So I've got a gaggle of kids at this point (there's not that many, but when they are running around me in circles yelling "Mommy! Mommy! MOMMY!" sometimes it seems like 7 or 8) and I have failed in unique ways with each of them. I'm sure I've done enough or forgotten enough to keep all of them in therapy for years to come, but some of my failures are really lessons for the harried mom, so I'm making lemonade out of my inadequacies for the benefit of others.
I should say I come by this naturally. My grandmother invented the wedge salad, when we would stay with her and she'd chop a head of iceberg lettuce in half twice, plop it on our plates, and declare it salad. She also made "special sauce" for our corny dogs--one of her specialties--which was actually ketchup and yellow mustard stirred together directly on our plates. So I come from a long line of practical working moms, and I choose to believe you should be impressed rather than horrified with the secrets I'm about to share.
I have changed a lot of diapers in the dark. It is always a mistake. Do not do it. It ends poorly and disgustingly and you might be so tired you just take your shirt off to put it in the laundry and end up curled up on the bathmat because you are too tired to go back to bed and anyway if you do, that baby will hear you and scream. Hypothetically. The secret here is to sleep with a towel on your bed at all times until your child is 2. And keep baby wipes in every room in the house.
After a few of the aforementioned incidents, I discovered that Johnson & Johnson makes disposable bath washcloths with the lavender baby soap SOAKED IN. So let's say your gorgeous baby seems to need a bath for any of the myriad reasons you never dreamt of--some moms might just put their baby directly in the sink under a little stream of warm water and bathe them with these special cloths as though they had no idea a tub was a thing. It takes like two minutes, and also comes in handy at the mall or in gas stations when disaster strikes. It is possible I learned this lesson only after having to throw an adorable baby outfit into a restaurant trash can and walk out to finish dinner with a naked baby wearing only a diaper. But this was with baby #3, so by then I had no shame.
Other moms will send their kids to preschool with embroidered snack bags or little treats made to look like penguins or some such adorable foolishness. But do you know what you can do? You can write your kid's name on an applesauce pouch in Sharpie. You know what else you can do? You can send smiley faces and hearts on a plain post-it you stole from your office in a plain ziploc bag filled with goldfish. Love is love, people. Some moms have special snack bags, some moms have post-its.
There is a machine that mixes and warms formula for you like a Keurig. You're welcome.
Pinterest is like a dream land to me. But you know what I know how to make? Fairy toast. It is toasted bread, butter, and sprinkles. It is magical.
When you forget to make that damned Elf on the Shelf move, you can tell your kids maybe the elf hasn't gone back to the North Pole because he doesn't want to have to give a bad report. Then YOUR guilt becomes THEIR guilt. It's a win-win!
I've heard tales of a mom who might put away a few of the toys their kid receives at their all-class birthday party in the chaos of the post-party afterglow/coma. Then, when some other kid's party rolls around, this mom doesn't have to run to Target in her pajamas or curse the two hour delivery estimate of Amazon Prime.
These are just a few of the tips I've learned after years on the front lines. I felt bad about them for a while, until recently when I discovered that my kids insist on sleeping on TOP of their bedspreads with a random spare blanket--because then their beds are already made in the morning. Mama didn't raise no fools. Or maybe it's in the genes.