A Day in the Life of Mom

I was twenty-one when I became a parent for the first time. I am thirty-eight now and my first baby is now seventeen. Time flies when you're dazed and confused!

When I became a mother I was young, had high expectations for me and for my baby and a bright outlook on life. Seventeen years and six additional babies later I will be content if no one gets arrested or pregnant and my husband and I are still talking to one another by the time the now-three-year old moves out. There are days when I am supermom and the house is clean, the dishes are done, the laundry is caught up and put away, the kids are bathed and we managed to get out on the town to do something fun ("for a change," my seven year old whispers under his breath).

Other days, however, kids will be kids and there is much arguing, pushing, crying, whining, begging and mess-making and it's all I can do in my migrained haze to make food to feed the masses and I figure if everyone is alive by the time Daddy gets home from work then by golly I've done my job. I love my children. I am a good mother. This I hear from the adults who don't live with us and for one reason or another happen upon us in public areas. Teachers at school love my kids. They're so sweet and helpful, they help other children, they're a joy to be around. People who babysit them or day care providers have told me they're so nice! They help pick up, they help the other kids put away their things and they are natural leaders. Elderly couples at doctor's offices, nurses at the emergency room (we have a family discount), people at the grocery store "Oh they're ANGELS!"

I've yet...in all my parenting experience...to discover just why it is that the sweet helpful, toy picking up angel babies only seem to work properly when they're not at home. At home "no one" made the mess, "not me" left toys all over the living room, and "Mommy I fink it was Chayton" hid some horrible disgusting thing under the bed. (Chayton is our three-year old.)

I don't mind really. I actually find it sweet somehow that Kaia (now five) when she was learning to write scribbled on the wall with marker and wrote her name then tried to blame it all on Charity (who couldn't write yet). I like that when all the other kids were at my mother's on "vacation" the one child who was here at home with me realized suddenly he had no one to blame for the big mess in his room. I can even laugh that when my husband and I walked outside to check on the children (who were supposed to be playing nicely in the back yard) we found them with rocks in their hands scratching circles into the paint on my husband's new car.

I can laugh that my sweet little three-year old brought me Fruit Loops in bed for Mother's Day (with no milk cause she couldn't lift the full container). I smile when I think of my son who said, "Mom, this dog followed me all the way home from school, and man are my arms tired. Can we keep it?" I grin when I remember when all the kids made pictures and cards to cheer me up when I was sick. I don't even mind that after the kids decided to make me dinner it took me an hour to get the food off the floor and I had to mop the entire downstairs. I don't even really mind the time I made pizza and was attacked by a wild slice of pepperoni when some little person was gesturing with food in her hands.

I think it's sweet that because of the kids we have our own language:
"Pizzaoni" = Pepperoni pizza
"Wat you fink?!?" = DUH
"Skabetty" = spaghetti
and favorite phrases include:
"Oh poops!"
"Oh my goss!"
and my cute little four-year old, after I had to stop quickly while driving let out a very young sounding "Wat da heyo?"

I love my children. Even when they're arguing, screaming at one another, making each other crazy and I'm really wishing Daddy were home....I love them because when it comes right down to it, they're sweet, helpful, toy-picking-up angel babies. And they're mine.