Mommy Marathon

For all you moms out there, I've come up with a flattering way to look at our days. You know all those people who spend months training and preparing for a marathon? They've got nothing on you! Today, after doing the carpool, taking my 3 year old to preschool, picking my 3 year old up from preschool, grocery shopping, baking bread, and picking up a must have recipe from a friend, I had lunch with a few friends. One of my friends at this lunch was commenting on marathons. She said something to the effect of, "How do these people find the time to run 11 miles in a day? All to spend what 4 or 5 hours running 26+ miles." It got me thinking about how a mom's life compares to a marathon. I left that lunch with my 3 year old and my friend's three kids to search for a PostNet that doesn't appear to exist. So, I ran home to find another PostNet that does exist. Then I had to get 4 kids out of the car, do a search on the internet and get them back into the car and off we ran to the "existing" PostNet, dropped off my package and headed home for the kids to play. While they played I did laundry, made work related phone calls and started the clean up process from the bread making. Not far into this my older 2 children returned home from school. So now there are 6 children in the house playing loudly and I'm still "trying" to get things done. At one point I realized my shoulders were up around my ears and I was panting like I'd been running. After our little friends left it was homework time, then piano lessons, and cub scouts. As I pulled into my garage at 5:45 I realized that I had asked my husband to make dinner tonight and thought to myself, I have 45 whole minutes to relax. As soon as I started to feel a little relaxed I heard the sound of the dryer buzzing. I couldn't help myself, it was too comical. I started to laugh like an insane person you see in movies. I'm not sure exactly what my children were thinking but they were looking at me with raised eyebrows and looks of concern. So, after pulling the clean clothes from the washer and stashing them behind our oversized chair (it's less stressful having unfolded clothes if I can't see them), my husband arrived home and I decided that he needed a little help coming up with a healthy dinner solution since I knew full well his idea of dinner would consist of Ramen Noodles and Country Time lemonade. After stuffing down my portion I was off and running again to pick up my oldest from cub scouts and attend the monthly cub committee meeting. Upon returning home my son had a practice spelling test that he insisted must be done tonight and oh I almost forgot it's bath night. So, I bathed the kids and got them to bed around 8:30. We were only 30 minutes late so I patted myself on the back for a job well done. But the day's not done. That bread mess was only moved from the counters to the sink, so I'm off to do dishes and finally fold that last load of laundry.

Marathoners who are really good take 3 1/2 to 4 hours. Others come in anywhere in between that and 7 or 8 hours. Let's see I got up at 6:45 and as I was sitting down to blog it was 9:30. I was running and let me say again RUNNING for over 14 1/2 hours. For moms this is no record, it might not even deserve honorable mention. Ladies this is our life. We "run marathons" on a regular basis. There's no starting point or finish line. There's no winner or looser and there's certainly no cash prize. We all do the best we can, but we should be proud of our accomplishments and never feel ashamed that an 11 mile run is not in the cards for us today, tomorrow or OK never. I'm tired and run down, but I'm also very proud to be a "mommy marathoner"!