Today I WILL Be A Mom!

Today, I vowed, I would be a Mom.  I know, I know, a funny vow for a Mom of three children.  What I mean is I will be a real mom as opposed to the glazed, half-dead woman who has been walking staggering around here lately just trying to exist and in some small way meet the physical needs of her family.  Just meeting your family's physical needs is not all there is to being a mom, though.

Let me go back.  This has been a hard week.  I think I would be in the loony-bin had it not been for my loving husband and kind Mother-in-law.  I'm not complaining...okay, maybe a little.  Its the kind of week that has had me up crying in the middle of the night when everyone else has been asleep, not just because I feel so sick but because of the discouragement of knowing that tomorrow I will wake and feel the same way and will try to survive and pray for night when I might be able to get a little sleep, if I'm not too sick.  Then there's the guilt.  The heavy weight of guilt I carry around knowing that little children need moms who meet their emotional needs as well as their physical needs and husbands need wives who can carry on a small conversation once in a while instead of just glassy-eyed nodding and mumbling, and look cheerful and happy once in a while when they return home from work.  There is a difference between tolerating your family and enjoying your family.  So I cry because of the overwhelming guilt I feel.

So today when I awoke I vowed that whatever I had to do, if I felt well at all, I would just be a mom-a real mom.  I bypassed the mountain of laundry in the laundry room and after three doses of three different medicines, beginning at 5:00 in the morning, was feeling pretty good.  I decided I would take as much of my precious medicine as I had to, even if I had none left for the next week.  (If you have strong opinions about women taking medicine while they're pregnant, just don't speak to me.)

And we've had a good day!  We took the children to Tuttle's Apple Farm where they played on the farm, took pony rides, picked three kinds of yummy apples and drank fresh apple cider.  We narrowly avoided the rain.  Then we spent the rest of the rainy afternoon inside, making pencil toppers, writing letters together, playing games, enjoying a rare treat of homemade pumpkin muffins (I don't do much baking right now), made some homemade applesauce and watched a movie together.

Yes, it was a good day!  I felt that I really enjoyed my family and connected with them.  And for one day, I was a mom, a real mom.  Tomorrow I will probably be back to laying around in a half-comatose state, but today was good.

And for that I will be thankful!