Paralytic

I’ve become a paralytic. You wouldn’t know it by looking at me but I have. I don’t function. Nothing works. I used to be the mommy. I did it all. I never realized how much I did or how defined I was by being the central whirlwind of this home.

I rose early and fed a baby, dressed him and chased him all over the house. I packed a little boy’s lunch and found library books and poured cereal. I filled sippy cups and kissed booboos and chased bare bottoms through the house with diapers. I was exhausted and often not nearly grateful enough for my beautiful life… all before 8 a.m.

I dropped a curly headed baby off at school, reluctant to leave, watching him every second until the door closed. He would sit there, fruit loops clasped in both of his dimpled baby hands, content. He very rarely cried when I left… no, that was me. I hated leaving him. Then back in the car and off to another school, gathering back packs and lunch boxes, hand holding across the parking lot, forehead kisses and ‘I love you, mom!’

Back to the house because I had forgotten ten things I needed for school. A day of teaching and learning and researching. Pushing and stretching and working.

Pick up two little boys, banana snacks in sweet baby hands, strollers and bikes and a walk to the park, giggles and chasing and a million ‘to-do’s’ running through my mind. Back to the house, a dinner to cook, “daddy’s home!” A trio of my guys running through the house, tickling and wrestling and getting in the way. A baby at my feet crying to be held, cooking, straining and chopping one handed, precious cargo on my left hip.

Dinner then clean up then off to the bath, footie pajama’s and lotion and sweet baby smells, stories and songs then do it again but bigger and older the second time around. Then quiet and breathing and homework to do… late into the night. Tomrrow it will start all over again….

Until it didn’t.

Now I am a paralytic. I search for a mat to lay down on. Will someone lower me through a hole in the roof? Where is the roof? Where is the healer? I don’t know… I am a paralytic.