I challenged my children to gather as many loose, dirty socks as they could in ten minutes.

This is what they gathered.  Forty-nine socks, y’all.  Forty-nine socks.  And I’m pretty sure fewer than six of them have matches here.  Let’s see what we can infer from this, shall we?

1. Nobody can ever find a pair of socks when they need them.  I mean, really, is that surprising?  If these were all pairs, and all belonged to the same person, we’d be talking about more than three weeks’ worth of socks!
2. The house is a mess.  ‘Cause they gathered all of these socks from around the house.  That means there were more than forty dirty, mismatched socks lying around.  It also means there’s enough mess for the socks to have been overlooked.
3. My kitchen floor really needs to be swept.  (You can’t determine that based on the socks, but you can based on the photo.)

So what’s my point?

This is a minor thing.  Missing socks, unwashed laundry, clutter…these aren’t major things, but they’re the kind of thing we all struggle with at some point.  Some of us to a lesser degree, some to a greater degree; some more frequently than others, but we all have our moments and our days.  We feel like failures as homemakers or at “this mom thing.”

And sometimes our #momfail moments are bigger than dirty socks.  Like when your toddler manages to fall out of bed through the one gap you left in his bed rail and need staples in his head at 3 a.m.  Or you realize you forgot to tell your recently potty-trained child that she’s supposed to put on clean underwear every day.

You’re not the only one.  And you’re not a failure; you’re an imperfect human being just like all the rest of us, messing it up sometimes but getting it right at other times.

I was so encouraged by this short (and free!) video series, The Truth About #MomFail Culture: 10 Truths You Need to Hear on the Hard Days. [UPDATE: Find it here. Or see below]

These two moms talk honestly about their own struggles — and the universality of the struggle! — and offer up some much-needed encouragement.

The Truth About #MomFail Culture: 10 Things You Need to Hear on the Hard Days – Video 1 from Ultimate Bundles on Vimeo.