Free Ketchup Is a Vegetable: And Other Lies Moms Tell Themselves by Robin O'Bryant

told Aubrey as I tucked her blanket around her tighter.
     
    Aubrey began to giggle, “Wellllllllll, I like your pants.”
     
    I didn't even hesitate or stop to think about it. I wanted a shower and I wanted sleep, in that order. ASAP. I ripped my pajama pants off and threw them to her. The girls were shrieking they were laughing so hard. I was now standing in between their two beds in nothing but my bra and panties.
     
    Emma said with a completely straight face, “Well, I wike you underwears Momma...”
     
    I fell on the floor I was laughing so hard. But a good mother knows where to draw the line, and giving your child a pair of dirty underwear to snuggle with definitely falls in the bad mother category.
     
    “I don't know who y'all think you are or what you're playing at, but that is IT! I'm drawing the line! You are NOT getting my underwear OR my booby bra! GOOD NIGHT!” I could still hear them cackling as I closed the door.
     
    The daily sacrifices a mother makes are never-ending. You skip breakfast to make lunches for your kids. You wanted the last slice of pizza but so did one of your kids, so you gave it up. You were planning on having coffee with a friend and instead end up at home because one of your kids isn’t feeling well. Sick kids stop everything in your house. Sick husbands stop the rotation of the planets around the sun. But if Momma is sick? Nobody gives a crap.
     
    When I was seven months pregnant with my third daughter, Aubrey had a “performance” at her school. Of course it wasn’t directly after school, which would mean I would already be there in all of my pregnant glory. Nope, it was at 6:00pm. This is the worst time of day for any mother of young children. Your kids are tired, hungry and whiny. So are you, but again, you are the mother and nobody cares how you feel. You still have to cook, feed everyone, clean the kitchen, bathe everyone, brush their teeth, read them stories and get them in the bed before you are allowed to think about doing anything for yourself.
     
    Lots of moms refer to this time of day as “the witching hour.” I call it “happy hour” only because that’s when I break out the Mommy Juice. Y'all don't worry about me drinking too much, I drink wine like I drink coffee — when my kids let me. I normally get down about half a glass before I end up getting sucked into reading a story or refereeing a fight. On this day in particular no one in my house was happy. Especially me, because I was knocked up and couldn’t even have a glass of wine.
     
    Aubrey's very first school performance was smack dab in the middle of “happy hour” and even though I was seven months pregnant and taking medication to keep from having contractions, which also caused my hands to shake and my heart to race, nobody cared. We had to go to her performance. Happy hour is bad even on a good day. But when you have to get everyone in your house not only dressed, but dressed in church clothes, with clean faces and fed before 5:30, it’s not going to be pretty. And it wasn’t, but somehow we pulled it off.
     
    Aubrey had been practicing her songs all week, and her little face would just beam at me as she would belt out the words to “God is So Good.” We had the camera and the video camera and we were ready to document this recital for posterity.
     
    We got to the school and waddled into the auditorium, (I waddled and everybody else pretty much just walked, but you get the idea.) Zeb looked around and found the most strategic spot for us to sit so that he could get a good camera angle. I made sure the lens cap was off of my camera and the power was on. Then there she was... my sweet Aubrey, marching down the aisle in her Sunday finest, chest puffed out, curls bouncing and grinning from ear to ear. All the stress of getting there just melted away. That was my baby, the cutest, sweetest and probably the smartest child on that whole stage. I wanted to elbow the mom beside me and let her know