The Diary of a Single Mom

I am a single mom of 5 children, with two full time jobs and I attend a university online. This year when I found out that my expected graduation date was in December 2020 I did a very clumsy, happy dance in my kitchen. My son, who is almost 10, noticing my incredibly stupid and dorky reaction to whatever I had just read on the computer, looks up from his tablet and says, "ok ill bite mom. Why you so excited?" I turned to him and said, "Because I will be graduating at Christmas this year!" He turns back to his tablet, but not before saying, "well its about time mom." I tried not to take offense to this since I knew he didn't mean it in a spiteful way and in his defense I have spent the past 11.5 years in school-switching my major after 2.5 years and then nearly starting over completely for the 3rd time 5 years ago. My kids are my life and sometimes they crack me up with the things they say. Other times they frustrate me to no end. I feel like the most bi-polar mom on the planet, until I call my best friend. The conversation goes something like this. "So I need to vent about this stupid experience I had this week." In between our 15 minute phone call, we will both have yelled at our kids nearly a thousand times, to "stop picking on your brother" or "I already told you to go play in your room!" or "We don't sit on the baby!" and then there's my personal favorite with my toddler lately, "Stop farting near the baby! It's making him cry!" Some days I feel like my hair is falling out faster than my granny's and my kids love to tease me about getting old. My knees creak like old stairs in an abandoned house. I am so clumsy I pop my hip out of place climbing up the stairs in our house and I am constantly complaining of aches and pains. As if that wasn't bad enough, my mood swings are higher than the rides at the fair. Now here I should clarify-THESE ARE NOT THE HORMONAL MOOD SWINGS WOMEN HAVE. These are the "I have told you 5 times already to pick up your nasty smelling socks that are worse than the trash can smell and put them in your dirty clothes hamper" type of mood swings. They are the "Stop hitting your brother please. I said stop hitting your brother. That's not nice. SERIOUSLY?? STOP HITTING YOUR BROTHER!!" type of mood swings. And I have come to the conclusion that my kids have made a pact: to never let me sleep, one of them always has to be on guard and it's actually entertaining when mom has to repeat things, but when she blows her top, duck in cover! I actually think, that my kids do this on purpose. Kids are smarter than anyone gives them credit for. They are like sponges on speed, with the energy to match and I am so jealous. I can't even harness 10% of that energy on my best days, that is until I drink my 3rd cup of coffee for the day, eat at least my baby's weight in donuts for breakfast and then have to take a nap in the afternoon because of how exhausted how I am, at just merely mothering. But through it all, I'd never change one minute of it. So that's me in a nutshell. Hope you enjoyed reading my introduction and catching a glimpse into my life. If you are a mom, I hope you enjoyed reading this and were able to relate to part of it, if not most.