Being the mom of a Super Hero isn’t easy! There are the people who see you coming, and run to the other side of the street avoid you so as to not get in your way. Others give their unsolicited opinions…
The third group ask questions…brutal, hurtful, sometimes ridiculous, questions.
My favorite this week: “I don’t know how you do it!”
Well, it’s like this…
At 11 PM, I haul my exhausted cookies to my bed. Sometimes, I manage to take off my clothes and change to pajamas. Other times, not so much. I could usually care less if I wash my face or put on “night creams.” Occasionally, I manage to brush my teeth.
Somewhere between 3 and 4 in the morning, a piercing scream will interrupt my dreams of spa days and getting my hair done. This scream is so loud that it sets off the neighbor’s car alarm. Which begets more screaming, and so on, and so forth…
After consoling the screaming child (he’s not screaming for night terrors or anything of the sort…he yells, MOMMA! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAKKKKKKKKKKKKKEEEEEEEEEE UP!”), I attempt to go back to bed. However, my adrenaline is pumping so hard that I am shaking. We (meaning Jack who will not return to sleep and I) watch the news. Well, Jack plays with his fingers or talks to the sky, and I basically sit there trying to not plot my husband’s imminent death since he sleeps through this rigamarole nightly…
By 7, Jack has been medicated again and is back to sleep for what is merely long enough to suck down a coffee and get the Big Child started on homeschool.
Jack gets up and washed. Because the kid, bless his heart, cannot not pee through the sheets daily. It’s truly a gift.
Big Child works on school, Jack works on his “school,” and I either work on writing papers, grading papers, or lesson plans for next term.
Lunch.
Put Jack to nap. Work out any problems Big Child has with her work.
Get Jack up.
Start dinner. Which is never really that great, because I am the only person alive in the world who absolutely cannot cook anything that has meat in it. Seriously, it’s bad. I can fix a soup or a side that will knock your socks off…but I add meat to anything, and it’s a disaster. Sometimes, if I’m lucky, this is the point in the day when I can take a shower.
Eat dinner. Wash dishes.
Go to work. Teach either anatomy or nursing classes.
Drive home. Say hello to sleepy children.
Return all phone calls that went ignored all day.
(Lather. Rinse. Repeat.)
I don’t know how I do it either. I just do. You get up and put one foot in front of the other. I’m tired. I daydream of naps and have the hours counted until summer break.
So how do you do it?