My Not So Glamorous Life

"Mommy, I'm AWAKE!"

(slight pause).

"Mommy, I'm AWAKE!!!"

(slight pause, with an audible "huff" attached to the end of it.)

"MOOOOOMMY! I'M AAAAAAAAWAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

And so my day began this morning, no alarm needed. Clay was out of town on business and Isabelle was obviously ready to get up. I was completely and utterly out of it, but somehow staggered across the hall and opened my daughter's bedroom door, mostly just to get her to (for the love of God) stop yelling because the assault on my ears was just too much when still attempting to gain full consciousness. Our morning routine upstairs got interrupted by the sounds of my fat cat, Nib puking up his breakfast downstairs, so I found myself scrubbing my grey carpet (Why do cats always vomit on the carpet and never on the tile? And who in the hell decided to put grey carpet in this damn house anyways? Curse the people we bought it from and their bad/impractical taste!) with Resolve yet again. When I put the Resolve back in the cupboard I figure I might as well clean up the litter boxes since I am already in the laundry room, and, after all, what is a little excrement after vomit?

I manage to get through my routine on the treadmill only having to stop twice to help my daughter in the bathroom as she has not yet mastered the fine art of "wiping her bum" adequately and I feel like my morning has been taken up with nothing except bodily excretions in various forms. Needless to say I skip breakfast and figure I might as well go with the theme. I scrub toilets. Joy. Isabelle plays and eats her breakfast while I clean both bathrooms, still in my sweaty workout clothes and now also sporting a pair of yellow rubber gloves, with my bed head, workout hair, knotted into a greasy blob on top of my skull.

About this time Fed Ex decides to ring the door bell and deliver a package. More joy. Looking like the number one reason why my husband would decide to have an affair with some hot office floozy, I answer the door and watch the Fed Ex guy do his best to smother his look of alarm as I sheepishly thank him and open the door just wide enough to nab the box and close it again, all the while with Isabelle jabbering away asking "Who is it, Mommy?"

I get through some more cleaning, manage to shower, where I nick myself twice while shaving, discover three zits popping out on my face despite the fact that I am now also getting wrinkles (Sigh) and collapse in a heap on the couch to discover it is now only lunch time. Ugh.

"I love you, Mommy."

"I love you too, baby."

"No, I wiwwy love you very much, Mommy."

As usual, my daughter can make my not so glamorous life seem pretty spectacular with just a few simple words. I swallow the sudden lump in my throat and blink the tears from my eyes.

"I really love you very much too, Isabelle."

We curl up and read some books together, and suddenly I remember why I decided to stay home with her in the first place. No, it isn't glamorous, but it is important. Even if on some days no one except Isabelle and the Fed Ex guy sees me. And I bet I wish he hadn't!