The alarm clock buzzes at 6 AM, signaling it’s time to get up and cook breakfast for a bunch of people who don’t want to eat. If they do want to eat, it’s rarely something they can find on the table. Many will demand pancakes over French toast and resist cold cereal with milk as though it were the plague. As soon as they get in the car, with the breakfast mess still on the table attracting flies, they are hungry and grumpy because their bellies are groaning. One look in the backseat reveals two pint-sized children slapping each other while wearing mismatched socks. Should you intercede? No time for that! The neatly packed lunches that won’t be appreciated or even eaten at school are sitting happily in the garage on top of the trash cans, left there as you loaded the baby! No worries—the dogs will have eaten them by the time you return home. Motherhood is amazing!
In the nick of time, you fly through the drop-off line, only to witness a last-minute meltdown from your oldest child about the math homework they forgot to do! Amid pleading requests, you huff and puff, agreeing to bring it back before 10 AM. Guess the baby won’t get a nap today either! As you pull out, the low fuel light dings and illuminates on the dashboard, and you fumble around for your debit card. Where is it? When was the last time you used it? Hopefully, the 7-year-old in the backseat can look through your purse and find it before your minivan churns to a stop on the side of the road! You flip on the CD player, only to hear a distorted version of “Wheels on the Bus,” which evokes complaints from your 7-year-old, while the baby slowly wakes up. No way in hell can it be turned off now. “Louder! Louder!” she cries, and reluctantly, you forfeit yet another perfect opportunity to hear the news in favor of a childhood classic!
Finally, you make it to the last stop of the morning with just enough gas! Your 7-year-old, tired because it’s Thursday and she’s had a long week, whines. Suddenly, she has to go number two! Now you have to walk her in, which means unbuckling the baby, who is wearing only a diaper, and finding some shoes to wear so you can go into the school. As you make your way in wearing your child’s flip-flops, you suddenly realize that you forgot to put on a bra in the hustle of the morning routine! How embarrassing! This is when using the baby as a shield turns out to be a good idea. The morning routine is almost over—or has it just begun?
On the way home, you stop for gas—thankfully finding the debit card in a remote area of your purse—and you make a mental note to always put it back in the same place each time you use it (yeah, right!). The pay-at-the-pump feature isn’t working, so once again, the diaper-wearing, braless duo must make their way into public to pay for gas. While in the store, the baby spots Sugar Babies and begins to throw a fit. It’s much easier to buy them, so you do! People stare, and you wonder why. Perhaps it’s the fact that it looks like a Jerry Springer-type mom has just graced their presence. On your way back to the car, of course, you run into your child’s principal. She looks at you sadly, probably making mental notes to check the welfare of your family!
After hearing “Wheels on the Bus” exactly 11 times in a row, you’re finally home. A short sigh of relief is cut short by the gasp you feel when you open the door. How can so few people make such a mess? Didn’t you just clean and vacuum yesterday? Dishes, laundry, breakfast for the baby, phone calls, bills to pay, and hopefully a shower await you. The baby eats while you do dishes and then gets a quick sink bath to save your back from leaning over the tub. The laundry is getting washed, and the dryer hums the peaceful tune of motherhood. Just then, your cell phone rings—the teacher reminds you that you forgot your child’s lunch and that they have no lunch money in their account. There goes your shower time! You wonder why all those people told you before you had kids that motherhood is amazing! Amazing what? Amazingly difficult, tiring, stressful, monotonous, and depriving?
The baby can sleep in the car—the house is fairly clean—and you make your way back to drop off homework and your children’s half-eaten lunches. This time, you are wearing a bra and have even put on fresh deodorant and mascara to somehow hide the fact that you need a bath! Your husband calls on your cell, reminding you to run a few errands and pick up what he needs at the store! You realize that in your hurry to leave, you forgot to take the meat for dinner out of the freezer and may have left the curling iron on! Now you have to go back home instead of spending the extra time getting that much-needed pedicure! With exactly one hour left before pickup, you rush home, hoping that you won’t return to find your house on fire! You make a mental note (again) to buy one of those automatic shut-off curling irons.
The baby is asleep in the car. Hating to wake her, you go in to check that the house is okay. The curling iron is already off (as you suspected), and for now, the house is spotless and relaxing. Just as you walk in the door, your phone rings—it’s your child’s teacher explaining that this is the third time this week your son has come to school without his math homework! Just another thing you forgot to do. You try to explain to the teacher that you were already on your way there to bring it to him when she curtly ends the conversation, mumbling something about teaching responsibility.
The kids are back in the car! Homework awaits, along with ball practice at 6 PM. Snacks and more laundry pile up. The toilet is clogged for the second time this week, and one of your kids can’t find both of her cleats. Hmmm, motherhood really is amazing. As you sit on the bleachers at practice next to other overworked, overtired, and overwhelmed mothers, you realize in an instant that few men could take this job and do it as well. The bags under your eyes tell your story all too well, and you would share it with your own mother, but every time you do, she uses it as an opportunity for you to understand what she went through raising you! To save the harassment, you tell her instead how impeccably wonderful everything is every day of your mothering life. No complaints here!
Finally, at 11 PM, the kids are in bed, and the chores are done. Lunches are packed (hopefully you will remember them), and you and your husband can finally sit down together for a little TV time. You pray for the news but remember that SportsCenter is about to begin. You decide that you’ve had enough. You have been awake since dawn, and the minute your feet hit the floor, you were off and running nonstop. After a kiss on the forehead, you check the kids one last time. Peaceful, quiet, and beautiful. They have their daddy’s eyes and snore like him too. You pull up the covers, fix their pillows, and pick up their favorite teddy bear off the floor! As you stand for a moment, staring at the fruit of your labor, you realize all too seriously that yes, motherhood is amazing! You suddenly feel lucky and are renewed with enough energy and bliss to endure it for yet another day!
