“’MOMMY!!’
The screeching of my six-year-old wakes me from the kind of sleep that I assume, not without a pang of jealousy, is what being dead feels like.
The kind of sleep where I haven’t moved in hours and the shape of the pillow has left a crease in my face that will linger for hours because I’m old and collagen is no longer my friend.
I roll over and force myself to open my eyes.
‘I have no pants,’ she says, inches from my face. ‘AGAIN.’
I fight the urge to roll back over and close my eyes as the realization settles over me that yes, I forgot to do the laundry.
Again.
Normally I’m better at this.
Normally I fancy myself a bit of a warrior, a working mama with four smallish children who miraculously has been able thus far to keep everyone clothed and fed while also not (yet) being fired.
But now we’ve reached the point in the school year where there are only a few weeks left and here’s the thing:
I no longer give any sh*ts.
This didn’t happen all at once.
It has been a gradual decline from our idealistic beginning last September of ‘This is the year we organize, accomplish, and clean all of the things!’ to the October reality of ‘Wow this is really hard.’ to January’s ‘Well, maybe we can catch up on the weekends’ to the present reality of ‘HOLY SH*T.’
But I am done with that mess now.
See also: the signing of reading logs, the reading of important papers, the forcing my children to take showers, and the packing of nutritious lunches.
DONE.
As in checked out.
The end is finally in sight, and I have blissfully, with a manic grin on my face, taken my foot off of the gas pedal.
I’m coasting through, just hoping we stay alive through the next few weeks.
With the way the kids are acting, even that is going to be a challenge.
‘Wear something of your sister’s,’ I tell her.
‘Too big,’ she says.
‘Your brother’s then.’
‘Too little.’
‘Just. Wear. Something,’ I say, and this is how we get her to school in what I think is last year’s Halloween costume.
I contemplate sending in a note of explanation to her teacher but that would involve opening her backpack, which I have sworn off of.
Besides, if there is anyone more done this time of year than moms it is teachers.
I doubt the teacher will even notice in her ‘I-have-been-doing-this-for
Besides, the little one is mostly thrilled with being at school in a costume. ‘When do I have to go back to wearing pants?’ she asks me.
‘September,’ I say. ‘We’ll try again in September.'”
This story was submitted to Love What Matters by Liz Petrone. The article originally appeared on Facebook. Be sure to subscribe to our free email newsletter for our best love stories.
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