We all love winning awards. Even if you aren’t the competitive type, it’s still nice to be appreciated, recognized, and given an award. The “Mom of the Year” award may be one you try to avoid winning, but inevitably we all win it at some point. I have won the “Mom of the Year” award so many times, I need a separate room just for my trophies. All I had to do was follow these 6 simple steps.

#1 – Wake up late every day

Well, I guess you don’t have to do wake up late every day, just the important days. The days you have to be somewhere on time. The days you have to take your kids to school. You know those days where you set 20 alarms to make sure you wake up. The alarms are going off every 15 minutes. You don’t hear half of them, and you snooze the other half. You may even have one that you’ve named “ok, now you’re really late.” Waking up late gets that heart pumping and that adrenaline going. However, this does not count as exercise.

#2 – You procrastinate on the laundry

I tend to procrastinate doing laundry two different ways. Sometimes it seems like I never have clean clothes, while other times, I have piles and piles of clean clothes. Either way, they are rarely ever hung, folded, and put away as they should be. I take turns with both procrastination methods so I keep myself on my toes, and in a good panic constantly. It’s a game I like to call “Do I Have Clean Clothes, and Where?” There are two ways to play …

Scenario 1: You wake up late (see #1), fumble to your closet to find work clothes, and there’s nothing. You go to your kids’ closets, and none of their school clothes are there. You think to yourself “Ah, what about the dryer. I bet there are some clothes in the dryer.” Nope! What do you do? You look through the dirty clothes to see if you can find an outfit that doesn’t have stains all over it and doesn’t stink. You throw it in the dryer (bonus points if you throw a dryer sheet in there as well) to fluff it up.

Scenario 2: Most of scenario 2 is just like scenario 1. The difference is instead of no clean clothes, you actually have all clean clothes. However, NONE are folded, hung, or put away. They are just laying in piles on top of your dryer, on your kitchen table, and maybe even on your couch. So you have to leaf through all the piles of laundry, just to find some outfits for the day. Naturally, they are full of wrinkles, so then you have to take the time to fluff them.

#3 – Keep having to go back for forgotten items

You’ve woken up late. You’ve taken extra time to play the “Do I Have Clean Clothes, and Where?” game. You didn’t prepare for the day the night before. You are rushing around packing lunches and backpacks. If you leave right now, you may be able to make it to the school door without seeing “Tardy Marty.” You get in the car and realize you left your phone in the house, so you run back in to get it. You get back in the car and realize you forgot the water bottles. And then some homework. Oh and what about the entertainment for the kids for the ride (cause God forbid the kids would have to look out the window on the ride to school). Now you’re just hoping traffic is light, and you don’t get caught speeding.

#4 – Yell at your kids because you’re having a bad day

If your morning has started rushed and late, that’s just setting you up to have a completely horrific day. Traffic is bad, your boss is in a bad mood, work is hectic, your lunch was horrible, etc. It just seems like it’s one thing right after the other. The only thing you’re looking forward to is sitting on that comfy couch to decompress, relax, and forget about this day. Then, one of your little angels spills a cup of water. Normally you would say, “oh well, get a towel and clean it up. I’m glad it was just water.” But not today. Since you’ve taken all that you can take today, you yell and fuss, and start angrily cleaning it up yourself. There was no reason for this reaction, other than it was the “straw that broke the camel’s back.” Mom guilt sets in immediately when you see your sweet child walk-off, shoulders hunched, with tears filling his eyes. Now you get to apologize for overreacting.

#5 – Forget about all the events

You forget to sign up for that camping trip, that parent-teacher conference, that field trip, or one of the other many events that your kids have. This can happen for many reasons that all usually boil down to being overwhelmed with all the things. Sometimes it’s because you completely missed the email about it. Other times you see it, but can’t handle it right then. You say to yourself “I’ll take care of that in a minute,” and then two weeks later you’re either scrambling to get it done at the very last minute, or you’ve missed the deadline altogether.

This is a good time to have some other mom friends that are in your circle. You can text each other to keep each other on track. Let’s just hope you all aren’t racing to that “Mom of the Year” trophy at the same time.

#6 – Have a “not adulting today” kind of day … maybe too often

You know those days when you feel like you can’t take care of yourself, much less any tiny humans. Those days when you just want to binge-watch a show and stay in bed all day. Normally, you miss your kids when they are held up in their rooms watching YouTube. However, on days you don’t want to adult, you welcome it, and are very thankful if they do. Now, the question is, how often do you have those days? Once a week, once a month, rarely? The more frequently you don’t adult, the better your chances are at receiving that award.

There are so many more steps you can do that will allow you to achieve “Mom of the Year” status. I would love to hear the ways you’ve earned the title.

All jokes aside: If you do some or all of these steps, periodically or every day, it does not make you a bad mom. It just means you have a lot going on and you’re human. All these steps have been things my friends and I have done, and then jokingly said “mom of the year right here.” No matter how you feel, you are a fabulous person and you’re doing an amazing job!