Sometimes it feels like anyone could do this job.

Make lunches, load breakfast dishes, switch laundry from the washer to the dryer. Drive kids to and from school. Give snacks. Then drive kids to and from basketball practice.

Shuffle, clean, make appointments, organize, answer emails, pick up stray socks.

Back and forth.

All day long.

It doesn’t take a lot of brain power usually (thank goodness…sometimes it feels like I don’t have much left!).

It’s just the doing of the things.

Mostly mundane. And ordinary.

Over and over and over.

Mothers are a dime a dozen, right?

And really, couldn’t anyone fill my shoes???

But then I remember their little faces as they run to the car after school. Their eyes lighting up at the sight of mine.

I think about special songs and back tickles and my deep understanding of the particularities of each child.

One probably just needs a snack.

One is a little more sensitive.

One wants me to listen to him ramble on. And on. Not providing any advice, just listening. “Oh really? Hmm.”

Who else would notice a quiet tone on the way home from school? Or those sagging shoulders?

Who else would know to look for a little thumbs up from the soccer field?? After all, he didn’t score. But his foot touched the ball and he’d like to celebrate all the same. So, I do!!

Who else would know how to play that silly game we always play in the star-speckled darkness of my daughter’s room at bedtime?

Who else can coordinate the ins and outs and ups and downs of OUR family quite like I do???

And who else carries all the memories of childhood for THESE particular children from their very first breath?

Sometimes it feels like anyone could do this job…

But really, no one in the whole world can do it quite like I do.

That’s why they call me MOM.