If you grew up in the 90’s, the title of this article may hit you just a bit different. Growing up, Chicken Soup for the fill in the blank’s soul flew off the shelf like those little plastic, heartshapped  protective casing for the pristine TY tag on beanie babies. What I remember is being an angsty teenage screaming Alanis Morsette at the top of my lungs (until it got to that b*tch part which got mouthed silently because I didnt want my mom to hear me cuss) When my mom bought me my first Chicken Soup book to try to soothe the emotional whiplash, I flipped through and probably hard rolled my eyes. But then it caught on like butterfly clips and was flying off the shelves, so obviously, I pulled in back out and took a second look. It wasnt a week later that my book was full of highlights, dog ears and post it notes and I was hooked. If these books didnt plague your youth, let me bring you up to speed – they were a collection of poems, short stories, and motivational tips to help a fill in the blank with life. 

Fast forward to today and I had a flashback of these books as I just crushed my 18th self help book. I learned how to multitask, how to prioritize myself, and truly maximize self care, and most of all that multitasking isnt really a thing and prioritizing myself over myself is selfish. I feel more fucked up than I did before I started reading these books which lead me to the idea of Chiciken nuggets for the moms soul.  

I have an *almost* two year old (i refused to use months now but for those who just short circuited – shes 23 months and 16 days old) Having babysat basically my entire left, I thought momming would be SO easy – well that was stupid. The first week was hella easy with both my mom and my mother in law chasing behind me sanitizing and washing every single thing that touched the floor. Week two my husband went back to work and the family left and all the baby did was sleep. No work emails, no entertaining, no responsibilities but to make sure this baby slept and ate – life was glorious. Fast forward four months, back to work, nanny situation was a nightmare and dont even get me started on the daycare wait this – WTAF?!? As a person who prides myself on being able to do all of the things with a high dose of perfectionist tendencies, how can I not be able to juggle all of the things plus a baby. It didnt make sense that I physically and mentally couldnt do it.All the mom books I read about expectations, home life, and taking time for you (which really only happened for 5 mins in the shower) made me feel like life would be rainbows and sunshine again once I work in some self care, meditation, exercise, and sleep. What? I’m sorry, is there some secret to opening this mysterious 25th hour of the day that I missed in mom school? The more i tried to educate and help myself, the more i got frustrated. Was I the only one who survived on wine, vent sessions, and a diliriously large amount of time on tiktok?

Two years later and thousands of hours deep diving into blogs, vlogs, tiktoks, youtubes, books, you name it – I had a revelation. For some moms, we just need to vent and laugh about something each day. We dont need inspirational post it notes around the house reminding us “exhaustion is temporary” or “youve got this :)” We need other moms talking about how hard this shit is so we can start to feel like we are not some freak who was meant to pop out some self sufficient 18 year old, not a tiny human who needs you for everything.

When you find yourself at 6pm, exhausted from work and your husband, dog, friends dog you’re dogsitting because you “can do it all”, and your hangry toddler looking at you for food – theres chicken nuggets for the moms soul.

I am no expert on rearing children nor am I ever the mom who goes to sleep with a big fist pump nodding off to my mantra – “you crushed it today”, but I hope this gives you a little laugh for your day and helps normalize the beautiful chaos that we call our lives!  So, join me! Pour yourself a glass of your finest cardboardeaux, pop those dino nuggets in the toaster oven and relish in the beauty of this shitshow!