"I don't know how you do it."

"I don't know how you do it."

I hear this statement a lot and never really know how to respond because the truth is, I just get up and muddle through the best that I can.  This is not one of those stay-at-home mom vs. work-outside-the-home mom supermom types of debates.  I really don't get all that garbage anyhow.  Parenting is challenging no matter what.

Back to the point.  My husband travels a lot for work, which leaves me to balance the needs of the children, church, and school on my own quite often.  This means getting Big C to and from baseball when his school is about 45 minutes from mine and I'm sitting in class, taking little c to the allergist, orthodontist trips, calls from the school nurse, homework, volunteer commitments at church, finishing my homework, feeding the hungry children, laundry, etc.

Some days, I fail.  Like today.

I needed last night to relax since I hadn't done so since last Thursday.  Part of that means we had hot dogs for dinner and I didn't check backpacks.  After looking over little c's homework this morning, I noticed several things that needed corrected.  As he sat reducing fractions, I was taming his wild hair.  I sent him to brush his teeth as the alarm to let us know it was time to go outside and wait for the bus went off (yes, this is needed in our house) only to notice as he returned that there was a giant stain on his pants.  On his dirty pants because he had no clean jeans that fit this morning and I told him to just put on anything.  I washed it off as best I could and sent him on his way.
So, to recap.
I do it by:

• collapsing in an attempt to decompress about once a week
• putting off some tasks until the last minute to do so
• attempting to still be a good mom and help with homework, even if it is while sitting next to the cereal bowl that hasn't yet been cleared from the table
• multitasking by combing little c's hair while he corrects math problems and Madalyn's while she brushes her teeth
• sending my child to school in dirty pants with mustard wiped off the leg hoping that no one will notice
• and sitting here wishing I was better at balancing all of it.

I'm not going above and beyond; I'm simply keeping afloat.  *I* don't do it.  We all do: husband, wife, Big C, little c, and M.  And we try our best, make mistakes, and fall short.