Fumbing Toward Friday

In the land of mommyhood, there is a lot of fumbling.  You know, the fumbling that goes with locating your lost keys in the refrigerator right next to the box of Capri-Sun.  Or the kind that intends to be loaded into the mini-van at 7:05, but it's 7:15 and Princess still can't find her shoes.  Or, my personal favorite, the moment when you fudge on the well-child checkup form when asked how much time your toddler spends watching TV a day, and you figure that 2.5 hours can really be rounded to 1, seeing as your little fireball only sits still for a whole five minutes at a time.

But maybe it's just me...  After doing a very scientific poll of my mommy friends, this involved a research center called Starbucks, what I found was, IT'S NOT JUST ME!  There are a whole slew of us fumbling toward Friday and every day after that, just trying to survive this thing called parenthood.  And, it really doesn't seem to matter if some of us work outside the home, inside the home or live on a farm or in the city.  What we all crave is some time to be REAL.  To say it like it is, not what we want everyone to believe it is.  And what is IT?  It is being ON 24/7 as a parent, boo boo kisser, ego healer, minor first-aid provider, and above all, safe harbor.  IT is hard, and sometimes, IT sucks.  There, I said it.  Sometimes it's awful, and we need to be able to call it like it is.  To quit feeling like we need to sugar-coat it to avoid the judgement of the mommies and folks that we wrongly perceive "have it all together."

So, that's what this space is for.  It's for talking about the times that everything goes wrong, and the amazing times when everything goes right.  For the times that you are dying to just go to the bathroom without an audience, and for the times you stop in the madness of your day and take a moment to feel grateful for all the craziness.

Because here is what is certain.  One day we will be done with diapers, carpools, soccer games, homework, and temper tantrums.  There will be no more food caked to the underside of the dining table, no more sticky fingerprints on the living room wall, and no more bicycles left laying out in the yard.  They will be gone, moving to the rhythm of their own craziness, and we will be longing for just one more week of fumbling toward Friday.