There are a few topics that I haven't written about specifically - day-to-night wrap dresses for under $350, handy tips on how to have it all, top 5 positions guaranteed to blow his mind, ten facial recipes using what you already have in your fridge, why eyelash bleaching might be the right choice for you.

But that's because I don't work at Cosmopolitan. I work in the fucking jungle.

I write about engorgement (not that kind), holding his interest (a baby's, so you have time to put in at least one of your contacts, and then either your other contact or your eyepatch because safety first you guys), and the five-minute face (not a fresh, sparkling, lightly-made-up face. The face that says, "THAT'S IT. FIVE MINUTES IN THE CHAIR, KID. OH, YEAH? YOU WANT TO MAKE IT TEN?")

Here in the jungle, we don't write about how to survive your holiday work party, or online dating, or cut-yourself bangs (Really? Still, we're doing this? Ladies. LADIES.) We write about how to survive. Like, period. Like, life. I'm calling it "Survival Classic: Literally, Survival."

We write about being tired. Except me. I haven't written about it. It's like writing about how much I love wine or chocolate or Pinterest crafts or make-ahead dinners or nautical nursery decor.

or fresh raspberries with dew dangling like diamonds from their little raspberry hairs that totally look like my kneecap hairs last month when they were still short enough to sassily stand up in every which way and attractively display dew

A Mommy Blog post about being tired? Wow. You drove straight onto the Expectations Superhighway with that one, sister. I'm already bored. It just feels like that nugget has been mined harder than Bernie Sanders' side eye.

Not to mention I, like so many moms I know, desperately need someone to recognize how hard I'm working, but balk at the idea of admitting that I'm struggling. I start to write a post in which I discuss the exhaustion of parenting, and the little voice in my head says, Never let em see ya sweat, girl. Now make yo'self a dress out of the curtains and go visit Ashley at the lumber mill.

that's not what i said. i said curtains and a dress. you're wearing pajamas  and a tiger hat. ashley is not going to lend you any money for tara when you walk into that mill looking like that

My yearning for recognition battles daily with my pride, and it leaves a hole inside me that only organic, seasonal steamed vegetables* can fill.

That's why I've never written about being tired...

UNTIL TODAY.

I remembered that Scarlett O'Hara was way more of a badass when we saw her sweat, and this blog has never been about putting on a pretty face at the expense of honesty. No tired, stressed person has ever felt comforted or empowered after reading about how AWESOME someone else is doing.

Plus, woah, you guys, there is so much more to say about being tired than your standard "I pulled a tampon out of my backpack uh oh where's my pencil," or "the baby woke up at 4:00 am we are not eating cassoulet for dinner, unless Pizza Hut has a new cassoulet-explosion deep dish pizza NOW WITH HOT DOG CRUST, in which case order it up, hoss. Tonight we feast the feast of a Sooners fan."

Tired isn't just groggy and irritable. There are lots of ways to be tired.

On any given day, you might find a tired mom:
weeping,
screaming,
staring,
swerving,
singing showtunes, like, hard,
swearing,
seething,
saying "I don't think that's funny at all, and I think you already knew that," to the cat,
trailing off mid-sentence,
folding laundry from the dirty hamper,
giving up,
looking up childless friends on Facebook and clicking their vacation pictures,
giggling madly at all the Dick Poop jokes,
doing several dozen laps around the grocery store to look for crackers and eventually leaving with an avocado,
eating cake in the dark without really tasting it,
praying,
buying baby sleep books on kindle and reading them super fast so she can finally crack the code to how to make the baby sleep immediately and for at least six consecutive hours,
realizing she forgot to condition her hair,
realizing she remembered to condition her hair but forgot to rinse,
fantasizing about starting over in a condo in Pensacola,
writing a poem that isn't too bad, actually! ( fast forward to the next morning when she's like, 2 questions: where is the masterwork I crafted yesterday, and who wrote this fucking garbage and published it on my blog?)
plating cheese and apple slices with hands trembling from the quad-shot she just shotgunned,
and rarely,
very rarely,
resting.

So I'm going to write a few posts about what it means to be tired as a mom.

For me, today, as I'm beginning to write this post --

(because the way I write, I wrote last part first because that's just how an artist operates, okay? Poetry arrived in search of me, okay? I am merely the medium and my process cannot be explained for it is not of this world. So just... okay?)

-- I feel like a newly-escaped North Korean at a Seoul self-serve fro-yo shop.

There are so many flavors to choose from.
I guess I'll have to try them ALL.


*Right, there was that joke about steamed vegetables up there. You guys all got where that was going, right?