Some days…

Some days being a mother is standing in the kitchen on tired legs making dessert for children who have asked for it.

Some days it’s not reading a bedtime story and instead helping them see all the things they should have seen earlier, when they were supposed to be cleaning up while you made that dessert. It’s holding your tone as even as you’re able, knowing that it’s not as even as you want it to be.

It’s mopping the floor while they shower, to get the stickiness off before the ants find it.

Some days it’s looking wryly at your feet and ankles, swollen to twice their normal size, when they ask you to rub their feet when you are tucking them into bed for the night, and then doing it, wishing you had someone around to ask to rub yours.

Some days it’s counting days to when you are no longer parenting solo and thinking of all the moms you know who have no end in of solo parenting in sight.

It’s reminding a son, again, to get ready for bed when he’s distracted, and saying “Because I told you to,” for at least the hundredth time since breakfast.

It’s picking up toys with a toddler, all over again.

It’s firmly putting the pajamas on a wriggly two year old boy, lacking the energy to make it a game this time, just setting the jaw and getting it done. And then doing it all over again because he has to take them off to go pee. It’s apologizing for not making the teeth brushing fun tonight, as you hold his head and just do it. It’s all you have left in you to do.

It’s telling a 6 year old to get back in bed, as she complains about something silly, and practically hollering it over the screams of the toddler, still angry because you held him down and cleaned his teeth.

It’s calming the toddler down, and getting him to lay still in bed looking at books, only to have it all undone by someone turning on a movie just as he’s near to sleep and spending the next half hour in the bedroom with him, saying no, as he wails again and again and again, “Pwease watch movie mama.”

It’s letting tears of frustration fall as you simply remain at his side, and refuse to give in.

It’s hauling your heavily pregnant body all the way back upstairs on those hurting swollen feet to keep a promise to little girls that you would return when you were done getting the toddler to sleep. It’s gently rubbing their foreheads so they wake up just enough to know you were there, and then, hopefully, have no reason to wake at night and need you again.

It’s walking back downstairs with 6 water cups and a misplaced pot in hand, past the able bodied people on the couch watching a movie, and into the kitchen that looks just as it did when you left it after cooking dinner and dessert for everyone.

It’s washing dishes, and choosing not to feel sorry for yourself, today you will just get it done rather than delegate.

And finally, a few hours later than you had hoped, it’s sitting down with some chocolate, and maybe something enjoyable to read, just for a few minutes, before getting ready to go to sleep yourself.

Some days motherhood feels only like sacrifice, and you realize that’s ok, because you are stronger for it, and it’s not always like this.

Tomorrow you’ll make someone else clean the kitchen.