#MomFail: 24 Authors & 24 Mom-Coms Read online

  #MomFail

  24 Authors & 24 Mom-Coms

  Shari J. Ryan

  A.M. Willard

  Gia Riley

  Claudia Burgoa

  Faith Andrews

  J.A. DeRouen

  Dylan Allen

  Stephie Walls

  Leddy Harper

  Riann C. Miller

  S.M. West

  Piper Rayne

  LL Collins

  Stephanie Rose

  LK Collins

  Carina Andrews

  Teresa Michaels

  Alissa York

  B.L. Berry

  Kate Anslinger

  TL Swan

  Marie James

  Nicole Kane knepper

  Edition #1

  Contents

  24 AUTHORS & 24 MOM-COMS

  Disclaimer

  Foreword

  I. Watch me Tip… A.M. Willard

  II. Okayest Mom Ever - Gia Riley

  III. What’s That Smell? - Shari J. Ryan

  IV. Afternoon Delight - B.L. Berry

  V. Return Policy - Leddy Harper

  VI. The Professor and the Doofus - J.A. DeRouen

  VII. A Day in My Chaotic Life - Claudia Burgoa

  VIII. I Win - Dylan Allen

  IX. Battery Operated - Stephie Walls

  X. Your Mom Does What? - Faith Andrews

  XI. Want a Hug? - Crystal Grizzard Burnette

  XII. Rock Bottom - Riann C. Miller

  XIII. Sugar, Honey, & Iced Tea - S.M. West

  XIV. Sex Weeks - Piper Rayne

  XV. Road Trip - LL Collins

  XVI. How Spoiled is Rotten? - Stephanie Rose

  XVII. #ThrowbackThursday - LK Collins

  XVIII. Sweary Mom - Carina Andrews

  XIX. Disconnected - Teresa Michaels

  XX. Seven’s a Crowd - Alissa York

  XXI. Just Another Day at the Park - Kate Anslinger

  XXII. Flight to Hell - TL Swan

  XXIII. Winging It - Marie James

  Copyright © 2017 by #MOMFAIL

  All rights reserved.

  The following works are a mix of fiction and non fiction.

  Pertaining to the works of fiction: Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Pertaining to the works of non-fiction: Some names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals.

  Printed in the United States of America

  Goodreads:

  http://smarturl.it/MomFailAnthology

  Facebook Group:

  http://smarturl.it/NoJudgementMomFail

  Website:

  http://smarturl.it/MomFail

  For the Moms with stains on their clothes, puke in their hair, and love in their hearts...this one is for you.

  Disclaimer

  You do not need to be a mom to read these stories. If you’ve been around children (Dads, Aunts, Uncles, Grandparents, Cousins, Step Parents, Foster Moms/Dads, Day Care Provider, Nannies, or Babysitters), then you will find a story in the mix that you can probably relate to. Basically, we’re a bunch of hot-mess moms who think our life “fails” are pretty funny.

  These stories were intended to be short, and offer you different flavors of motherhood fails by twenty-four authors who have their own parenting styles.

  There are no cliff-hangers, but we purposely kept the stories under five thousand words so we could include as many ‘mom authors’ as possible.

  If you would like more content, each of us have our personal links at the end of each story, and we have a general Facebook page where moms who make mistakes can come together and share in the humor we experience as parents .

  http://smarturl.it/MomFailAnthology

  Foreword

  by Nicole Knepper, M.A., LCPC,

  Author of Moms Who Drink and Swear,

  Educator, and Epic Momfailure

  Trigger alert: Some of the stories in this collection have hot as hell, graphic descriptions of sex. If your little cock blockers are currently preventing you from getting your boots knocked on the regular (or at all), I’m telling you right now that all the sexy talk is going to trigger twangs in your naughty bits, and you will probably want to jump your partner mid-sentence, even if you’ve been fanaticizing for weeks about smothering him (or her) with a pillow as they sleep through whatever bodily fluid related situation you are dealing with at Zero Dark Fucking Thirty.

  The stories in this collection ignited more than my loins. Many of them triggered the trapdoor of my hippocampus, and I fell into a tunnel full of memories about what life was like when my now “I want you to LEAVE ME ALONE” teenage offspring were “I WANT TO BE WITH YOOOOOOUUUUU even though your asshole is turning inside out, exploding into the toilet while you hurl into a bucket perched on your lap,” little ones.

