Just before New Years I came down with the flu. It was a good two weeks before I had enough strength in me to get by on more than just the bare minimum when it came to keeping up with work and household duties. My house is still recovering, and over the past few weekends when there has been any time open to me at all, I have spent it trying to unbury myself from laundry and Christmas decorations. We’re getting there, but I still look around and see that my life is far from organized. Mail. Must go through the mail. Playroom. Must take on role of Supreme Dictator and engage children in forced labor.

The kids had taken a few of their broken Lego sets and brought them back to the kitchen table where they took out the instruction manuals, apparently made a good go at putting them back together, and then promptly abandoned the projects when they proved too difficult. I do recall this going on when I was trying to find my kitchen counter. I do recall one of them whining about it being too hard, can’t do it, whine, whine, whine. And I’m pretty sure that while I was elbow deep in suds of dishes or piles of laundry that I was waiting to hear some semblance of a proper request for assistance. A please, even a politely stated “Mommy can you help me”, would have sufficed. All I heard was *insert whining, bordering on bitchy tone here* I NEED HEEEEEEELP. A proper request for help? I didn’t hear it, and therefore didn’t give it. I may even have barked, “I’m in the middle of something; you need to wait.” Not the best use of a teaching moment, I realize, but seriously people, you should have seen my house.

Later that night when I went to ready the table for dinner I came face to face with the carnage that was once two beautifully constructed Lego’s and I became very frustrated at the abandoned ruins. “Why are these still here? You need to finish what you have started. ” Rant, rant, repeat. Sofia promptly responded. “I couldn’t do it. I need help.”

“Then why didn’t you ask for help?” I retorted, not really thinking that one through.

“I tried. There was no help available at the time.”

Every now and then, her words, they stop me in my tracks and I stand dumbstruck by her level of insight. Maybe it’s not even insight so much as the ability to effectively communicate with me when she wants to. And she hits home. It’s as if I see more clearly that on the average day I am mystified that a seven year old could have such valid and prolific argument. There was no help available at the time.

Granted, from what I recall as I was in my MUST CLEAN HOUSE zone, she didn’t ask nicely. Her manners are a continual work of progress; Newsflash, Mommy is not your slave. Yet, she was not wrong. Her words, they spoke volumes to the difficulty I have had recently in balancing my life, our lives, since taking ill. Those two little weeks being out of commission left my universe wrecked, and we are all suffering as a result of it.

But isn’t that always the way? If not an illness, isn’t there always something that can creep up where we as parents must choose over a plethora of daunting tasks to simply be available? I love that saying when it comes to spending time with your kids, “the house can wait.” If I’m not worried about entertaining I will often subscribe to that notion. Yes, I have a lot to do, but let’s go visit with friends, or take that window of opportunity to go sledding. Hey it’s not raining, snowing, or freezing out, so forget that you can barely walk through the playroom and get outside and enjoy it while there’s still time.

So often we let things slide until you just can’t let things slide a moment longer. And then you have to choose to not be available. I need to accept the repercussions, and they need to learn to wait.

Unless perhaps, if they ask nicely.

Oh, so my Lego Set hell. Are there any suggestions for organization that doesn’t require a complete remodel of my home akin to an awesome but somewhat unrealistic Pinterest board? Help a frazzled girl out and save me from myself.

All these lasts, they happen all the time. We go through them every day without thought or question that we will do them again. That is what has been an anvil on my heart since I heard the news last Friday. All these motions through our lives, as days and weeks and months pass, did I pay enough attention? Did I give thanks, and enjoy it? Even the most frustrating and jaw clenching worst of it? Would I, should I find myself in the same position as these shattered families, find these memories hard to recall? And if recollection failed would I be able to rise again from the crippling despair of the knowledge that they will never happen again? The thought that these poor families could be struggling in reality with the same emotions that I am merely contemplating as what if? My heart hurts so badly for them.

