The phrase 'it never rains but it pours' must have been coined by a harried mother. Yes, everyone gets busy at times, everyone has days where they think "I can not take one more thing on my plate today" and then they get two more. That's how it goes. But I think moms have these days more than most. Or maybe it's just that those days have the added "MOM! HELP" moments added to them.
When you have a baby, people give you all sorts of advice. Some good, some great, some really really bad (meanie nurse who told me I would permanently damage my son if I put him in a bouncy chair for even a moment, I'm looking at you lady!) but no one really tells you the truth about motherhood. They tell you about nursing and timeouts and choosing diaper brands and stopping biting.They tell you about babies and toddlers. Which is about all you can handle when you have babies and toddlers.
But they don't tell you about later. About those days when every second is accounted for with deadlines and rehearsals and lessons and meetings and homework and actual work and cats with hairballs and a refrigerator that you need a repairman for and then the school calls and says "Hi! Your kid has lice!". So you drop everything. You stop cooking parts for for the gingerbread house competition and run like hell to the pharmacy to buy up lice shampoo and you spray and you scrub everything down (including your child and yourself because ever since that encounter with the Lyme Disease tick, you get a serious case of the heebeegeebees when it comes to small creepy crawlies). You give a buzz cut and wash everything in the house and then take the now lice-free child back to school so you can get on with the rest of the day.
They don't tell you that there will be days like that.
But you know, I wouldn't trade it. Even when I'm so tired I can barely breath but the gingerbread house has to get frosted or when I'm coming home from dropping everyone off and the car starts clunking so I stop at the mechanic and surprise! The front rotor has frozen (and you aren't actually sure what that is, but it makes the car undriveable), I still wouldn't trade it.
Motherhood is hard. Parenthood is hard. Wonderfully, blissfully hard. Because even when you have too many things to do and then someone frantically calls "mom! I NEED you" at just the wrong moment, the thing is, they are calling you mom. You are their go-to person and that, that is what makes it wonderful.
I didn't intend to leave this space for the whole week but, as you may have guessed, things got a little crazy around here. It's the kind of week that, back in high school, would have sent me out to but a six pack of jolt cola to keep in my locker so that I could make it thorough the day (this was before I discovered coffee. Ahh those lost years of nasty soda when I could have been drinking the morning nectar of the gods) I should be freaking out about now (as I sit here at the mechanic's listening to them grind something on, or maybe off, my car) but I'm not. Life is messy, and busy, and I'm exhausted. But my son was funny as hell in the school play last night. And my daughter wrote a book for me this week called "I am so lucky" (my favorite line? "I am so lucky- I have a lovely mommy") and tonight the kids and I are all in the town Christmas play together which is so very fun. And my husband made a hilarious snowmen vs gingerbread men candy battle scene for the gingerbread contest with the kids. And sure, the fridge crappped out this morning, but its only 27 degrees out so we can put the food on the porch until the guy from Sears arrives. It's a beautiful mess, this life. And I wouldn't trade it for anything.
Hug your kids, ignore the dishes, and have a good weekend my friends.
And also, maybe don't buy a car from some shirtless Russians in a back lot in Brooklyn.
