Hello! My name is Mommy. Well that’s not my real first name, I just can’t remember what it is right now. You see, I have two preschoolers and I babysit a third full time. “This woman must be insane!”, you say? No, I promise you I’m merely one of a billion other formerly intelligent, lovely people who temporarily lost their minds and decided to give this mothering thing a try. That may have been my first mistake.Don’t get me wrong, I love my children more than life itself. I would gladly throw myself in front of a bus for them should the need arise. But lately I’ve been thinking the bus might sound preferable to the idea of spending the rest of my life at home alone with them. My friends with older children all smile and nod their heads. “Yes Katie, this too shall pass. They will get older and things will get easier.”
Sure. I’ve been hearing that same milarky since my oldest was born. And then came along number two and now suddenly there are three small children in my house. I think they’re starting to realize that they outnumber me. At some point in the near future the three of them together will outweigh me, and then what power shall I wield at all? They’re quick, and they’re smart, and they know all of my weaknesses.
Mainly, I’d say it’s the noise. It was on television recently that a person can withstand a certain amount of chaos without it taking too much of a toll, UNLESS the chaos is then accompanied with a high level of noise. Well someone must have come over and explained that to my kids - because they certainly can turn this mother into a quivering disaster in no time flat.
And second, it’s the mess. I’m not talking about socks on the floor, dishes in the sink kind of mess. I’m talking about shredding an entire roll of ribbon throughout the house while emptying the refrigerator and playing with play dough on your rug kind of mess. Messes that take seconds to make, hours to clean-up and keep Mommy busy while they go in the other room to start over.
We’ve all heard it said that being a mother is the toughest job in the world. Well that’s probably true. It’s the only job where you put in 20 years of hard work and you don’t even get to know if you’ve done a good job until they’re fully grown. But it comes with the greatest benefits of any job too. A million tiny kisses, a thousand autographed pictures, and a hundred thousand “I love you, Mom’s” make it all worthwhile in the end.
I just hope they make it that far.
