There have been days in my life where everything went wrong, I ran out of gas, burned a hole in my favorite shirt, spent three hours driving somewhere only to find it closed... whatever. Then I became a mom, and almost every day is like that.
Last night Jamie got up at 1:30 with a splinter in his foot that I misdiagnosed and paid for by 5 am. Charlie kept throwing his covers on the floor only to wake up a shivering little mass of tears. I'm so good at navigating the space between my bedroom and theirs that I can do it without putting on my glasses or turning on any lights...that is unless the dog decides to plant himself somewhere in the middle, in which case the floor gets a german shepherd/blind girl sandwich. The funny thing is, almost every night is like that. Charlie sleepwalks into a closet door... Jamie wakes up thirsty (and by the sound of it, will die any moment of dehydration)... Jamie is convinced we're all going to eat breakfast without him... Jamie is convinced he can't sleep without the dog... I'm pretty sure it's been a good 5.5 years since I last slept through the night.
But it's not that motherhood is difficult and exhausting, it's more like your body morphs and adjusts and you have loftier goals. Because all those bad days? Really not that bad. I try to think of it like a CEO. If a pizza delivery kid had to run Google for a day, it would probably be the worst day in his life, at the very least it would be the most challenging day of his life. But if you're a real CEO, then you
wanted that job, it's what you'd been working towards your whole life. So all those lives you have the capability of ruining? All the Stress? All that money you have to answer for? It's really just your new normal.
So when I got caught shoplifting at Target for stealing finger nail polish remover, I reminded myself it was not an unusual day. This was my idea of fun. I could have been on the phone like Jim, talking to cranky doctors and working out contracts. Instead I was profusely apologizing to a Target employee for my son who had tried to be helpful by bagging up our purchases...prematurely. Curses on reusable shopping bags. They sit in shopping carts tempting small fingers to fill them. I walked away from the experience, only to discover two more (very small) unpaid items in my bags, which I then had to confess and pay for. I got in even bigger trouble the second time, and they certainly didn't congratulate me on my responsible values.
Today I brought home a forty dollar bottle of champagne I did not want, but yet somehow bought anyway. I'm not sure what happened. Costco is one of those places with checkout counters where you go one way and your cart goes the other way. Not a good situation when you have two tap dancing monkeys in the cart. They escaped, I of course was a whole counter away (not close enough to enact a successful death stare), and acrobatics ensued. There was more employee angst, and suddenly I ended up at my car with a receipt for way more than I thought I'd spent. Some people would
never make a mistake like that, they probably have a policy against signing receipts without looking at them. However
I am not one of those people.
Which brings me to supermoms. They don't exist. Everyone complains bitterly about the hapless supermom, but it's so far past cliche these days it needs to be stricken from the English language. Supermom is made of glass and stuffed with
straw. We only set her up when we want to rant about someone but can't name names. We do it (I think) to make ourselves feel better, which is what I'm doing now. I just compared my life to a CEO, and yet I've stooped so far below what a good mom should be, I don't even know what she looks like anymore.
But I did buy an unopened Psalty record today at the thriftstore for a dollar. That makes me happy. It makes Jamie and Charlie happy too. It's been a long time since I rocked out to
"Arky, Arky".
Oh, and I lost Charlie somewhere in a McDonalds playplace. Those twisty, plastic maze things swallow children whole.
