The Unbreakable Mommy Habits

The feelings, the urges to be a mother to SOMEONE, SOMETHING, even if your children aren’t around, are always there.  When you do it all day long it is hard to break the cycle and turn the mommyness off. 

Almost along the lines of the infamous saying “you might be a redneck,” I want to dedicate this post to listing examples of what you’ve done while out in public when you are WITHOUT your children that make you think “I’m definitely a mother”.  Here are mine:

1)      I religiously put a new toilet paper roll on the spool in public bathrooms if they are running low.  I’m not talking about the bathrooms that have stalls and automatic toilet paper, but the small quaint places that look like a bathroom in a home.  Not to mention, I wipe down the counter around the sink after I’m finished, even if the mess isn’t mine.  *this could be bordering on the line of just being a woman and not being a mom, but I just did this last week and thought to myself…ohhhh yeah…I’m a mom alright.*

2)      I’m all of a sudden driving in the carpool lane when I am without my children because when am I EVER without my children?

3)      I have found myself in a brief moment of panic, looking for my children in whatever store I’m in, scared to death that they are lost, only to realize I am in fact by myself on this trip. 

4)      I’ve caught myself talking to the empty space around me as I am leaving my home, a store, or the mall asking “does anyone have to go potty before we leave?” as strangers look at me wondering who the heck I am talking too.

5)      I have to muster up all the strength I can to not wipe the runny nose of some other mother’s child while out in public. 

6)      When I’m at a lovely restaurant with friends, or out on a date night with my husband, I have to fight the urge to eat standing up because it is rare for me not to get up and down, up and down, up and down from the table at home.   

7)      I’ve tested my coffee on my wrist to make sure it wasn’t too hot to drink after going through the drive thru.

8)      I’ve asked for extra napkins when ordering my meal at a restaurant that only has cloth napkins and not paper.  Must remember: cloth napkins = no kids. 

9)      I’ve spent an embarrassing amount of time brushing the crumbs off tables in restaurants when my kids weren’t there. 

10)   I’ve cut up my husbands’ meat into bite size pieces for him while out on a date (who couldn’t use a little help in that area?  It was an act of love I tell you…an act of love).

Those little actions that happen simply out of habit, simply because I wasn’t able to “flip the switch” from mommy to Hopes…they catch me off guard, make me laugh, and embarrass the heck out of me.  Oh well, they haven’t put me in a straight jacket yet, so I must still be doing okay…..well, so far anyway. 

What mommy habits have you been unable to break?