I was folding clothes yesterday after cycling another never ending basket of my children’s laundry in the washer/dryer. Without thinking I held one of my son’s sweatshirts up to my face and breathed in his scent that lingers there, a delicious combination of Dominic and April freshness. That was all it took for a trigger. I looked around at my once daunting task with the horrid realization that these poor parents who have lost their little loves must have so much laundry to do. Their children’s laundry. Whether it be fresh and clean or worn with remnants of meals and art projects smeared all down the front. I sat down and wept again, my head bowed before my little-person stacked piles of his and hers outfits, thankful I still have my babies to create those aggravating grass and spaghetti stains that I so often curse.

When we sent them off to school on Monday I held on to them for much tighter and much longer than usual, as I know everyone who could, must have. Then the rest of the week happened and we were as usual running late with quick hugs and kisses, and I love you called out as we rushed them into school. All focus was aimed at moving on to the next task of the day. It wasn’t until a few hours later when the thought of potential loss hit me once more, and I was filled with regret that I did it again. We went through the motions with displays of appreciation for each other, but without active appreciation for the moment, just as we have always done. With that realization I felt like a horrible mother, an inconsiderate wife, a poor example of one who honors the memory of the lives taken and their families who have had the cataclysmic misfortune to now live life with such unfathomable loss.

How often we hear the saying, appreciate every moment, live each day like it’s your last. I have decided that I cannot live that way. For me there is too much despair in this thought that my family and I could be separated. I can’t be in that moment all the time, or often for that matter. To truly live this gift that we are still blessed to have, I need the motion of life itself.

So I am going to keep going, raising my kids, living a good life, exploring and experiencing what the world has to offer outside of our four walls, and being thankful that we are all healthy and want for little. I will take pause now and then when the moment strikes, in that instant when I notice that she has outgrown her pants, when I hear him belt out a fabulous vocabulary word that I never saw coming, when I watch them put dollars in the bucket to feed the hungry at Christmastime, a mix of sadness of its necessity and pride in watching their desire to help our fellow people grow. It is with this motion of life that in my heart I will honor them.

Rest easy, little ones and your fallen heroes.

You learn things about yourself when faced with these situations. I learned that my brain doesn’t function after 28 waking hours. I spent a good 20 minutes looking frantically for a pair of jeans that I was already wearing. When that happened I threw up the proverbial white flag and…poured myself another cup of coffee.

I can recall pulling all-nighters in college with little effort. That was because when my task was done I could easily crawl into my bunk the next afternoon and sleep it all away. When you have little ones counting on you, you just have to push through it.

So that’s what I did, but not without consequence. Things have finally started to settle down but my little guy still asks me when I am going to leave him again. I can’t tell you how many tears were shed, how many times they gripped at my legs begging me not to leave as I was hauling my suitcase, a.k.a. my Go Bag out the door. I have never minded being a full time working mother. I love to work, I need to work, and we generally manage it well. Until now my children have never felt my attention was lacking. But oh, after a few weeks of my absence their voices rang loud and clear. There’s a saying in my family that we have the ability to lay on a guilt trip in spades. My children in all of their honesty have got that trait down to a science. It was crushing.

Truly, I don’t know how parents who travel manage to get by without feeling a deep hole from the knowledge that they are missing something (or someone) important. During those weeks I felt like my children grew a foot in height and two shoe sizes between them, and I utterly missed it.

Eventually work calmed down, we moved on, my house which had been falling apart was rescued from its Hoarders Level 1 crisis mode, and life resumed some sort of normalcy. Then the end of October hit and my children’s homework started kicking in. All I can say about that is wow. Wow.

My first grader is in finals week right now and every night after I finish work I pick them up and bring them home, fashion some semblance of a healthy dinner, and spend the rest of the few evening hours we have together crammed around the kitchen table reviewing social studies, Spanish, and music theory. We still have science, math, and English to go, and while she seems to be doing fine my eyes have started to glaze over. This is just first grade! How on earth are we going to get them through the next 14 years? The task is beyond daunting.

Years after my days of studying were long completed I used have these dreams that I would show up at school and I would be handed a test that I was in no way prepared to take. Everyone around me would be furiously scribbling away their answers and I would be sitting there shaking and fumbling over a broken number 2 pencil. By the way, do they still require those? If I had read the huge stack of class newsletters that have been piling up on my table closely enough I would probably have that answer.

