Just 4 Moms on Wednesday: I don’t know how I do it all!

Busy days lead to exasperated moms, right?  Whew.  Ever feel like you just go and go and go and have nothing to show for it?  Yep, you too must be a mom. 

My dad–who spent a decent chunk of my growing-up years as a single parent–used to say with a shrug and a smirk, “I don’t know how I do it all.”  He had a point.  And now, as a busy mom of two, I find myself saying the same thing under my breath, even though I vowed never to use the same saying my parents did.  Sigh…I don’t know how I do it all. 

But the thing is, I am not a single parent and I am not a dad.  I am a mom who chose to stay at home and care for my kids.  I knew what I was getting into.  Well, sort of.  I guess you never can predict exactly how challenging life with two little girls 21 months apart can be, or just who will throw the biggest tantrum right at the moment your million dollar check arrives from Ed McMahn (that was me).  No one ever really thinks about how un-fun it is to scrub your toilets or scrape dried-up barf from your bathroom fixtures.  But it’s gotta get done and someone’s gotta do it…and that someone just happens to be MOM. 

So I started thinking of all of the jobs Mom has to juggle.  Sure, there are the usual lists and I know you’ve likely seen that email that has circulated the Internet that says something to the effect of, “If you did all of these jobs and actually got paid money for it, you would be making $120K.”  Well, I won’t bore you with that again. 

But we moms really do do a lot (no pun intended):

• Travel Agent
• Babysitter finder
• Date planner
• Party Planner
• Gift-giving specialist
• Card sender
• Extra-curricular planner (kids’ activities)
• Behavioral-modification chart maker
• Educational Enrichment moderator
• School paper organizer
• Homework “cheerleader”
• Healthy lunch packer
• Personal wardrobing consultant
• Personal shopper
• Netflix movie selector/que manager

Yeah…you get the idea.  No wonder we feel as though our heads are about to spin off!  Hope yours stays screwed on at least for the remainder of the day, or until you’ve prepared that after-school snack because soon you’ll be hearing, “MOOOMM, I’m starving!”