey? That’s the dumbest thing ever)

I am the mom with ugly hair toes, mismatching socks, and pit stains. But my bangs were clean!

Casey’s appointment finished, and they met me at Casey’s school. I had forgotten to send the paperwork with Lance to the appointment, so now I would have to have the school fax it over. Because I’m that mom.  Casey actually WENT TO SCHOOL (this is huge…he usually can’t go back if we’ve messed up his schedule at all…but I think going with Dad made it okay so now Lance is going to take him to all of his appointments he ever has). I take Casey to where his class and three others are practicing for their jazz concert. I walk up to his teacher and principal who are talking together just to make sure they know to call me if Casey decided that he couldn’t handle the upset. As I was talking to his super cute and fantastic teacher, Casey reached up and ran his hand over the sparkles on her sports shirt…right over her chest…oh goodness.

Having already said a four letter word in front of a group of children once already that morning, I decided to hightail it out of there. Which is where we began. Me burying my face in my husband’s chest as I said, “I’m THAT mom.”  He patted my back and said, “Nah. You’re great. Also, Abby squished the Rice Krispy Treat you gave her in her hair.”

Of course she did. And of course, instead of going home to clean it out, we went out for lunch. Because I’m that mom.