Mom, Overboard

I'm not so sure today's blog is going to be funny. I'll try, but I can't promise.

Before I go on, I want to make one thing clear:

I realize that there are hundreds of thousands of women who have things much, much worse than I do.

So, if you are not interested in my pity party, I understand.

In fact, there are so many moms who make do with so much less, I would love to hear about them.

We can start with single moms.

And then we can add single dads, since I was raised by one.

There are moms working multiple jobs to make ends meet.

Moms whose husbands are in Iraq.

Moms whose husbands have died in Iraq.

Moms of special needs kids.

Moms working multiple jobs to make ends meet because they have special needs kids and they lost their husband in Iraq.

In fact, if you know of an amazing mom, please email me her story. I would love to post it here, and that's definitely not a joke.

I am not, for one second, foolish enough to think that my life is hard compared to many women.

Compared to Demi Moore? Maybe.

Everything is relative and I know that.

But, since I write about the life of an average working mom, this is just one of those moments in our lives that I've chosen to make public if for no other reason, than to let another working mom out there who might stumble upon this know, we all fall overboard on some days.

My husband walked in last night to find me at the laptop working, with big fat tears rolling down my face.

And I am so, so, not a cryer.

If I get to that point where tears are being shed, it's time to call in the back up troops quickly.

I'm sure I looked like a wreck. Or maybe someone off a ship wreck.

Like Wilson the Volleyball from that Tom Hanks movie.

Only I looked like Wilson at the end of the movie.

I had put my on my Ipod to drown out the noise from the living room.

Just the fact that I felt the need to drown it all out makes me sad, because really, it's summer and kids should be able to have friends and noise and make a mess, without worrying about mom going slightly...okay majorly mental.

It wasn't a particular incident that pushed me over the edge, really.

More than likely it was just your average combination of too much work, too many kids, too much caffeine, not enough sleep, and an overdose in there somewhere of an extra hormone or three. We all have our tipping points. And I was way past tipped.

The look on his face said it all: 'what can I do?'

My response back with no words was: 'I don't know. Thank you, but I don't know.'

He silently backed out, came back with a Diet coke, and left me to the Ipod and laptop.

Forget keeping up with the Joneses.

Right now we are having a hard enough time keeping up with ourselves.

This morning, I told him as I got ready for work, that the our days as a summer youth hostel were over for, at least temporarily, and to please politely send the spare children home to their parents.

In fact, send them home and send ours home with them. Fair is fair, right?

But when I arrived home early, unannounced, and the herd was in essentially the same location that they all had been last night, I turned right around and walked back out to the car.

I sent my husband a text and said, I'm going to get some lunch, and then I'm checking into the Holiday Inn for the weekend. I was serious.

Then I called my mom.

I was able to calm down over lunch, bring myself back down to earth, and realized staying at the Holiday Inn might be a little extreme.

But, I felt like I was falling overboard and needed a life raft desperately.

Mom to the rescue.

After she quickly showed me her new Botox treatments ('can you tell?' She squints her eyebrows, except she can't squint them because her faze is now frozen...'I don't look like Joan Rivers do I?') she talked politely explained to me that hiding at the Holiday Inn was not the best idea.

When I arrived back home from lunch, everyone was gone except for Tyler, and they stayed gone the rest of the day.

I'm not sure if Jordan will be back before August after seeing the look on my face when I arrived home early and saw them all sitting there.

I managed to finish working and Robert and I went to the mall.

There was no purpose to the trip, just to walk, get away, interact with my spouse in a way that didn't involve kids or house cleaning or bills or work. Mall Chinese food. So simple.

I've climbed back on the ship for now, I'm back on board.

But if you hear a loud splash, just remember, it might be me going overboard again.

Or it might be another mom.

But throw her a life preserver if you can.

We're all on this boat together.

(And I was serious about emailing me about amazing moms...I wanna hear about them!)