Paperwork. *hides* That in itself is a whole other bear.

I am so disorganized and drowning in career work, house work, laundry, parenting, mail, Friday Folders from school the size of chapter books, and all the parent participated home education required that comes with them. I have absolutely no disillusions here. I always knew that along with all the rewards parenting would bring, that there would be seemingly unconquerable mountains of hard work ahead of us. I do seriously get that. Not to be all misery loves company, but I guess I’m hoping that if you are with me this far, you are reading this and nodding your head with a “Hell yes! Amen, Sister”.

Suffice it to say, while I have also found wonderful pockets of relief recently (if you’re my friend on Facebook you’ve seen the pictures from my rocking NYC Girl weekend and fun filled day at the RI Comic Con), I am regardless feet shuffling, body slumping, eyes twitching, mind shatteringly exhausted. I struggle with the possibility that for a long time coming this may simply be our status quo.

So I trudge on, but trust me when I say that all I really want to do tonight instead of barraging a 7 year old with science questions, is sit my ass on the couch with something chocolaty and watch a Vampire Diaries marathon.

Hey man, don’t judge me. We all deserve our guilty pleasures; even if it’s just one late night episode of Ian Somerhalder at a time. BTW, seriously adding this guy to my laminated Top Five List.

This is what I found spread all over the rug.

The best way I can describe my reaction is to give you what I recall to be my inner monologue as I knelt to the floor for a closer inspection:

What the fuck is that? Is that…hair? Is that MY hair??? *clutches at head as if the mere tactile experience of finger tips on the still attached strands would indicate anything amiss* Did one of them actually cut my hair while I was sleeping? It looks like my hair; it can’t be anyone else’s. What the fuck! I fell asleep for 20 minutes and this is what I get for it? Tony was right there! Did he not notice someone giving me a goddam hair cut? This is bullshit.

I snatched up the hair and took it into the kitchen, and stood there actually holding it up to the light, comparing it to my own curls. With a sigh of relief I found that though the locks were nearly identical to my own hair in color, there was definitely a synthetic feel to it.

And then in an instant light dawned over Marblehead, and I knew whose hair it was.

Poor Belle. Someone has been watching way too much Tangled.

She is only six and I was so nervous for her. What if she was scared when she got up there? What if she froze with all those eyes on her? How could I help her from my place in a sea people? I remember well that butterfly feeling, that anxious anticipation whenever I performed on stage. Was she feeling it? I sure was.

“Are you nervous?” I asked her.

“No.” she answered matter of fact without skipping a beat.

When it was time to leave she was jumping up and down, a ball of excitement. She was ready.

Before the show started I found myself whispering words of encouragement, desperate to show my support. “You’re going to be great, just do your best, keep going if you make a mistake, and enjoy yourself up there.”

I’m not even sure if she heard me; she exuded confidence and strolled right past me, head high as if to say, “I so got this, Mom.”

And she did. She was wonderful. I’m not sure if I breathed the entire endless minute that she was on stage. She was so happy, so proud of herself. I sat back and wondered in awe of my little girl, so self assured, so knowing, so comfortable in her own skin. I’ve seen glimpses of it before, but in that moment I sat blinking at the undeniable proof that she is so much braver than I ever was, and my fears are not hers; never have been.

The force is strong with this one, and in that knowledge I take great comfort.

Oh, but there are such things as second chances! For after we got off the train at Penn Station and headed up the escalator, I turned to say something to my friend about the insanely dressed and ridiculously jubilant Knicks fans that had just emerged from Madison Square Garden, when lo and behold, Mr. Sheen was standing right behind me. This time I only giggled like a school girl before stammering out, “Oh, hello again!” He smiled and said hello, and what followed as I continued to stare at him was complete and utter awkward silence. I suck.

So that is what I will probably use as my takeaway when I blather on about my trip to New York, but truly what I will remember most are the two most beautiful words that I have heard in a very long time: Quiet Car.

