You know those moments as mothers when we smash our palms against our face and drag our fingers down towards our chin, pressing as hard as we can, while stretching our bottom eyelids far enough to reveal the crimson fleshy stuff?
The face distorting is accompanied by a grunting sound beginning deep in our chest and eventually crescendoing out our mouth in a hearty uggghhhhhhhhhhhHHH until the last molecule of air in our lungs escapes in a piercing high note.
This act of exasperation never solves anything, but sure feels good. And when my kids stare at me in bewilderment after doing the monster thing I usually counter with a booming, “WHAT?” which feels even better.
Instead of succumbing to flabbergastation techniques, wouldn’t it be cool to have apps on our phone which give us moms advice, encouragement, guidance, a sounding board, or comic relief? Like an iMommy line of techy, emotional quick fixes.
Here are a few ideas. I’d love your feedback.
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BFF
Similar to Siri, but a direct line to your best friend when you need mothering advice. This will most likely be the friend who dares speak the truth in love, but also allows you to vent like a hornet over insignificant, petty things.
Occasionally, she will take your side even if you are wrong because she has a sixth sense awareness of when you need pathetic coddling more than the correct answer. Most times PMS is the culprit, which all moms recognize in each other but dutifully refrain from pointing out. Unlike our husbands who actually ask us if it’s that time of the month in the midst of our rants. Ya think, dumbdonkey?
Good thing about this app is when you don’t agree with your BFF or she misinterprets what you are saying, you can scream at her without any pushback or fallout. You know like, “NO, Judith! I do not want you to search the internet for my question! I asked you for a specific answer on how I should handle the fact my four-year old just purposely pooped a turd on the floor because his brother dared him!! Are you deaf?”
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Pandora’s Box
This app allows us to type in how we are feeling about a particular situation. How to handle the dilemma of little Johnny wanting to invite over the Tasmanian devil friend who tornadoes our house and depletes half our pantry every flip-flopping time he comes. What to say to the co-room mom who’s constantly going all Pinterest on us. When to tell our hubs we spent $400 on Amazon while in a drunken stupor; the stupor stemming from mistaking wine for water. When you only get four hours of sleep a night, everything begins to taste the same.
If our decision, choice of words, or timing risks being detrimental or pushes the envelope of far-reaching negative consequences, Pandora’s Box opens our eyes to the potential disaster.
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iSleep (Pretend Version)
Although an app by the same name already exists, the iMommy version is waaaay better. When open, subliminal messages Zen in our ear, tricking us to believe we are actually sleeping.
Pretend sleep invigorates us while we wash clothes, wipe butts, make pb&j’s, waste time picking up toys that will be on the floor five minutes later, and attempt to go to the bathroom multiple times on the hour before finally saying, “Screw it,” and pee in our pants like the rest of our small family members.
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Mommy Maps
Personalized navigation for our daily lives. For best results, set the map to originate in the kitchen first thing in the morning while preparing coffee. Set destination as our bedroom with a timer for sixteen hours later.
Throughout our day the map gives visuals of everything on our path while Morgan Freeman warns us, instructs us, consoles us, encourages us, pities us between our first sip of mojo and when we lay our head on the pillow.
Warnings might include,
“Delay ahead in grocery store. A narcissistic, energy drainer is meandering into freezer section. Would you like to re-route?”
“Child #2 will be going to the school nurse after lunch with a belly ache from the Rice Krispy Treat, bag of fruit chews, and juice box you shoved in his face for breakfast. Although I’d like to comment on your poor nutritional skill set, I’m only programmed to give you this heads up so you can re-arrange your schedule in time to pick #2 up early.”
“The soup you are about to order secretly contains crushed beans which will give you horrible gas before your 4 o’clock parent-teacher conference. Since you are over forty, I know your hold-em-in mechanism isn’t what it used to be. Proceed with caution.”
“Daughter #1 will have explosive diarrhea for the next four hours. If you don’t have enough diapers or wipes on hand and/or you have multiple children who also require supervision, call the neighbor ASAP. This is an emergency.”
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Find My Keys – Self-explanatory
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Help
Basically Yelp, except instead of restaurant reviews, mothers rank each other’s parenting skills on a five-star scale. This app helps us determine where we will allow our children to attend play dates. Any home with a mother having a higher star rating than ours is off-limits. No exceptions.
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Witter
Laughter is the best medicine. This app sends witty one-liners to our home screen every half hour in 140 characters or less format.
While all these apps would be great, the truth is God’s the ultimate Siri, inner warning system, energy provider, helper, and joy maker for our life. He actually does talk back to us when we push the Home button and speak.
Home is our heart, a place where God resides; on-call every minute of every day. Click & Tweet! He guides us to the proper destination, re-routes us when we veer off course, gives us sound advice, and even allows us to vent along the way.
While iMommy definitely has potential, perhaps we should install iGod instead.
Download on, crazy Mommas!
Shelby Spear
Shelby is a Certified Emotional Intelligence Coach, Certified Meditation Teacher (CMT), author, freelance writer, speaker, and love enthusiast who is passionate about helping others ‘change the way they look at things so the things they look at change.’ She has numerous stories featured in the national publication, Guideposts. She also has over 160 featured articles at online publications, including Her View From Home, Scary Mommy, Parenting Teens & Tweens, For Every Mom, Love What Matters, and Today. Her book, How Are You Feeling, Momma? (You don’t need to say, “I’m fine.”), co-authored with her dear friend, Lisa Leshaw, recently won the 2020 Publisher’s Weekly Book Life Prize as the finalist in the Inspirational/Spiritual category.
