12 days a week

In my world there are twelve days in a week.  Twelve days of soccer and bag lunches.  Tweleve days of rushing to the bus with partially combed hair and a bagel in hand.  There are twelve days of tuck into beds with the I love you Forever song and twelve sleepy wake ups...well make that 10. 

As a single mom sporting the classic "every other weekend" deal, it seems that 12 days make up a week.  For 12 days in a row I have complete responsility for the 3 beings I brought into the world.  It is a mighty task as any parent knows, single or otherwise.  Most of the time it means simply getting the job done with little time to analyze or be retrospective.  But there are times when the enormity of the job over takes me.  This can come in two forms.  The first and most pleasant is a feeling of success, a "Wow, I have three really great kids and I have a nice home and a worthy job and mostly we are happy and playful and enjoying life!"  The other, not so pleasant epiphany is the, " OH!  I am responsible for these three kids and a house and a job filled with lots of other peoples kids and did I hug my kids enough, do they know I love them, did I handle that well, and am I working hard and effectively, how will I get the siding done on the house, and I would love to put dormers in because these kids are not getting smaller, and how can I afford that, and how am I suppose to get this one to soccer, and when is that doctor's appt., and ..and ..and...AHHHHH!"

I can usually talk myself out of option two or call up one of my lifelines to do that for me.  But it is a tough area of the playground to hang in.  It is easy to see how enormous a job parenting really is when you disect all the pieces of it and consider that you will not even know the results for many, many years.  And there are no redo's.  In 20 years, those kids are who they are and my mark, good or bad has been left.  So when the two X days come at the end of my 12 day week, I breathe out.  I have two days to regroup, revise my strategy, and decide which smile to wear.  It has to match anything and be able to handle any kids of weather, so the choice is critical.  I generally choose the largest one, figuring that if it shrinks a bit, I can still squeeze into it for at least 12 more days...