Question: Did you wipe someone’s butt today that wasn’t yours?

Did you make someone else a meal–even just a snack?

Did you break up a fight? Administer a time-out? Answer the question, “But whyyyy is water wet and CAN I HAVE ANOTHER GRAHAM CRACKER?” at least 35 times?

Yes? Maybe one of those things? A combination of several? Or all of the above?

Well then, I am here to remind you that you are The Shit. And chances are, you are also probably a mom.

What no one tells you about motherhood is just how very not glamorous it is. Motherhood is lots of great things, but it’s also all of this aforementioned crap (literally), and more.

What no one tells you about motherhood is just how very not glamorous it is.

It’s not finishing tasks on time. It’s wearing stained clothing. It’s never again having unchipped baseboards.

It’s doing your makeup at least once a week in the rearview mirror of your car (if at all). It’s being late for almost everything. It’s having that drawer of never-used Tupperware simply so you can open it up and your baby will have something to play with while you cook for the fifteen-bazillionth time that day.

Yes, it’s all of that. And what it’s not, is “easy.”

In case you have forgotten, let me remind you of some of the Grade A Badass Crap you do daily, or have likely done in the past:

• Cooked up a person in your body.
• Got that person out of your body.
• (Or if you adopted and so you didn’t get the benefit of nine months of preparation and familiarity with but still you managed to make a productive person out of them? That actually gets you bonus points.)
• Refereed sibling fights so intense that an MMA ref would blush
• Cooked an entire meal with your non-dominant hand because your baby refuses to be put down
• Endured hours upon hours of the mental numbing that is Ryan’s Toy Reviews or Kinder-[fill in the blank] playing in the background just so you could manage to get a few delicious moments to yourself
• Survived on less than four hours of sleep a night
• Considered a trip to your mailbox your “daily outing”

I could go on, but you get it.

So the next time you lock eyes with a fellow mom at the grocery who is foggily swerving about the cereal aisle, and you’re feeling the exhaustion behind her dark-rimmed eyes so gutturally you’d swear it was your own, do the only right thing there is to. Shout it out, loud and proud: “You are a badass!!!”

You know. Or something like that. Or maybe just the Chin Lift of Recognition. Let her know you see her, that she’s got this.

One of the most surprising things I’ve found that I love about motherhood is the sisterhood of it. It’s like all of a sudden, I’ve found my people. And there are like hundreds of millions of us! And we are all sleep deprived! And kind of crazy! With saggy boobs!

I think we all need a reminder sometimes that–despite the fact that, at the end of any given day, what we achieve isn’t measured by any quantifiable standard–we are still doing so much.

When you get to 8pm and are just considering showering for the first time in the day; or when you get home from work and there are so many stacks of mail on the counter that you have to clear a spot to set down your purse; or when your gaze falls on a filthy kitchen at bedtime that you just cannot seem to muster the energy to clean.

And on those days you feel like you’ve done everything and accomplished nothing? I’m here to remind you of this:No matter what the world around you isn’t saying, you, my friend, are the sh**. You already did something. So many things.

You? You are a badass. Don’t forget that.