Are Moms People?

If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, did it make a sound? Or more to my point, if a Mom dresses up, overworks, misses sleep for the 10th night in a row, becomes ill, is just plain worn out, or whatever... do her kids notice?

To my kids I am not a woman. I am not a working mom. I am not pretty or exhausted or sick (even if I am vomiting up bucketfuls because of a flu named after a swine).

I am just Mom. Or more truthfully "Mooooooooaaaahhhhmmmmmm!"

And Mom can always make a snack. Mom can always be judge and jury in a case of sibling rivalry. Of course, Mom can untangle a mass of strings to retrieve the coveted blue one whilst she folds all the clothes for the week and nurses the baby.

Mom's don't feel pain. Moms don't need sleep. Moms don't need to eat, that is why my kids have no issue with wanting my first, third and last bite.

When I fell two years ago in the yard, after escaping the house of yelling/fighting children, and broke my ring finger, which immediately began to swell, trapping my wedding band and engagement ring and causing me great pain, my kids were relentless in their quest for me to put their puerile argument to an end. As I hobbled and cried and frantically tried to wrench my rings off the broken appendage while dialing my husband's number they followed me from room to room. It wasn't until I freaked out about how I was DEALING with a painful situation and could they be kind enough to give me a minute did they pause... "What do you mean, you fell?" Yes kids, Moms fall. Moms get hurt, too. Yet we have to carry on.

To them I exist without question. Like breathing. Like putting one foot in front of the other. Like how chocolate and peanut butter will ALWAYS be delicious together.

I. Just. Am.

And that's alright with me. Today.

Because today I realize that the way my children see me is parallel to the way I saw my mom as a child. It has been like that since the dawn of time, when I imagine a cave-boy named Ug stepped on his mother's (we'll call her, Ah) beard with no consideration of the pain he caused so he could hurriedly insist between her yelps that she sharpen his spear-stick-toy thingy. Right now. He needed it done Right Now.

I get it. And it's okay.

Maybe ask me again when I am sick, sleep deprived, hungry, angry, lonely, and tired because I might have forgotten this present moments acceptance.