"Mama said there'd be days like this..."

Motherhood. (and life)   Is.  Exhausting. 

I'm sure you can guess where the rest of this post is headed based on my super enthusiastic preface.  But, let me also co-preface with this: I love my children.  I have picked up some extra hours at work, I work 9 hours on Thursday 2p-11p.  I work 5 hours on Friday 6p-11p.  I work 9 hours on Saturday 12p-9p.  I drop the kids off at the sitters on Thursday by 1 so I can drive an hour to be there on time.  This also means I have an hour to drive back.  I spend 6 hours commuting each week to and from work.  I *try* to make it to bed by 12:30 or even 1am.  My son wakes up to eat at 2am and 5am and then is awake by 6 or 6:30am.  My daughter is up at 8am and we begin our day, doing what any other mom of an almost 3 year old and 4 month old do:  making food, cleaning marker from the computer, making snacks, cleaning up potty accidents, nursing, nursing, nursing again, bathing, making more food, nursing, cleaning puke off my shirt, cleaning puke off the carpet, waiting on tantrums, reading stories, playing, getting children dressed and undressed and re-dressed, rotating my infant from one play-area to the next as he gets bored, nursing, making more snacks, comforting, hugging, kissing, wiping away tears, laying children down for naps, wiping bum's, thinking about making food (for dinner), cuddling and basically spending most of my day in a 20'x30' area.  If this sounds familiar, raise your hand. 

And I didn't even mention all the other stuff I try to squeeze that's NOT essential and child-care related: feeding myself (well, this is essential, but undeniably comes last), showering, getting dressed (as in...myself), making trips to the park, doing a craft, trying to save our family money and plan out shopping trips, blogging (which I LOVE), dishes, laundry, more dishes and dishes all the time EVERYWHERE (!), always more laundry, YW lessons, maybe even venturing bravely to the store with two small children because I am too exhausted to go after they are in bed, FHE, scriptures (obviously essential also, it's a work in progress), time with my husband (who?), exercise (what now?), visiting teaching....OY.....the list goes on!

After feeding Owen at 11p last night before I went to bed at midnight, he woke up at 2am to cry for an hour, then 5am to be fed and was up for good at 6am.  I think I logged maybe a touch over 4 hours of interrupted sleep last night.  The daily duties of motherhood are rendered almost impossible with so little rest for the mind.  Nap times on days like this are never coordinated or long, so my hopes for catching some sleep are already dashed.  I am still wearing my jammies.  And it's not pretty.

Fortunately, there is therapy in sharing my day of woe and in writing this sad little epilogue, I feel somewhat validated in my experience for the day, which is the most I can hope for.  I'm know I have some mommy-readers that are sypmathizing and rolling their eyes in cynical agreement that, yes, mama said there'd be days like this.  Perhaps they too are still wearing their jammies.