Is being a mom hard?

Hayley asked me this last night. I must have been reading "The Adventures of Isabel" too fast, or sighed too loud, but she posed the question to me. She wasn't being condescending, or in a show of empathy, but in the same tone she would ask about other things (how does someone cry in Spanish? Will I grow taller than you?) I have been doing some thinking of this. So much of what happens in mom-dome happens on autopilot. I wouldn't say easy, but hard seems like an overstatement. Moms are the invisible energy field that keeps a house running, but no one actually pays attention to what we are actually doing. An endless supply of apples, toilet paper, bills paid, laundry done, school supplies bought.....Moms serve as fuzzy blankets too, just by being there. We are the go-to girl for comfort, encouragement and unconditional love.

Surely we moms do lots of things that are fun - like having to mop up projectile vomit, bust up arguments, nag, or change "accident" sheets at 2am. All irksome, but still not hard. Moms also perform lots of hard labour. Hoisting the dead weight of a sleeping child off the couch and into bed, scaling mountains of laundry, running marathon errands - with miles to go before sleep. All these are physical jobs, but still not hard. Still, I would be lying if I said to Hayley, "it's a piece of cake".

A hard block of fruitcake maybe. It is tough to splice your attention into 3 parts, or be in 3 different places at once. To be the only one in the house that never seems tired. To not be able to buy the new boots that you want because someone has grown out of their indoor shoes. To not be able to hear yourself think. To bite your tongue instead of calling your family ungrateful little monkeys when they turn their noses up at dinner that took you 45 minutes to prepare (40 more minutes than you actually had).

Even more genuinely "hard" are the tasks of packing up boxes of clothes that both girls no longer fit. Seeing your five year old want to walk into school herself - without mom. Watching my once floppy baby stand and walk around furniture. Finding out that my once young, youthful appearance is being called Ms. Nelson by someone.

To me, the hardest part of being a mom is knowing that I am planning my own obsolescence. The would point of lavishing all this time, love, money and attention, after all, is to give them the tools necessary to leave me. (My hope is that they will be responsible citizens that will in turn look after ME when I am old and crotchety).

So I will muster a smile, try to suppress another sigh, and will look into Hayley's eyes and reply, "Sometimes it is hard, but it is always worth it".