or at least top three....

When I got pregnant, I knew I wasn’t going to be a Pinterest Mom. For those who don’t spend half their lives on the Internet, a Pinterest mom is a mom who feeds their kids only organic, stress-free chicken; dresses them in clothes made from free range, gluten-free cotton; and ensures all their toys are handmade by a 90 year old artisan from Guelph Ontario.

I go through life with messy hair, my car is always the dirtiest one in the parking lot and I’m more likely to change my number than listen to my phone messages so I knew perfection was not possible for me. But I thought maybe I could shoot for perfection-lite. Like maybe, not the best mom in Saskatchewan, but in the top three, for sure.

Alas reality has shown the error of my optimism. Here are some of the ways that I have fallen short of my goal.

First off, I intended to be a breast-feeding pro; legends would be written about the quantity and viscosity of my milk. People told me about infected nipples and engorged mammary glands but I figured, hey my boobs haven’t failed me yet. My breastfeeding would also serve a social justice purpose: I was really gonna get up in people’s faces. I was going to nurse in all places where breast-feeding was frowned up on like churches, bars and strip joints. My boobs would be filled with equal parts scrumptious milk and spite. I was going to start a Youtube channel where I would pontificate about breastfeeding while breastfeeding – I was going to call it “Breast Intentions” or “The Milky Way.”

But breastfeeding went downhill quickly. I had no milk after the kid was born. And then when I got milk (which was admittedly a cool experience) it was only enough to feed a sparrow, never mind a ten-pound Native baby. And it’s not a genetic thing cuz my sister gave me a breast-feeding tutorial and squirted her milk across the room like a pro. We could have used her to keep pigeons off the balcony.

I kept trying but after two weeks of marathon nursing sessions, followed by supplementing with formula, I threw in the breastfeeding towel. My breastfeeding activist career ended without so much as IPhone video. I did breastfeed in front of a waitress once but instead of being annoyed she just told me how cute I was.

Secondly, I expected my infant to sleep through the night within weeks of birth. My theory was that I am lazy and therefore, I would have a lazy child. I had this confidence despite the fact that I was told by many parents to say goodbye to sleep. “You won’t sleep!” my coworkers would yell at me as I passed them in hallways. And I would shout back, “Oh yes I will.” Because I had so far up to that point in my life slept through everything: eight hours of sleep a day, with a half hour nap in the afternoon.

Then along came baby. He wakes up twice a night to feed and even though my partner and I take turns, we’re still averaging about four hours a night. We did have this one-week halcyon period in which he slept from ten to four but that was a fake-out. He was lulling us into a false sense of security – then BAM! Three months of sleeplessness. It ends at some point people have told me but I refuse to believe…hope is a luxury for the well-rested.

Part of the fun of being a parent is getting to dress your kid like a doll. I have a decent sense of style – or at least I can Google pictures of people good at fashion. So I thought I’d nail this part of parenting. But boy clothes are boring. Also everything has stripes on it, which is why my son always looks like a package of lifesavers. There is cool stuff but its expensive and when the baby wears his clothes for two weeks max (he’s five months old and currently wearing 12 to 18 months), why would I waste good Starbucks money on cute clothes? At this point, my goal is to make sure his clothes are moderately clean and if nothing matches, well, then baby is just having an eclectic day.

One thing I thought I would suck at, but I’m actually not bad at is changing diapers. I use wet wipes with surgical precision. No feces are getting past me. In the diaper arena, I’m like a gladiator; I’ve dodged tiny urine geysers and faced down poo-namis and lived to tell about it. Maybe I should post my diaper changing skills on Pinterest? Nah, I don’t want those other moms stealing my moves.