ugly mom tears

Ugly tears.  I think we all can relate to that term.  You know when you're crying, and it's an ugly cry-there's mascara running down your face, your face is a big hot mess, and when you look in the mirror all you can do is shriek at the disaster looking back at you.

I've cried many ugly tears.  No shame.  Whether it be over big things or little things, ugly tears are no stranger in our household.

Well, there's a new term that I'm adopting due to this new phase of life I am not in.  Ugly mom tears.  These are ugly tears, but the reason for your crying is due to the fact that you're now a mom.

Daniel went back to work last week, and it was the first time that I experienced ugly mom tears.  All of a sudden Nathan became a pro at fighting sleep.  He started crying and screaming, arching his back, and this would last at least thirty minutes at a time.  Of course this had to happen right when Daniel went back to work.  On Saturday night I finally had him to sleep for the night, set him down in his bed, and no more than five minutes later his cries told me otherwise.  So I picked him up and started rocking him.  This didn't work, so I rocked and shushed him.  This still didn't work so I was left with a screaming baby now who was inconsolable.  It seemed like no matter how much rocking, shushing, swinging, swaying I did he wouldn't calm down.  Bring on the ugly mom tears.  He was crying, I was crying.  These cries turned into sobs, learning me a big ol' hot mess alone in our bedroom.  Eventually he calmed down and fell asleep, just in time for Daniel to come home from work.  Mascara was all over my face, my eyes were puffy, and he walked in the door and said, "So how was your day?"  This only provoked more ugly mom tears.

Now let's jump to the next day.  Fortunately there were no ugly mom tears, but if I wasn't in public there more definitely would have been.  And I share this story to show that things are perfect around our household or with me, and to also show that you truly can look back on a situation and laugh even though you told yourself you never would.

I met up with a dear friend of mine at Target.  She needed to get some things for an upcoming trip, and I just wanted a good Target browse session for nothing in particular.  This Target is massive, two stories tall.  Nathan was in his stroller, and he had slept on the way there but woke up as soon as we arrived.  He was content until we got upstairs in the middle of the store, when he started to wail.  I tried soothing him with his pacifier, which he refused to take.  His crying was getting louder and louder so I picked him up out of the stroller only to find out that we needed an immediate diaper change, it was bad.  His crying didn't stop as we made our way over to the elevator and to the restroom.  This felt like the longest walk of my life, as I held a baby over one shoulder and pushed a stroller with the other…mind you the baby was still screaming.

On the changing table I soon found out that we just had THE biggest blowout of all time.  I'll save you the gross details, just now that it was a disaster.  After using every last wipe I had and carefully rolling his outfit into itself as to keep the rest of his body clean, I got him changed and all cleaned up.  He still screamed!  So I decided to quickly check out and head to the car to feed him.  Of course the lines are backed up and I was not that girl with the crying baby.  I was doing everything I possibly could to calm him down and he just wouldn't stop.  By this point my face was red, I was sweating profusely and I just wanted to sit down in the middle of Target and "whip it out" so that he would stop.  My cashier quickly noticed that I needed to get out of there and was even patting Nathan's back while I paid.  Oh dear.  The good part of the story is that we eventually made our way to the car where I was able to nurse Nathan, solving our screaming fiasco.

I know that this will only be one of many fiascos for me in public with a screaming child, so I better get used to it.  The good side is that I can now look back on it and laugh a bit…a tiny bit.  I'm still afraid to go to that Target in case someone recognizes me as the lady with a screaming baby who couldn't calm him down.

Ugly mom tears are going to happen, and they will probably happen more now as I learn to adapt to Daniel being gone at work.  Babies change so much day to day, and I'm learning that giving myself grace takes on a whole new meaning as a new mom.  So if you have had an ugly mom tear moment, I hope that you can laugh it off now and love yourself even more for surviving it!