FX’s “Better Things” Nails Mom Life {+ Giveaway!}

Friday mornings are normally pretty relaxed for me, but last Friday, I had a seminar to attend.  And it started early.  Since it was at least 45 minutes from my house and I’m not a morning person, I decided to leave early.  I prepared the kids clothes, backpacks, and lunches the night before and set my alarm for early the next day.

I thought I was way ahead of the game…until I overslept.  Not sure how it happened, but I woke up with 20 minutes to get everyone ready and leave the house.  I frantically ran around getting the kids ready, while my kids threw tantrums on a variety topics including, but not limited to, not being able to find their hairbrush, not liking the color of their hairbrush, and disgust towards the general concept of socks.  As we started to leave, my son lost his mind that I wouldn’t let him wear his flip flops (he was pretty much the leader of the sock hate rebellion tantrum I mentioned earlier).  I asked him to grab his tennis shoes and head towards the car.  After buckling his car seat we were off to the girls’ school.

Everything seemed to be back on track, until the screaming began.  Somehow, while waiting in the 20+ minute car line to drop the girls off at their school, my son managed to get a spinning toy stuck in my oldest daughter’s hair.  A quick assessment from the front seat indicated that it couldn’t be extracted easily, which meant that it needed to be cut out using safety scissors that I had confiscated earlier in the week.  We eventually made it to the front of the line, albeit with a little less hair than when we started and a newly confiscated spinning toy in my possession, before heading to my son’s school.

At a stop light I happened to turned and look in the backseat, but only saw one of my son’s shoes.  We got to school and sure enough, there was only one shoe.  I looked under seats, around the car seat, in the back of my SUV, everywhere.  No shoe.  I called my husband to ask if he’d check the driveway.  No shoe.  I was already running late, but there was no way to drop him off with only one shoe, so off to Target we went to buy shoes we didn’t really need.

And then, as I was unbuckling him from his car seat in the Target parking lot, I found it.  That shoe?  It was safely tucked under his bottom in the car seat the entire time.  I was now officially late for my seminar, sitting outside a Target for shoes I never needed with a kid that thought the whole ordeal was hilarious.  In the end, I was an hour late for my seminar after leaving early.  Friday was not my shining moment.

But that’s what motherhood is, right?  The best laid plans complicated by life and kids and the unexpected.  It’s always an adventure (even if you don’t want it to be).  And no television series embodies that better than FX’s “Better Things”.

This brand new series from Louis CK and Pamela Adlon’s which airs on FX on Thursdays at 10pm completely nails parenthood from the frustration over buying school supplies to the inevitable falling asleep when when laying down with your child for “just a minute” to inappropriate questions your kid is bound to ask and the way that your child takes over your bed.  After watching just two episodes of “Better Things”, I can honestly tell you there are so many parts of this show I identify with, I can’t even list them all.  It’s like they took snippets of my life and made them into a television show.  It may not be reality tv, but it’s my reality on tv.

In celebration of the Better Things premiere, FX was nice enough to send me a swag bag with Ray-Ban sunglasses, Chipolo bluetooth keyring, Baggu leather clutch, hypoallergenic travel pillow, Essential Oils, lip balm, “Credit Card” Mints, and more!  It’s pretty much everything that an overwhelmed, overworked mom could ever want all wrapped up in a swag bag!

Want to win a “Better Things” swag bag of your very own?  One lucky reader is going to win!  To enter, simply visit the “Better Things” website and check out the clips.  What clip can you identify with?  Leave me a blog post comment letting me know.  Entries close September 28th at 11:59pm.  Winner will be selected using Random.org.  Good luck!