Yes, There Will Be Tests. And No, There Isn't a Study Guide

This motherhood thing has been somewhat, well, challenging lately. I've got a gum-smacking, eye-rolling, miniskirt-wearing preteen who questions most of my decisions, is only 10 but looks 13, and thinks I'm mean because I won't let her see PG-13 movies or get an iPhone. (Hey, I don't even have an iPhone, and let me tell you, when this family DOES jump into the 21st century, I'm first!)

I have a selective-hearing, relentlessly persistent second child (with all that THAT implies) who, rather than questioning an unpopular decision, tends to just pretty much ignore it, and thinks she should be allowed the same freedoms (but not the same responsibilities) as her big sister.

And I've got a husband who regularly says things like, "What should I feed them?" or "What does Mommy usually do in this situation?" Or my personal favorite: "I'll think about it," when what he really means is, "Over my dead body, but I don't want to be the bad guy, so I'm going to let your mom say no."

Moms make literally thousands of decisions and handle hundreds of "situations" over the course of a day. Some are easy: "No, you CAN'T eat Pixie Stix for breakfast. Here's a bowl of oatmeal instead." Or "No, you may NOT paint the dog's toenails. He doesn't like it." Some are trickier, like what to do about a baby on nap strike or a mean girl on the playground or "But ALL of my friends are going to see The Hunger Games, and I want to go TOO!" (OK, actually, that last one was pretty easy. Um, what's the movie rated? That's right, PG-13. And are you 13? That's right, you're not even close! So.... no. Get over it.)

Who gets to go first, can we turn on the TV, can I have a friend over, what's for dinner, whose turn is it to clean the bathroom, and what's the appropriate consequence for leaving fingernail marks in Mom's new candle... see? We handle thousands of things every day, without even thinking about it. (Cut off the fingernails she's spent weeks growing out AND make her buy a new candle with her own money, BTW.)

Sometimes I'm on a roll, making decisions and handing out verdicts like a veteran judge, doling out punishments and juice boxes like a pro. Other days, I struggle with simple things, thinking, "What, am I new at this? Why can't I get it together? Why don't I know the right thing to do here? Why is this so HARD?" But over the years, I've found that the simple decisions, the easy days, do not test me. They don't force me to become a better mom. It's those difficult choices, the hard days, the tough times, that define us as parents.

Think about it: The easy days, when everything goes right, no one gets sick or hurt or too upset, the days where I have it all together, don't make me a better mom, a better person. The easy days are too effortless, too uncomplicated, too manageable to be really interesting. If everything is going right, we aren't challenged to rise to the occasion.

But on those OTHER days, the days when I'm thinking, "Is it bedtime yet? How early can I reasonably send them upstairs? And what time does Happy Hour start?" I find myself being more resourceful, more creative, more EVERYTHING than usual. On those days when I'm thinking, "Man, this is SO not what I signed up for, so not what I imagined motherhood to be!" -- well, those are the days that make me a better mom. Those are the days that end with me thinking, "I got through this; I can get through anything! I'm SuperMom! Now, where's my cape?" (It's probably in the laundry.)

Case in point: When my girls were 2 and 4, I spent three weeks visiting my family in Los Angeles. My husband flew back a couple of weeks earlier than I did, but I'd flown with both kids on my own many times. So I was completely undaunted by the prospect of changing planes in Dallas/Fort Worth with two kids, a double stroller, two car seats, a diaper bag, and a carry-on. No sweat. Piece of cake. What could go wrong? (I know, you're thinking, "What, is she insane?" Trust me, I was neither crazy nor using illegal drugs, just a wee bit overconfident. Flying with two small kids post-9/11 is an exercise in frustration. What can I say?)

Of course, nothing about that return trip went smoothly. There was stomach-dropping turbulence from LAX to Dallas/Fort Worth, prompting my oldest to ask, repeatedly and loudly, "Will we crash? Will we crash? Will we crash?" Our flight out of DFW was cancelled, so I was given two options: An overnight stay, without luggage, at a hotel 15 miles away by taxi, or a flight on another airline that would take us into Reagan/National in DC, and then to our final destination, Pittsburgh, around midnight -- but I'd have only 20 minutes to reach the gate.

