The boys turn four tomorrow. We brought cupcakes to tumbling this weekend. Had my family and a few friends over on Sunday and cupcakes to daycare today. Forty-eight cupcakes. Two birthday cakes (one with Spiderman on it that I made I felt like a pinterest Mom!).

I’ve learned a few things about how I Mom. I’d like to think I’m okay at it. I mean they are alive and happy and generally potty trained. They ask to snuggle with me all the time and they seem to enjoy my company even though I put them in timeout when they break the rules.

I basically Mom how I live. For example, I’ll make it to hot yoga class before they lock the door. But I’ll roll in dropping my towel that I just pulled out of the dryer and as I billow it out over my mat inevitably a pair of my underwear falls out. Not the plain black ones. The lacey thong that I wear once a month or less that I only wear when I literally have no underwear left.

It’s happened. Twice.

Considering I don’t wear the lacey thong more than four times a year. I’m mildly cursed.

Same thing with how I Mom. I’ll get to daycare on time before the Halloween parade starts. I may forget their sheets/blankets and they never have extra clothes there that fit. Which means today Declan had an accident and came home in his bathing suit bottoms. Because it was the only change of clothes he had there.

I’ll remember the check to pay for them to be there. But I’ll fill it out in the parking lot.

I iron their pants and shorts and our cloth napkins. And sometimes my sheets. But I am up until midnight every year on Christmas Eve and their birthday and Easter. They don’t have Easter baskets. I forget. Yes I forget major holidays that fall on the same day every year. Maybe not the actual holiday. I just don’t realize how quickly it comes. Then it’s the 24th and I’m like holy MF I am screwed.

I’ve actually had dreams of shopping on Christmas Eve. Maybe nightmares.

But they know if I say I’m going to do something we do it. When I say we are going to bake cupcakes it happens. When I say they will get to go to the store the next day it happens. Follow through is important in parenting. Both positive and negative. They know if I say they will go to bed early if the nonsense doesn’t end now…they stop the nonsense.

As I threw my towel out tonight at yoga and the freaking underwear flew out, and I fell leaping to grab it before the full class of people looked and saw- half of them did. I thought, wow, I’m a Mom. I’m responsible for two other humans and there’s my thong on the yoga mat.

It’s how I roll.

My Mom is very organized. She would never have been up wrapping presents the night before Christmas. She still has our Easter baskets from our childhood. Actually I think maybe mine’s in my basement.

She decorates for every season. I was looking through birthday pics from last year and saw our pumpkin candelabra from the mantle that we got last year and yelled at my wife asking where the hell it was this year and why she didn’t grab it when I asked her to grab our one Halloween decoration that I remembered.

She looked at me like I was nuts with no recollection of ever grabbing the witch/cat candle thing. She did. I swear it. Because it’s on the mantle. And I didn’t grab it and I know we did put it away last year.

Anyway. I’m that kind of Mom. My Mom often says she doesn’t know where I came from. With my last minute planning yet OCD ironing. I appreciate my Mom. A lot. She went and dealt with a birthday gift return/exchange when I realized I bought boots a month ago two sizes big- but they grew three sizes in a month. So I needed two sizes bigger than I got.

Anyway. She dealt with all of that. When I have a specific task my mom is good for the follow through. I appreciate that about her because I know that is not at all part of who I am.

I would have kept the wrong sized boots in the car for about three months with the intention of returning them, then met a mom of twins (because I swear to God they drop in front of me ALL the time- not kidding! It’s like I have a magnet for twin moms) who was in need of boots for her kids and would have just given them to her. Leaving my sons still bootless and me without a birthday present for them.

I met a twin mom. She did my pedicure. I brought her our stroller used maybe twice. Because my wife left ours in a parking lot right on the cusp of us not needing one…yeah long story. Anyway almost new stroller and pac-n-play delivered to her the next day. It just feels right sometimes to pay it forward.

I know how much being a twin Mom drains you. Physically, emotionally and especially financially. It would have been nice to sell the stroller for a hundred dollars or something. But it was nicer to have her hug me with two kids in her belly and thank me and tell me how she raved about me to her husband.

Some day someone will pay forward a free babysitter for a night to me. Just throwing out there to the universe.

So I’m not perfect. I forget some stuff and obsess about other stuff that other people feel is not important to obsess about. I walk around naked sometimes and the boys are getting to an age where they tell me to get dressed. I do. Get dressed I mean. But I’ve also put them in time out holding up my towel because they hit each other while I was in the shower. It happens.

I procrastinate. I make a fool of myself. But mostly I love those boys.

I may look like my Mom. But I’m my Dad all the way. When I forget stuff. When I lose my temper. When I bake with them. Even when I’m ironing. I picture him standing at the ironing board. Talking to me. Sometimes yelling at me. Likely deserved. And I feel okay about it. Because I loved my Dad so much. I miss him. And if I parent like him. I’m good with that.

I miss him on my son’s birthday. Because he should be here with us. He should see his grandkids turn four. And I know he is from somewhere else. But I wish he was here. When I’m ironing of all things…I feel like he is.