“Would you like to sit in the Quiet Car?” the ticket checking dude asked me as I boarded the train. Uh, sure. I had no idea at the time that what I should have said was HELL TO THE YEAH, TICKET MAN!!!

What followed was three hours of glorious silence. Perhaps a few clicking of laptop keys, a few muted coughs from a scratchy throat, a whisper here or there of someone announcing their departure to the beverage cart; that was all that could be heard. No talking. No crying. No I want to play angry birds. No I’m hungry. No I have to potty. No are we there yet. Just silence.

Oh, except for the time when some idiot behind us was prattling on about his life and the ticket checking dude promptly bitched him out even louder: THIS IS A QUIET CAR! THERE IS NO TALKING!!!

Bitch on, ticket checking dude. Bitch on.

We sat and read, we watched the east coast scenery passing by at 150 miles per hour, and we closed our eyes and drifted into a waking sleep. It was the kind of sleep where you are somewhere else, but still quite aware of all that is around you. And all that was around me was the sweet sound of silence.

I easily located the news article when I got home, and found that it was a local teen from a neighboring town. She had been out with a friend driving at 3:20 in the morning on Saturday night, only three months after she had obtained her license. The police suspect she was speeding and lost control of the car; her friend was ejected from the rollover but survived, she was trapped in the car and pronounced dead at the scene. She was only 16 years old, may she rest in peace.

You can question for hours what she was doing there and who is to blame. There is a curfew for drivers under 18, and a law against having other teens in the car without adult supervision for new drivers. Not to mention that it was three in the morning! What was she doing going for a sandwich at three in the morning? Did anyone even know she and her friend were leaving the house? It is so easy to stand aside and judge; so easy to tell yourself that your kid would never do such a thing and suffer a similar fate.

But I remember when I was 16, and while I was actually a rather compliant kid there are definitely a few things my parents didn’t know about that I most certainly should not have been doing. I knew a bunch of very ‘good’ families whose kids were extremely fortunate that luck was on their side for much of their adolescent shenanigans. My questionable behavior didn’t come until my early 20’s when I really should have known better. I know that I tempted fate more times than I would like to admit, and I have no excuse for it. That’s the sort of thing that terrifies me when I think of my own children.

That is why all that I wanted to do when I got her home was hold my six year old daughter, and tell her all the things that I know she does not need to hear yet.

Things like, do not speed. It is better to be late than dead. It is better to be tardy or get in trouble for being somewhere you’re not supposed to be, than to kill or maim someone else. Besides, if you get pulled over for speeding you’re going to be even later than you were to start with, and your father and I are not paying your tickets or car insurance increases. And I don’t care if it doesn’t look cool; keep your hands on the wheel at 10:00 and 2:00, and not on your cell phone.

Oh, and do not do your makeup in the rearview mirror while driving. That story about me not noticing the police officer trying to pull me over for a half mile because I was too busy putting on my eyeliner is not funny. Not even when I was pounding on the dashboard because I thought the low siren was coming from a glitch in my tape deck.

What is a tape deck? Go to your room.

But before you do, promise to never, ever, drink and drive. Never, ever, get in a car with a driver who has had a drink. Call me and I will come get you. I promise not to yell at you in front of your friends and will wait until the next morning. Call me. Call your father. If you must, call a cab. Just get home to us safely.

If you are going to disobey curfew, and you will have a curfew, remember that nothing good happens after 2 a.m. You shouldn’t be out there anyway. You should have been in bed hours ago. Just go home.

For good measure, and we might as well go all out, if you’re going to do ‘the deed’ make sure he wears a condom. Tell him to bag or sag it. Trust me when I say it could be the biggest two minute mistake of your life. Don’t believe me? As soon as you get yourself a boyfriend, on your next grounding I will make you watch hours upon hours of A Baby Story followed by a marathon of Nanny 911.

Deep breaths and a silent plea to the powers that be.

I don’t know how, and the prospect scares the hell out of me, but when the time comes we will get you through the stage of adolescence well educated, un-impregnated, drug free, STD clear, and most importantly, alive and well. I’ll do my part. Just please, promise me you’ll do yours.

Now go play with your Barbies.