By Liv of Live By Surprise

The one thing about being a working mother is, no matter how hard you try to leave the house without some bit of something on your clothing, you can’t.

It must be some weird physics thing. There’s like a vortex or something from the moment you put on new clean clothes.

Oh, you can think you’ve left the house without a spot.  You can look yourself up and down and inspect. But the moment you get into work, there will always be that one guy who looks at you and says, “Did you know you have a little something right there?”

For most parents, it’s usually in one of three main areas, and today I’ve done up a handy dandy diagram so you can see:

1)  The shoulder.

Why rub your eyes with your hands when you wake up?  You can rub your eyes, nose, mouth and any other body part on mom’s shoulder and get all the sleep out of your eyes and nastiness out of your nose.  Sometimes it’s just a crusty remainder.  Sometimes it’s a slimy green feast.  Either way, you’re best not to put your go-to-work shirt on until Jr. is out of bed and ready to go to avoid mess in this area.

2)  The front of your shirt.

Let’s be clear what we’re talking about here.  The boobs.  They nourished your children for months after they were born, and now they think this area is a napkin.  Who needs a motorboat when you have this handy dandy spot to get rid of all the crud on your face?

3)  The crotchular region.

Slimy toddlers?  Yep – they’ll leave their nasty little deposits here without you even noticing.  As a result of a drastic height difference, their slimy little fingers and gross little faces are front and center in this particular area, either because they’ve itt in your lap or given you a great big “I love it when you absorb my bodily fluids” hug.

I had this discussion on more than one occasion with my former boss.  Who was childless at the time.  I’d walk into his office to have a serious discussion and, “Ummmm…did you know you had something right there?”

No, I didn’t.  I assumed I did have something somewhere – because, you know, kids.  I wasn’t aware that it was right there until you mentioned it.  In fact, I’d be blissfully unaware of it now if you hadn’t pointed it out.  And as I don’t have anything to change into, now I’ll be aware of it all day.  Thank you very much.

Yes, it’s embarrassing.  No, there’s nothing I can do about it.  Chances are I’m going to always have something somewhere – because I’m a mom.

But the good news is, I solved the problem of my boss pointing out the little bits of crusty food and child goobers all over my clothing.  I married him.  So now, my kids don’t just leave mommy goobers.  They give them to daddy too.

And every once in a while I say, in the middle of the day (of course, not the morning), “Ummm … honey … did you know you had something … right there?”

This post originally appeared on Live By Surprise.

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About Liv

Liv is the pseudonym for a rocking forty year old working mother of three who remarried after a terrible divorce, had a terrible car accident and almost lost her leg, and yet continues to have a positive attitude. Her work has been featured on ScaryMommy, HuffPost and The Mid – and she’s a contributing writer at DivorcedMoms.com. You can find her blog at LiveBySurprise.com or follow her on Facebook or Twitter.

Blog: http://www.livebysurprise.com

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