I’ll tell you what man, this is my week. Yep, this is it. The one I’ve been waiting for. Two separate, completely unrelated and costly pieces of my van fell apart within three days of each other. Half of my back decided to stop working. I practically knocked myself out when I opened the refrigerator door into my skull. I wore my underwear inside-out to work two different days. I’ve lost most of my verbal capacities due to “that time of the month”. My nose is running like it stole something. My children are bickering to no end, and I’m having a birthday party for a four-year-old on Sunday. Which means I need to be cleaning today. “Need to be” being the operative words.

I haven’t even begun. My back hurts when I squat or bend down to pick up a toy, my nose drips every time I get past a 45 degree angle, and the demolition team is running on full power behind me every step of the way. My friends tell me, “We don’t care what your house looks like, Katie. We’re just coming to see the birthday girl and have some fun!” Yes, I’m sure you all mean these words at the time, but aren’t you also thinking in the back of your mind, “Besides, it’d be nice to see someone’s house looking worse than mine. It might make me feel a little more human and better about myself”? Because to be honest, it does feel good to see another woman’s reality once in a while.

We’re so dishonest with each other, aren’t we? We only invite each other over when our homes are clean and our children are neatly dressed. We hardly ever show each other the reality of our day-to-day lives unless we are the very best of friends. The real problem is that we all do it. It’s ingrained in our DNA to pretend like our lives, our homes, our children are all running smoothly and perfectly all of the time. While the reality is that we’re lucky if one of those things is on track once in a while. But we can hide these things behind our doors and inside our homes until we’re about to have 30 people into our hiding spots. And then we clean like hell.

But what if you and I put away our vacuums and mops and left some of those toys on the floor where (let’s face it) they really do belong. What if you had me into your home to see how you really live, just once. And then you came to mine. Because once you get past that first initial shock of, “Holy Cow! This woman lives with syrup on her counter, crumbs on the floor and dirty socks everywhere too!”, I think you and I could become the best of friends.

As long as you don’t mind that bump on my forehead.

I know, I haven’t written much lately. My life and my schedule have been through many changes lately, and it’s been so crazy that I have not even had time to write about how crazy it has been. But let’s put it this way, for the first time since I gave up my job to stay home with my kids I have begun to barely understand what a working mom must endure.

I’m taking on more hours at the preschool, bringing work home with me, keeping up on my son’s Kindergarten work, still watching Jack and of course I’ll always be a busy mom and housekeeper. And yet although I am more busy than I’ve been in a while, I’m more happy too. I love working hard. I love keeping my mind active and my hair on fire. It’s a good feeling to know that people are depending on you, and you are appreciated for what you do. I realize that my children have always fallen under these categories, but it’s not often that one of them will come up to me at the sink, pat me on the back and tell me how grateful they are that I’m here. Perhaps one day, but I’m not going to hold my breath either.

Today was a good example of my working mom’s day. I woke up, took half a shower, made two lunches, three breakfasts (none of them for me), drug a comb through my hair, grabbed four backpacks and tossed three children into the minivan. At which point fight number one broke out. Jack had brought toys with him into the car, and Nick wanted him to share. If they had managed to share nicely, they could have kept their toys - but it was too late in the morning for discussion and so all toys had to be banned from the van before we could leave the garage. Everyone cried for approximately half of the ride to school.

We arrive at school, everyone is delivered to class and I am off and running to my job in the office.

School comes and goes. Everyone is picked up, and we trot back to the minivan to begin fight number two. Who gets to sit in the backseat? Arbitrarily, I choose Jack and promise Nick that he can have the spot of honor tomorrow. I’m not sure why the back seat is considered First Class to my offspring, but I have an inkling that it may be because Mom can’t reach your leg back there if you act up while the vehicle is in motion. I have been known to pull the car over when I need to though, so the back seat is not necessarily a free pass either. A little sidewalk time-out is fun on a hot summer day.

I start the van and immediately notice I am on empty. I’ve run out of gas with the kids before, and have learned to respect the gas gauge from experience. We must get gas on the way home.

Stopping at the least frightening station I can find on the ride home, all three children announce that they must go number 2, and they must do it NOW. Are you sure you can’t wait until we get home guys? Nope, they’re sure. The four of us head into the station’s clean (thank God), but single serving bathroom. That means we must go one at a time. In my experience, one child going number two can take 5 to 10 minutes. A little mental math warns me that we are going to be in this little room for a LONG time. And we were. I know this because my patience ran out half way through, my bladder ran out 3/4 of the way through, and when I returned to my car I had missed two phone calls by 20 minutes. Now it is 1:45 and Jack must get home to nap before it is too late to even bother putting him down.

We get home, I warn everyone that we are going directly to bed and do not even think about playing around, we get all of our blankies and babies and head to bed - when my son falls on his face on the stairs. His nose is bleeding like a faucet, and he’s running through the house like a wild man. Twenty minutes, many tissues and a new shirt later, I am sitting on Emma’s bed ready to read books for bedtime. Alone. Where have the younger two gone while Nick and I dealt with his nose? Oh, I see. They’ve changed their clothes three times each and left a trail of pajamas from the upstairs bedrooms to the downstairs living room. Time for another announcement. “Anyone not sitting down for books in the next 5 seconds is going straight to bed!” And Poof… In a split second three little bodies appear on my lap.

Finally with children in beds, noses kissed and hugs shared; I can get started on my homework. The first half of my day is over. Now what’s for dinner?