Mom Unglued

 Bruh. This is a word that younger generations use all the time an older generations seem to hate.

I actually love the word.

I feel like I live by this word.

Every day of my life, I have at least a dozen reasons to say Bruh to my kids. I have two GenZ children, one of whom treats her phone as if it was another appendage. The other one is as forgetful with her phone as I am when I try to remember why I walk into a room. Anyone who knows me, knows I am late pretty much all the time. I would say that 97% of that is because of my kids. Starting from the earliest of ages, those kids have forgotten everything. But only when it comes to me. They don’t forget things they brought to school (except homework), so I never had to deal with the lost and found (thank God!) Every once in a while, they will leave something at another person's house like a bag or a camera or a sock. But never somewhere where they can’t ever get it back. 

But for some reason when they’re around me, the part of their brain that remembers things, just shuts off. My oldest daughter, for example, gets in the car every day having forgotten something in the house. Keys, phone, lip balm, shoes. Yes, I said shoes. That girl expects that there will be shoes and socks waiting for her in the car because she leaves them there the night before for that specific purpose. She refuses to carry a purse so if she forgets to put her lip balm in her pocket, she will have a horrible day of dry lips. 

I feel like we can blame our kids for our lateness all the time. I feel like when you’re around other parents, you don’t even need to explain why you’re late because they get it. They get that the Christmas leggings that the kid begged to wear in July are now too hot and we need to change into the purple bathing suit that hasn’t fit since they were six months old. They get that two of the same shoes never seem to be able to be found when it’s time to walk out the door. They got that you needed to stop for gas because you were so stressed out the night before and just wanted to get home and cook dinner that you’ve got there on fumes in your tank.

I know I’m not the only parent who has driven two hours to a tournament only to find out that a key piece of equipment - cleats, shin guards, socks, whatever -was not on the child’s person even though you reminded said child repeatedly over and over 27 times to put it in their bag and confirmed with them before they left the house if they had everything they needed.

And I know I’m definitely not the only parent whose kid reminds them at 9pm the night before an assignment (requiring a tri-fold or shoebox and some other random materials) is due or that they have to bring homemade cake pops for the big sale or that they were supposed to sell all their raffle tickets before practice tomorrow or that they offered to host Friendsgiving and that they need to cook something for it but still don’t know how to use the oven. 

I know it’s not just me and yes, I know that there are people who deal with all of those kind of things and are still able to be on time. God bless those people. They definitely deserve an award because I know it is not me. I also know if you were one of those people, you will tell me to give myself an extra hour to be ready so I won’t be late. Yes, I’ve tried that too. Just yesterday I told my children we were leaving the house at 9:30 because I wanted to leave at 10. By 10:30, they still were not prepared to walk out the door. It was a win because we made it out before 11 and I had a full tank of gas so it was like a Christmas miracle. One of them did forget her coat. 

In my job (outside of motherhood) one of the things I hate the most is having to chase people down or follow up with them and make sure that they do their part of a project that I am involved in. I mean, I feel like I can’t even keep my own crap straight so I don’t want the responsibility of keeping other people's crap straight. And I realize that people will let you straighten their crap until you stop doing it. So my kids will forever be forgetful, I think. 

As I just drove away from the house to pick up, one child, the other child called me and asked if I could come back because she left her earrings in the car . Why, pray tell, are your earrings in the car? Why do I even have to ask that question? Did you mistakenly think that the dashboard of the car was your makeup table and you begin to de-accessorize as you were sitting in the passenger seat? 

The unanswered questions of life. The reasons of being late. So many BRUH moments, it makes you understand why the word was invented.