  In 2005, due to circumstances that laughed at my life plans, it was necessary to put my career on the back burner and stay home with my then magnificently gorgeous, special needs newborn daughter and demanding, freakishly brilliant four-year-old son. The sick, coming out both ends, scenario happened more times than I can count during my five-year tenure as a stay at home mom. I still find it bizarre that neither of my kids ever noticed the scent of rotting death in the bathroom, yet they could smell the factory-sealed packages of M&M’s I had hidden in my tampon box under the bathroom sink. Jerks…

  Full-time parenting was hard on my fragile nerves. It was not something I would have chosen because it seemed too boundary-less, too complicated, too everything. I failed and failed and failed again, but it wasn’t the mom fails that got to me. It was the fear of me failing myself by losing myself. I was terrified I might disappear under a mound of dirty clothes and bitterness like so many women I knew. Women who allowed the monotonous, isolating, thankless tasks to smite out their identity. I promised myself it wouldn’t happen to me. If cock was going to be blocked in my house, I was going to be the one to block it. *drops mic*

  As one of the authors in this book so eloquently says, “Karma is an evil mistress.” I have two expert-level cock blockers (I kid you NOT, if there were a way to profit off of this skill, my kids would have been millionaires by the time they hit kindergarten) and there were many, many times when I woke up in the morning feeling bitter and empty, having forgotten that there was actually a time when I was someone other than a mother. But most of the time, the days were filled with laughter and lessons to learn, the majority of the lessons being ones I needed to learn, lessons that made me more of who I am and brought out the best of pre-motherhood Nicole.

  This book is full of failure. And hot sex. And there is one (totally understandable, in my opinion) accidental kidnapping. But it’s also packed with stories about growth, acceptance, recovery, harmony, humility, humor, and discovery. These mommas found success through their failures, and as a result became MORE of who they are, not less. What truly separates the winners and losers in life is not staying down when you fall, and since we all fall, this book provides a little motivation to get the fuck back up. Deep, huh?

  Enjoy this book. It’s a fucking winner.

  Watch me Tip…

  A.M. Willard

  Copyright 2016 – A.M. Willard

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under US Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this pub
lication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  A.M. Willard

  P.O. Box 22822

  Savannah, GA 31403

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real person, living or dead is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Inquiries about additional permissions should be directed to: [email protected]

  Cover Design by Shari Ryan @ MadHat Books

  Edited by Silla Webb @ Masque of the Red Pen Publishing

  To my son, who I promise I will never tip over… Well, at least not on purpose.

  Watch Me Tip….

  Have you ever had a day that just started out in the worse way possible as a new mom? I have one in particular that I reflect back on all the time, even though my son is almost sixteen-years-old. Join me as I rehash one of the funniest and what I consider to be on my mom fail list of days as a new mother.

  Let’s get a little history before we just jump from the moving mini-van…

  I’d been a stay-at-home mom with my newborn son for almost eleven months before I decided to venture back into the working world. I’d realized that staying at home full-time wasn’t for me. I mean come on, I could only watch Regis and Kelly for so long. Let’s not even talk about how many times I watched Castaway. Still to this day, I can recite the whole movie and yes, I still cry when he loses Wilson. Not the best movie for a new mom to watch every day, but that was the only thing on. There might have been days that I thought I was suffering from postpartum. I ignored it and went about my daily business of cleaning—yes my house was super clean—cooking, and talking to my infant when I was bored.

  I’ll admit that I did LOVE the first few months, but needed some adult interaction other than the once a week Mommy and Me class that we would attend. Don’t even get me started on that situation… I ran from that place after about five weeks like a crazy lady. We could do another story on that at a later date.

  This led me to going back to the local newspaper that I’d worked at before I had my son. It started out as part-time and quickly moved to part-time with full-time hours. I know, they sucker you in like quicksand when you return. I’d explained when they called that I just wanted a few hours a week; I was totally against sending our son to daycare, and I was still breastfeeding. They’d agreed to my conditions and set the trap for me to return.

  Since I was still breastfeeding and not really loving the whole pump situation, this became a HUGE challenge for me. When we were trying to get pregnant, I was one of those mothers with a birth plan and even had a plan for his first year. Yes, this might surprise you, but I had it all written down. I was going to go all natural during birth; when they broke my water that all changed. The next plan was to nurse him until he was one. After that it would creep me out a little, so on his first birthday I was pulling the nipple away… Needless to say, this changed just a little…They don’t tell you that you need to start pumping all the time in the beginning, you need to train your milk to evacuate while pumping and physically nursing. Guys, this is a real situation because let me tell you, that little pump wasn’t doing crap for my milk. I was convinced that I needed one that they use to milk cows at a dairy farm. I’m pretty sure I might have Googled industrial pumps for your breasts…

  With the pumping thing not doing its amazing job, I’d have to take lunch breaks at times to run over to the daycare and nurse just to make it through the rest of the work day. This would end up adding more stress to my day. ALL BECAUSE OF MILK… Oh, and if you’re asking why I just didn’t give him formula to substitute, he hated every single one of them… Trust me, I tried them all! He also hated bottles. At eleven months he would take his now defrosted breast milk and drink from only a certain sippy cup that had a nipple shaped like mine. He definitely takes after his father in this manner.