Decisions, decisions. What to do? Yep, I started running. Literally running, through crowded terminals, like in that old O.J. Simpson commercial, jumping over bags, pushing a double stroller filled with 90 lbs. of kid and two car seats strapped on top around groups of slow-moving passengers, singing silly songs at the top of my lungs to keep my kids giggling and entertained, much to the amusement (or annoyance) of other travelers.

Arriving in DC, I found that, due to airport renovations, the airline couldn't deliver my gate-checked stroller to the jetway -- so I had to drag sleepy kids, car seats, diaper bag and carry-on out of the security area and all the way to the check-in counter just to get my stroller. Then, because I'd been re-routed to a different carrier and had no bags to check, the computer program selected me for secondary security screening -- and no one can override the all-powerful computer. Swabbing my stroller for explosive residue, x-raying my diaper bag, patting down my toddlers, dismantling my car seats - OF COURSE I missed my next flight.

By this time, no one had eaten dinner, TSA had manhandled my allergen-free snacks into inedible crumbs, and the kids were glassy-eyed with exhaustion. My flip-flop strap broke, so I was hobbling around like an idiot, people staring -- but again, that may have been due to my relentlessly cheerful (and more than slightly manic) rendition of "The Wheels on the Bus," a pathetic attempt to convince my kids that this was all just a grand adventure. If Mommy's still singing, we're still having fun, right? RIGHT?!? 

I was booked on a later flight, a puddle jumper (in whose seats neither of my car seats fit, so more gate-checking and an entire flight spent holding my 2 year old's hands so that she couldn't unbuckle her seatbelt) that arrived in Pittsburgh at 2 a.m.

And that's when I remembered that when my husband had flown home two weeks earlier, he'd driven my car home from the airport. And he was now (get this) in DC  -- yes, I'd just left there -- on a business trip. Not only would he not be at the airport to meet us, hand me a drink and take the kids off my hands, I didn't. Even. Have. A. Car.

So, because I'm a mom and we do what we have to do, I smiled at my kids, collected my car seats and stroller, claimed my bags, and rented a car. Completely loaded down and with no one to help me, I got my kids and everything else settled into a rented minivan in the middle of the night. I made the 2-1/2 hour drive home safely. And yes, I was pretty darn proud of myself. Still am, actually. It remains, to this day, one of the toughest days of my parenting career -- but I wouldn't change one single aspect of it now. I dug deep, and I learned that I can handle just about anything life throws at me.

So when my preteen is dealing with girl drama or boy problems, I tell myself, "This is EASY. I've handled worse!" And when my younger daughter begs, for the 39th time that day, for a horse, I think, "This one's a no-brainer." And when my husband leaves for a three-week business trip while both kids are sick and we have no family nearby to help me, I can honestly tell myself, "Piece of cake. At least I'm not getting on a plane!"

I know that many moms face tougher challenges; I know that I've had it pretty easy. But I also know that no matter what life throws at me, I'm going to handle it. It might not be pretty, it might not be the way someone else would do it, but I can handle it. Because what's the alternative? NOT handle it? There's no going back; parenting doesn't come with a "pause" or "reverse" button. There's only forward.

Slacker Mom Says... sometimes things go your way. Sometimes they don't. Parenthood is tough. Sometimes we think, "This is not what I signed up for!" Some days we have to dig deep, really, really deep, into the well of creativity, patience, self-reliance -- and we find that, indeed, we can handle more than we thought we could. It may surprise us, or maybe we always knew we could handle anything. We can whine about it, or we can think of those really tough times as a test that helps us fine tune our parenting skills, a test that challenges us to be better parents, better people. We learn that we can. We CAN. We're moms. We CAN -- and we DO.

Of course, the teen years are looming, making that trip from you-know-where look easy by comparison, I hear. I'll let you know how it goes.