What do you do?

At the last daisy scout meeting, another mom looked at me and said "So Mrs. Crazy Lady- what do you do?"

Huh. What do I do? Before I could grasp what she was asking, I responded "A lot of laundry."

I realize now she meant what I did- for money. But what I do, for the measley 12 hours I 'work' is NOTHING compared to what I do.

As any other mother in the universe already knows, when you are the mom you 'do' a lot. You even do the things that make you silently wish there were someone else who would do them, like dig dead fish out of the tank or scrub poop out of the carpet.

Among the obvious things that we mothers must do- you know, all the 'normal' stuff that includes mopping up melting snow from the floors, scrubbing the kitchen sinks, turning food into dinners, wrapping birthday presents and keeping the home (which is a list all of it's own)- we all get saddled with the other stuff that no one wants to do.

Last night, as I was crawling around on the floor of the bathroom trying to locate the overwhelming smell of urine (oh stop- if you have a boy child you have probably done this too), I couldn't believe what my days have turned into.

What do I do? I clean up puke, I get up in the middle of the night to change sheets, I google things like "what to substitute if a recipe calls for eggs and I am out", I put my hand into the garbage disposal to dig out treasures that slip in there, I use fingernail polish remover to clean up 'accidents' from the bathroom floors, I put soap in the bathrooms (apparently no one else has grasped this task), I re-roll toilet paper, I fish things out of the register vents, I play monopoly- even when I would rather just sit down for a while, I scrape chewed bubble gum off the deck, I gently pull back the clothe to see how bad the cut is (even though it scares me to death), I rewash the clothes because 'somebody' had a marker in their pants pockets, I google things like "how to get vasoline out of carpet"- and then I try them all until something works, I carry the 40lb. child through the mall because their legs are tired and my husband won't, I read the books at night when I'm so tired that I could collapse, I rescue the guinea pig from under the bed, I use my shirt as a kleenex for small children (limited to only the ones who grew inside of me- there is a limit) when there is no other option, I put the same things away every.dag.gone.day, I climb on a lawn chair with a rake to try and get whatever toy has been thrown on the roof down, and on and on and on.

It's nothing that any mother has never done. We all do it. I just never knew what I was signing up for.

But yet, here I sit after an entire day of working around the house, and it still looks like a bomb went off in it. Not a small bomb that would blow up a room, but a big big bomb that could take out a town. And I have to wonder, what on earth did I do all day? Note to husband: Do not EVER repeat that question to me- that is, if you like being able to walk upright.

So- what do I do? Nothing that any other mother hasn't had to do. Except my mom, that is, all of us kids were easy and self sufficient.