  Any of you reading this who might have nursed your child can relate to the pain you feel when you can’t get the last bit of milk from your breasts. If you’ve never nursed, let me just tell you this… Your breasts are massive, they’re swollen, hard as a boulder, and ready to bust at any moment. Like really, Niagara Falls had nothing one me at this moment… Are you with me? Can you feel the pain seeping up right now? If not, imagine your breasts growing to the size of watermelons—to the point of actually busting your bra clip in the front flap. Now are you with me? Good, because I need you to understand this before we can continue on this journey—the moment when you realize that you’re going to totally screw up at some point.

  The Day I Knew I Wasn’t Going to Be Perfect…

  Waking up late for work was no longer an option… I had another human being to get dressed; change a wet soaking diaper without getting pee shot in your eye. Because this is impossible with a boy; it will shoot over your glasses and land in your eye. Not to mention, feed before walking out the door. Oh, don’t forget you need to double check the diaper bag a million times to verify that you put extra clothes in, packed the frozen breast milk in your thermal bag, and then, just maybe then I could apply some makeup to my sleep-deprived face. I say sleep deprived at eleven months because my son thought it was cool to wake me at night to nurse. He was letting me know that he missed the boobies, and by doing this he made me pay for it with no sleep. I’ve now turned into a human pacifier for his pleasure. All because I decided to go back to work. (Insert the pity party where I start to feel like the worse mother because I was picking a career over being at home).

  Dashing out the door with the massive over weighted car seat on my arm, I buckled him in and we set out toward the magical daycare where he’d get to sleep, play, and be the good little boy that he is. While I did the heart pounding hate myself for taking him to daycare drive toward work where I’d spend the next six to eight hours in misery from my breasts. See, it all goes back to being a human pacifier… Don’t get me wrong, I loved nursing as this was our special time just the two of us bonding. But when you’re trying to work, shop, or be away for a moment it turns disastrous.

  After getting my coffee, I settled in at my desk and prepared for the day like normal. Computer on, to-do list out, phone ready to go. I mean, we had a newspaper to build and stuff to do, right?

  That changed in two point four seconds…

  When a newborn strolled through the front door with its mother who was here to place an ad. Oh, did I mention the sweet newborn was screaming at the top of its lungs? It’d only been about two hours at this point since I’d physically nursed my son at home, and I had about another hour before I would need to pump. That had all changed by this point. My breasts heard the cries from the child that wasn’t mine and decided to turn on the waterfall. I glanced down and my shirt was now soaked. My pretty silk blouse looked like I’d leaned over in a cat’s bowl of water… Two perfect circles growing wider and wider as I sat here embarrassed in front of all my co-workers. Kindly asking my desk neighbor to take care of the front, I dashed off to the restroom with my cow sucking backpack.

  Now that I think about this, I realize why I never could get that pump to work correctly. The nurses tell you to go to a comfortable place where you can picture your baby, and then pump away to a magical land of milk filling bag after bag. Guess that bathroom wasn’t comfortable! It always echoed throughout the space, and every lady who came in to use the restroom knew what I was doing, but then it could’ve sounded like a vibrator going off. Who knows… I just knew at this point I needed relief and a new shirt. Thankfully, I learned months before to always keep extra breast pads, a bra, and a shirt in my pack for this reason alone. Yes, this had happened in the middle of Wal-mart before, folks. So the struggle is real.

  I cleaned myself up and totally looking hot in my pink t-shirt and dress pants, I made it through the rest of the day without any accidents. Pumping throughout the day like normal, I looked forward to getting home to spend some quali
ty time with my son. Yes, my evenings were a highlight of the day. It was the time that I could sit down, release and unwind from the day’s stress. Today was no different, it was full of milk stress.

  But let’s not get too excited… This is where the real fun started to happen…See, you guys are reading this thinking one of two things. I’m either going to explode and combust in a tidal wave of milk, or I’m going to totally flip my lid. Keep reading as the adventure is just getting started.

  Traffic hated me!

  Red lights hated me!

  The world was now against me no matter what direction I would go!

  I picked my son up from daycare and they explained that he ate well, but would want to eat soon. I nodded in response as I totally understood this. I mean, I was the walking feed-o-meter and they’re currently pulling at my neck and busting at the seams. A panic started to set in as I didn’t want another replay from the morning. With the radio announcing there’s an accident near the area I needed to be in, I circled around and went the long way. Yes, because this would be shorter, right? Nope, not in a long shot because the rest of the city was doing the same thing at this moment. But they weren’t about to explode in the car because your son had now realized his pacifier was upfront driving, and he was ready to eat.