All the Crazy Sh*t This Mom Went Through Before 7 A.M. Is Parenting in a Nutshell
Tara Wood is just like every other mom in that somehow, while everyone in the world without kids sleeps soundly, she's faced with a million and one crazy little events that add up to a (hilarious) parenting sh*tstorm — all before 7 a.m. On one particular morning, however, Wood was severely mistaken when she thought dealing with her hurt dog, who sadly had to have a leg amputated after getting hit by a car, would be the worst of her problems. Oh, how wrong she was.
Physically and emotionally drained from a week of caring for her pup, it was made apparent to Wood that everything was going back to her family's "abnormal normal" when "life delivered some super f*ckery" in the form of several kid fails. The mom of seven took to her Facebook page to share every gritty detail of her stressful — and honestly, hysterical — morning with her family, and we can't stop crying-laughing.
"Mia kissed me goodbye as she left for the bus stop then turned around and said, 'I smell something burning,'" Wood starts her story. "I noticed it too — it smelled like plastic melting — so I checked the toaster — all good, ran upstairs to be sure none of the girls had left their hair straighteners or curling irons on — nothing there. The smell was getting stronger and stronger but none of our smoke alarms were going off and I couldn't see smoke anywhere at all. I started getting panicky so I shook Garrett awake while low key screaming 'WAKE UP SOMETHING IS ON FIRE BUT I CANT FIND WHAT IT IS AND WE'RE ALL ABOUT TO DIE I THINK!'"
After having to basically pry her partner out of bed (typical), Wood continued to run around the house looking for the source of the smell, when she noticed smoke coming from the kids' game room, where her son Ronan was playing his Wii completely ignorant to the situation at hand: his brother Leo's sock was hanging from the light fixture, melting.
So then I was all "OH MY GOD HOLY SH*T WHAT IS EVEN HAPPENING LEO YOUR SOCK IS ABOUT TO CATCH OUR HOUSE ON FIRE WHY IN THE HELL IS YOUR STANK ASS SOCK ON THE LIGHT FIXTURE? WE COULD HAVE HAD A SOCK FIRE!"
And while I'm standing in a chair and using one of Marigold's dolls — which now has a disfigured, melty head because it's what I used to push the flaming gym sock off of the bulb and onto the floor, Leo just sheepishly shrugged his shoulders and said "'Sock Fire' would be a cool band name."
And I was all "YOU UNDERSTAND THAT THIS COULD HAVE BEEN CATASTROPHIC, RIGHT? AND YES THAT WOULD BE A COOL BAND NAME BUT RIGHT NOW I NEED YOU TO OPEN THE WINDOWS AND WINDMILL YOUR ARMS AROUND BECAUSE THE SMELL IS ALL IN MY MOUTH AND I JUST WASHED MY HAIR AND IMMA BE PISSED IF I SMELL LIKE A BONFIRE TODAY GET TO FLAILING, FIRESTARTER!"
So then took my Xanax and did some deep breathing and calmed down and decided to be thankful that we got very lucky.
However, Wood only had time for a few of those deep breaths before the next episode of "Life With Kids" began to play. Mid-coffee sip, her daughter Norah informed her mom that her sister had found — and was loving on — a baby squirrel.
"Hand to god, this was five minutes after I stomped out the smoldering sock on our garage floor," Wood wrote. "Me: 'I'm sorry, what?' Norah: 'It's so cute! And it's not even scared of her. He's just letting her hold him and kiss him and he's not even moving — come see him!' So I did. And it was all true. Marigold was holding a six inch long baby squirrel. He wasn't frightened and was allowing her affection because he was dead as f*ck."
After having to bribe her daughter with Doritos and a fudge pop to get the little girl to take her sweet pet squirrel — who was in the throes of "sleepy time" — out of her shirt, Wood was able to take the animal from her "food-driven" daughter. "I placed his very deceased, limp body in a plastic bag, gave Marigold a quick bleach scrub down and made good on my Doritos and fudge pop promise," she wrote. "All of this happened before 7:00 a.m."
Can we please get a round of applause for this mom's ability to get through the events of this morning in one piece? Oh, and a slow clap for her positively sober takeaway that all parents could stand to tattoo across their foreheads: "And that's how life reminds you that sh*t can always be weirder so just, like, roll with it."