Motherhood - Chapter 15 - Personal Assistant

How many times have I thought to myself, "geez, I wish I had a personal assistant." Too many to count. Life can be so busy. Yesterday - well this whole week actually but particularly yesterday - was a crazy busy day. I am trying to get prepared to fly to Salt Lake City with Harrison this morning. I am headed to the American Mothers National Convention where I will represent Nevada as our state Young Mother of the Year. I have to give a timed speech tomorrow morning. And tomorrow night the National AMI committee will select a National Young Mother of the Year.

So I have been writing and memorizing my speech and practicing delivering it without crying. It is still hard to publicly speak about Camille without crying and I talk a little about her in the speech.

On top of that two of my daughters are performing this week in their dance companies performance of Peter Pan. This has meant dress rehearsals and costumes and basic chaos. Yesterday I drove out to their dance studio (a 15 minute drive each way) 3 times in 3 hours plus running Sabrina to an activity she had at church and getting gas and making dinner and doing the laundry while taking care of the baby and Noble.

One of those trips to the dance studio (the middle one) was unplanned. But a friend called me up and told me she had just left the studio and that our 5 year olds were finished with their part of the rehearsal and were free to go. She had picked up her daughter and said Lauren had run after her crying and wanting to go home with her. So I hopped in the car to go get my little girl.

On the way home I was getting gas and was thinking about how grateful I am to be able to be a stay at home mom and be able to drop what I am doing and jump in the car to go save the day for my kids when they need me. How many times have I gotten a call from the school saying I had a kid whose pants ripped or got someone's lunch spilled on them or a kid who wasn't feeling well? More than I can count. And each time I have been able to run to the school and fix the problem.

I am so grateful I am able to do this without the worry of a boss or losing a client or taking time off work. I realize that this is a luxury many do not have and I am grateful to my core that I am able to enjoy this. As I was thinking about this and how glad I am to be able to run and take care of my kids needs, I had a thought. On this busy day where I was wishing I had a personal assistant, I had a realization. I AM A PERSONAL ASSISTANT!  All moms are!

We keep the calendar. We drive the carpools. We put out the fires. We make the lunches. We do all those things that our kids can't do for themselves and then some. We make their lives run as smoothly as we can. We are their personal assistants. And if we raise them well, they hopefully will naturally turn around and "assist" us too.