Now I just smile.

You know when you’re in line at the Grocery store, and there is that kid sitting in the cart in front of you with a runny nose, messy hair and mismatched clothes?

I remember thinking those moms must be lazy or something. I mean, who would let their kids go out looking like that? How hard can it be to wipe your kid’s nose for crying out loud.

Someday when I have girls (I would think to myself) they will have beautiful long hair that I will fix with little barrettes and ponytails. It always looks so messy have little kids hair cut off short you know. And I will always dress them properly (I continued) goodness knows little kids don’t know how to dress themselves. That’s why they have parents to match their clothing for them.

Then I had kids. And I discovered that when a toddler gets a cold it doesn’t matter how many times you wipe their nose. Actually they don’t really even have to have a cold, sometimes noses are just perpetually runny. You can wipe them over and over and a second later it will be running again. Talk about frustrating.

Then I had Ms. Action who was bald for what seemed like forever (no long flowing locks here) and when her hair did grow out long enough to brush and style, her hair was too fine to hold anything. So every little ponytail or braid slips out in less than an hour. In fact, her hair is so fine that the littlest thing touching her hair makes it morph into a mass of matted twisted hay. I tried different shampoos, I tried no shampoos, I tried rinse out conditioner, I tried leave in conditioner. Every time it would brush out fine and fluffy and soft, and the minute she sat in her car seat, took a nap, rolled on the floor, took off her hat etc. etc. her hair would be back to this.

Looking as if it has never been brushed once in her entire life.

Then I had babies that had to blast poop out of their diapers and wreck their adorable (matching) outfit in the car on the way to the store and ended up wearing whatever too-small mismatched bits of clothing I happened to have in the diaper bag. And I discovered that whatever cute outfit you have picked out for your child, while one half may be clean and ready to wear, the other half is somehow still in the laundry hamper covered in yogurt. And then I had toddlers who really really really wanted to wear their favorite pants with their favorite dress, please please please?

Then I had more than one child, and discovered that even if you get one child perfectly co-ordinated, cold free and properly groomed, you will be bound to have a different child that strips off their clothes or has an accident or insists that a princess really would wear four shades of pink together or eats chocolate or pulls out their barrettes or wipes their nose on their sleeve.

So, now when I get into line at the grocery store with with my wiggling-giggling-snotty-nosed-messy-haired children (often dressed in mismatched clothing) I congratulate myself on a successful grocery shopping trip.

And smile at all of the pregnant soon to be mommies that give me disapproving looks.

They’ll figure it out soon enough.