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As a mom, I'm a repository for joy and woe.  Nothing and no one gets hurt, lost, broken, untangled, planned, or purchased without my knowledge.  As with everything, exceptions exist, but you can pretty much figure that whatever secrets they have today, I'll eventually find out on some tomorrow or another.  Likewise, there's pretty much nothing I do that they don't know about, which doesn't mean they aren't likely to forget.  Whenever they hear my keys jingle or see me dressed to leave, it's imperative that they know where I'm going and with whom.  Mom belongs to her family as much as they belong to her.  

I love that my kids call me when they receive an award or score a perfect grade on a test or bump into an old friend they haven't seen in a long time.  They want to share good news with someone who is going to understand their delight, and right now it's me.  I'm thrilled!  

So I have to learn to also take the woe. 

"Mom, I can't find my school ID."

"Mom, my phone won't turn on."

"Mom, I need a plain white shirt by 7:30 tomorrow morning."

"Mom, these are the things I have to take to school tomorrow."

"Mom, are ALL my workout clothes in the hamper?"

"Mom, I dropped your iPhone and it cracked BUT it still works!"

I hear some version of these sentences on a daily basis, and often more than once.  I must not be very reliable to my kids because I don't know how many times in one night I might hear, "K, mom, can we look for that book now?"  You might not know this about me: I'm not very patient and I'm more likely to snap than agree.

A night like this, though, I've heard most of those sentences.  A night like this, I wish for so many things, but most of all I wish for patience.  Because while my kids might know my every move, they don't know about my problems or my stress.  They don't know what my concerns about money are, they don't know how much homework I have to do in one night, they don't know how hard it is to manage school, work, family, and a household.  They shouldn't know any of those things, anyway, because they're just kids. 

It has only taken my fifteen years to realize that I bear the burdens of my children as well as my own.  It makes my shoulders strong, and sometimes it makes me very weary.