5 Mysteries All Moms Want To Solve

I’ve realized that I think I know everything but in reality, I know nothing. I fake it and tell my kids that “mommy knows and sees ALL!” but what I can never tell them is that in fact, they’re totally stumping me all the time. These damn mini-me’s are beating me at my own game.

Here are 5 mysteries all moms want to solve.

1) How do they eat so little and still survive? I know some of you will sing the praises of having kids who always eat what they’re given and some even ask for seconds (ha, what’s that?) but my kids, no way. One day last week one of the kids came home from school and had barely touched their lunch. Full sandwich still in the box, snacks eaten (of course) and only half the fruit gone. I looked at her in shock and asked, “are you sick?”, nope. She then decided that she didn’t like what I was serving for dinner (but oddly enough liked it a month ago) and ate maybe 3 bites of the entire meal. The only explanation I have is that she clearly must be a cyborg because no human can possibly survive on 3 bites of dinner after eating a scant lunch. It’s a mystery.

2) Where do all the socks go? And I don’t mean out of the washer and dryer either because that’s like some magical portal to Narnia where there are woodland creatures running around with pink and purple socks on. The mystery of the missing socks is somewhere between when I’ve paired and put them away in the kids drawers to when they get dressed in the morning. “MOM!!! I can’t find any socks!” What?! How is that possible? I just did all the laundry in the house and put away no less than 10,000 pairs of socks. Where are they all going? It’s a mystery.

3) Do you smell that? It’s not me, lets just clear that up right now but for reals people, it’s bad. I have a keen sense of smell, like a dog (insert joke here) and no matter where I look, I can’t find the source of the smell. Theres a strange smell in the back of the car. I’ve lifted the mats and the seats and the boosters and the storage nooks and still, there’s a smell but no source. In the house, I smell another stink in the kids bedroom. I search in drawers, under beds, inside blankets, behind dressers and nothing! At this point I’ve convinced myself that I have a tiny house elf that lives with us and eats cheese and sardine sandwiches. It’s a mystery.

4) Zero to mess in 4.6 seconds flat? I can’t be the only one who can spend 30 minutes cleaning a room, putting away toys (in their proper place), picking up crumbs that seem to ooze out of the pours of their skin, disassembling the couch fort, reassembling the couch cushions, picking up socks (huh, here’s some socks), re-stacking the DVD’s and readjusting the blinds (why are they touching the blinds?) only to turn my back to walk down the hall and have the whole room look like ground zero of an earth quake again. Sometimes I just have to close the door and walk away. It’s a mystery.

5) Where did my babies go? UGH, this is the biggest mystery of all. I feel like it was only a year ago we were celebrating the twins walking. Wasn’t it just a couple of years ago that our second baby was born? In a flash they’re 11, 9, 6.5 and 6.5 and I’ve just spent the past 3 days purging anything and everything that isn’t nailed to the floor. Any toy that also has a TV show, gone. Stuffies, gone (mostly, I have a soft spot, pun intended). Outgrown dress up clothes, gone. Dried up play doh, gone. Bucket O dinosaurs, gone. We’ve officially moved away from little kid stuff which means that my kids taste in shows on Netflix has changed as well. We’ve moved from the mysteries of Blues Clues (which I loved) to the mysteries of Spy Kids (which I think I love even more!). Last night Brigette and I watched Black Hole High and I watched her reaction as she went from excited to nervous to anxious to curious. Le sigh. I don’t think it’s much of a mystery. My babies are growing up. But at least I won’t be going around singing Blues Clues all day.

What are your biggest mom mysteries?