This morning started off super normal. My alarm went off and Isaac’s little feet immediately started scuffling towards my room. He’s a morning person through and through, and he is always waiting on us to wake up.
I got him breakfast and laid out his clothes. He ate, got dressed, and then proceeded to run around the house being a pterodactyl and “eating things”. This continued in the car.. he would say “pretend this means…” and then say it in pterodactyl language.
Once we got to the bus stop at his mom’s house, I lazily rolled out of the car (I am not a morning person) and he bounded out to go see his friends. One of the little boys turned to Isaac and said, “why is your mom so tired.” (he was talking about the half awake, still in her pjs lady in front of him – aka me) To which Isaac replied, “that’s not my mom” and then ran off.
That’s not my mom.
Four words. Four tiny words that should have no effect on my day whatsoever. But they did. They were a punch to my gut. Four words that made me want to melt into a puddle on the concrete and slither home.
Because let’s face it, the truth is I’m not his mom. I know that. He has a perfectly wonderful mother who has been there for all seven years of his life and even nine months before that.
But it still hurts, because sometimes I feel like his mother. Like when I cook him dinner, or take him to tennis lessons, or help him with his homework, or play hours on end of Lego Star Wars on the Xbox, or when I make him peanut butter and Nutella sandwiches, or when I show up to all his cub scout meetings, or when I pick out his clothes for the day (because he and his dad don’t know what matches what to save their lives.)
So yeah, I’m not his mom. But sometimes I forget. Especially when 90% of the space in my brain is occupied by thoughts of him. I take my job as “not his mom” very seriously.
Of course, he meant me no harm by those four little words. So I took a deep breath and smiled and moved on because no matter what I love him.
And even more than that I love my job as not his mom.
