There are days

There are days when helping one of my kids dress up like a pirate for school is a lot of fun and all the prep work is punctuated with laughter.

And then there are days when helping one of my kids dress up like a pirate for school is fraught with drama and culminates with us officially being tardy and me trudging through the school doors covered in flop sweat to sign them in 10 minutes late.

There are days when it's fairly easy to get a cute picture of the boys for the blog, and I'm so proud of them and only have to bribe them with one extra treat to get them to pay attention for three minutes.

And then there are days when unkind words are exchanged between siblings and someone hits someone else and the victim starts crying and then his eyes are red and his nose is running and he refuses to be part of the picture, and no amount of bribery is going to fix it and I think I'm just gonna have to quit blogging altogether because I might never have anything nice to say ever again, ever.

There are days when having one child home sick is a really sweet break from the work-a-day routine and allows me the chance to snuggle with one of them on the couch all day and dote on them as they alternately snooze and lounge ... and if I'm lucky, I might even get a big thumbs-up.

And then there are days when having one child home sick means that I'm stressed out about missing a critical meeting at work, the child is A SMIDGE HIGH-MAINTENANCE all day long and won't let me out of his sight for three seconds, not even to go to the bathroom, and he won't eat and he won't sleep and I struggle mightily not to seem so annoyed by my own flesh and blood.

[And I seem to have subliminally erased all photographic evidence of this behavior.]

There are days when I feel like I'm balancing all of my responsibilities really well and feel so good about things that I think, "Gosh. I should be doing more. I can handle more. I ought to volunteer for something else and we should try for another baby right this second."

And then there are days when I feel like I'm letting work, family, friends or myself down repeatedly, and I've over-extended myself and I think, "GOSH. I should give up a few commitments and do less for others so I can give my own family more. And more kids are out of the question because OH. MY. LORD. if I have to force someone else to color another frickin' worksheet on a weeknight after baseball and Cub Scouts I will commit actual bodily harm against the person in charge of Kindergarten lesson plans."

But most days, I just hope that I'm achieving the right balance the majority of the time and that everyone will understand on the occasions I'm a little off. And I hope against hope for more of the former than the latter.