1. Your child isn’t wearing any clothes. You are failing because your child has literally buckets of adorable outfits that he/she can wear. There’s the blue overalls with the footballs on them; the paisley top with the pink leggings; the hand knit sweater that your artsy friend in New York made. And yet, your child isn’t wearing any clothes and that’s because you are failing. He/She may have started in clothes. He/She may finish in pjs. But for now, your child isn’t wearing any clothes. Just a diaper. And it’s sagging.

2. Your child’s diaper is so saggy it’s skimming the floor when he walks. You are failing as a parent because you are either so lazy or so tired that you can’t pick up your kid and change his diaper. He is trying to walk for the first time, but he can’t because his diaper looks like it’s filled with boulders. This tiny adorable guy is trying to stand but the weight of the world rests in his diaper and keeps pulling him over onto his side. You can see his butt crack and you know that when you finally stop failing and change the diaper, little pieces of it will fall out as this giant boulder diaper begins to disintegrate onto your child’s perfectly creamy skin. Failing.

3. Your child isn’t wearing shoes and it’s cold outside. You are failing as a parent because it’s basically snowing and you’re pushing your kid in the stroller and feeling pretty ok about yourself because you are outside and not ripping your hair out inside. Problem is, your kid is barefoot. You walk through the park with your tail between your legs as your child shivers and other moms-moms with leggings and furry boots and black North Face jackets and coffee cups with deliciously home brewed coffee inside stare and judge you and your cold child. Her child has shoes on. Her child has MATCHING SOCKS on. Your child has no socks on, no shoes on, and is licking her cold toe as you push by this dream woman and dream baby.

4. You stand on the porch while your children are screaming inside. You are failing because you have such a short fuse that simply being around your children for one more second is too much. Instead, you stand on the porch and wave to your next door neighbor who not only doesn’t have children, but is standing in her garden admiring her really nice azaleas. She can hear your children screaming inside. You can hear your children screaming inside. You continue to stand on the porch and nod and smile at the azaleas as though it’s just a relaxing spring day and you are two independent gals sharing gardening tidbits. She sees the madness inside you however and over dinner that night worries to her husband “that she’s concerned about what goes on over there.” F A I L I N G.

5. Your 1.5 year olds ate Valentine’s Day cookies for dinner. Twice. This is one of several reasons you are failing. You tried to force feed vegetables through the “Choo-Choo Train” and the “Bzzzzz Bumblebee” bite and instead they chewed that carrot one pathetic time and then let it drop to the floor in a sickening orange mush. They dropped the peas on top of the dogs head and rubbed the potatoes in their ears. You always envisioned yourself as like a kind of healthy mom-one who really worked towards an “organic lifestyle” but it’s important here to remember you are failing and so instead you reach for the tin of sugar cookies and proceed to break them into bite size pieces. SHOCKINGLY both kids seem to prefer the cookies to the carrot. You feel super guilty about this and when you put them to bed at night and their tummies look bloated, you die inside thinking about your sucky-ness. And then the next day comes and you find yourself ripping up cookies for lunch. Did you learn your lesson? You didn’t. And why? Because you are failing.
Bonus Failure: when the babies finish their delicious and balanced meal of processed crap, you lick your fingers, dab up the leftover cookie crumbs and shove them into your mouth. Double fail.