They Call Me Mommy

Last weekend, my husband stepped on an old nail and it bit into his foot; now his jaw is bothering him. The baby has had a cold all week, and will occasionally paw at her left ear. Tonight my son took a spectacular dive off of the curb with his forehead and grew a lump the size of a golf ball.

I fear that my life the next few days will consist of watching for signs of concussion in the toddler, ear infection in the baby and tetanus in the man who seems to enjoy causing me extra stress by going up into the attic without shoes on so that he can impale his heel with any available implement of sharpness.

Can’t a mother get any rest in this house? I can only imagine the level of non-rest in a home where there are more than two children (and a husband). When it comes to large families, I am quite sure that there is always someone getting sick, spilling Cheerios all over the couch or attempting to leap tall buildings in a single bound; I would think that getting one’s turn in the bathroom would be a monumental undertaking, forgetting a child at the grocery store the norm, and someone somewhere would always be bleeding.

Yes, motherhood is not for the faint of heart or the queasy. A mother must be strong, able to handle constant decision-making and, above all, she must learn how to spot all of the symptoms of every disease that ever befell mankind in the history of the world. The next time you ask your mother a question and she looks at you blankly it is not because she is getting old or stupid, but more likely it is because she has more information stored in her head than a number even exists for and it takes time to sort through it all to find the answer.