Mom

I spent Sunday, Monday and Tuesday cleaning up someone else's vomit...from me...from them...from surfaces and linens. It was a bad week. I'm a mom- it happens. When I became a mom my life changed forever. Simple things prove it to me. When someone little goes to vomit now I extend a hand to deflect/catch or otherwise contain damage. Then I soothe, and I seldom panic. I do laundry and find lost comfort items and I watch the same Christmas movie over and over because that's what she needs. I do it because I'm her mom and I love her. I do it because my mom did it for me. I don't have to make myself do it, because I want to do it for her, if it has to be done.

I watch the toys pile up on the floor and the crumbs mash into the carpet because I'm needed in the cuddle department from 7 pm until 6 am daily. And I wait, I wait for signs of smooth sailing, lighter breathing, fewer coughs and no more fever. I pray, I wish and I day dream about time spent making cookies instead of making snot bubbles. It's just a reality, my reality, a mom-reality.

And when it gets to be too much I call in the back up. I am lucky enough to be a mom with a mom. So I call mine and she comes over in her sweats and she cleans up dirty children, and calms racing hearts and sits with me in the ER room at 10 pm while rude nurses make unnecessary comments and she makes jokes. And she waits, she waits for signs of smooth sailing, lighter breathing, fewer coughs and no more fever. And while she's bailed me out a thousand times since hard times hit, in more than one way, there isn't that feeling of dread to dial her number...because I know she wants to do it for me, if it has to be done. I guess I never fully understood that until I had a daughter of my own.

And it may seem like the drama is never ending here but the truth is we are blessed because so is the love and the generousity of others. And while there is darkness we have always known there would be a light at the end of the tunnel... even if it's just the head of the mom-fan-club waving her cell phone like she's at a rock concert.