Our everyday lives are series of boxes to check starting with turning off the blaring alarm in the wee hours of the morning all the way until we reset our alarm after a long days work. This then ensures that the blaring alarm will rouse us from our sleep again the following morning. Read more succinctly as, “wash, rinse, repeat!”

I willingly own that not everyone is as regimented and Type A as me. And while being so meticulous does have it’s perks, carrying it out seamlessly has proven to be a more challenging task since becoming a mother. So I thought it would be slightly humorous and a no doubt reaffirming post to construct about the things we find ourselves doing in life to get from Point A to Point B with the path of least resistance possible, i.e. a tantrum throwing toddler or a whiny first grader. And because like me so many of you also walk this daily walk as a Mama Bear,  I give you, The Things we do as Mothers to make life work in whatever way we can.

Let’s start with getting out the door every morning on time. In my world that’s leaving by 6:45 a.m. at the latest. Most mornings, thankfully, Liam remembers to set his alarm. On the rare occasion that he forgets and neither Sean or I double checked it the night before, this usually turns into a rather frenetic scene that plays out something like the opening scene of Home Alone when the McAllister’s realize their alarm did not go off on the day they are scheduled to fly to Paris on an early morning flight. I’m running up the stairs often with a toddler in tow as a door flails open, and Liam is rather abruptly roused from his dreamlike state. Very quickly, however, a half awake seven-year-old realizes he’s overslept and gratefully puts the wheels in motion to get himself ready for school.

Other mornings things go off kilter because life with a toddler is anything but predictable. Take for example, Atticus’s most recent ear infection. Trying to get him to drink a thick, chalky antibiotic is about as easy as walking a tight rope with fifty pound weights in either hand and a blindfold around your head.

“No, yucky, mommy! I no drink!”

Because he desperately needs this medication, and I desperately need to get out the door so that I’m not late for work, desperate times call for desperate measures. In this case, I simply resort to good old fashioned bribery. Now mind you, this is happening at 6:30 in the morning. The sun has not even kissed the horizon yet, and I’m digging deep for the bargaining power I need to leverage this deal. So I race to the top shelf of the pantry and return with a Dum Dum lollipop. It’s exactly what I need to close the deal and get my toddler to be compliant.

And later when I walk into daycare at 6:45 a.m. with a toddler sucking happily on his cherry flavored lollipop, I hope no one judges me too harshly for encouraging candy this early in the morning. But alas, it’s all about surviving fellow Mama Bears, and so inevitably we do what life dictates in that moment to survive. It might be candy before breakfast, or pajamas all day, or even screen time in the car just to get your toddler in the car in the first place. Life with a toddler is constant bargaining and using every tool in the toolbox. And on your worst days, it’s leveraging multiple tools to get out the door, but alas I digress.

Life as a mother closely mimics an image I think back to of a book I really liked when I was little, Caps for Sale, by Esphyr Slobodkina. Daily life as a mother is a bit of a chameleon act. We wear a lot of different hats, each with a very distinct purpose. There is the toddler bargaining hat, the Master Chef hat, the bedtime story teller hat, the jack-of-all-trades hat, etc. There are a lot of hats and sometimes we are wearing more than one of them at the same time trying to multi-task our way through it. The expression, “fake it, until you make it” could not be more poignant for us as mothers.

Photo credit: Pinterest

I will leave you with a final image. One that surely many of you have lived out at some point in your daily life as a mom. After a long day at work, you pull into the garage with the kiddos knowing you need to still prepare dinner, oversee homework, and keep a toddler entertained all in the next twenty minutes so that the rest of your evening routine can fall into place. You are donning all of these unique hats and trying to nail a home run out of the park through every single venture. You channel the patience of Job and the culinary skills of Padma Lakshmi as you set out to accomplish this rather difficult task.

Now granted you might burn a tortilla along the way or have to pacify a toddler with an episode of Mickey and the Roadster Racers, but for the most part, you do it. And you do it day in and day out because that’s what Mama Bears do. It isn’t always easy. Sometimes you wonder how in the world the ship doesn’t sink with you at the helm. But by the grace of God, the infinite amount of love in your heart, and the other Mama Bears who stand by you in solidarity, you do the things you do to make life in your own home with your cubs and spouses work.

Our little ones won’t always remember the sacrifices we made along the way to make sure they never went without, but they will remember how much they were loved and how special we made them feel along the way. Even on your most difficult day, remember that you’ve got this, Mama Bear. And you have a tribe of other Mama Bears cheering you on along the way. So go out into the world confidently, and do the things we do as mothers!