This morning finds me a little ragged and a little monster-ish after an all-nighter with three sick kiddos — the kind of night that has you jumping to your feet every twenty minutes to attend to someone making awful noises down the hall as you do your best to chant “I am Florence Nightingale… I am Florence Nightingale,” and leaves you with a pile of sullied linens (including the white down comforter (grrr)), bloodshot eyes, and nursing the same feeling sleepovers in third grade used to give you (which is almost the same feeling as a college hangover, just in case you were wondering). You find yourself making coffee at 4 am because why bother sleeping? There aren’t any sheets left on any of the beds anyway.
Conversely, nights like these remind me to channel my meta-mom — being as calm and as present as I can so that when the kids feel awful they also feel the balm of a parent’s love right there beside them. It really is the best kind of medicine, isn’t it?
So, happy Labor Day weekend to all of you who toil at this parenting task, with all its muck and joy. It certainly is one of the hardest jobs on the planet. Now excuse me while I go do some laundry…
{image via a pale novel}
