The Roberts Adventure

This past week made me appreciate my mom. ALOT.

As previously mentioned...we're currently staying the basement of some family friends for the Summer. This past week, the couple was able to go on a week-long sailing trip while we watched their house and three kids for the week. Meanwhile, my parents and sister also were away for the week, gallavanting around London. This also required me to be on hand for making sure Krista (and my family's new puppy Maggie) was looked after during the day while Derek was at school, and just being a "supervising force" in general for them as well. I knew it was going to be busy...in fact, I looked forward to it. After being so busy with my practicum, I'd been going a little stir-crazy the past few weeks.

Be Mom-for-a-week to two households? SURE! I relished the opportunity to be useful...

On a typical day Derek would drop Krista off at 7:45. She'd hop in the van where we'd make the round trip of an hour and half to get kids to school. We'd work on her school stuff, get my hubby sent off to work, get lunch made and eaten, check on the puppy, and then we'd hop back in the van for the hour and a half round trip to pick the kids up from school. We'd arrive home around 4:30ish where I'd start preparing dinner, get the kids fed, clean up dinner and do the dishes, drive the kids around to whatever music lessons or sailing lessons they had that evening, get back in time for Derek to pick Krista up, remind everyone of what was going on the next day (you need to be where WHEN? Really?, do we need to make more popcorn balls for your school project? What do I need to take out of the freezer for dinner tomorrow?), then get off my sore fat feet and into bed where I would lie awake running over everything I needed to remember for the next day...and then wake up bright and early to do it all again.

But what amazed me most was not that Moms fit this all into their schedules and into their heads full-time....which makes them super-heroes by any stretch of the imagination, anyways.....but that I actually enjoyed the whole experience, overall. I really cared about each one of those kids I was responsible for, not just my own siblings: I loved serving them and working hard for them, making sure they were taken care of and okay. If that's just a small taste of how and why moms do what they do...then moms are BEYOND super-hero status, as far as I'm concerned.

I don't really know what that makes them. Maybe genies with 'phenomenal cosmic powers.' Maybe angels.

Either way, I'm grateful for my amazing, hard-working mom.

See. Isn't she preeetty?