Feeling tired; feeling like a Mom

It's quiet here right now, as the boys went to bed about 15 minutes ago, and seem to actually be sleeping, as opposed to whining or "talking" to one another, or throwing their bottles and loveys out of the cribs.

Lester is reading Esquire magazine in his boxers, undershirt and black work socks, and I am stretched out on the bed thanking God for these few moments of rest and peace.

I am at that point where exhaustion is an understatement for how I feel during the day, and it doesn't help that it's been 100+ degrees here for the last few days. I came up the stairs today to bring the boys' pajamas up from the laundry and when I got to the top, I had to bend over and pant from the effort. I find myself more and more grabbing a pillow off the couch when I'm having floor time with the babies, trying to steal a few winks while they play (Which they hate! They come over and peel at my face, or poke my nose). And I am barely getting through the work days, so tired and spaced out am I.

I remember this feeling from last time, but last time I could get straight in the bed when I got home from work. Last time, I could nap my weekends away. This time, everything has changed.

I am a Mommy.

If I never really felt it before, I sure do now. I feel the way my mother looked to me on many evenings, after work, as she tried to get dinner on the table for the five of us, and straighten up before my Dad came home. I feel the way my grandmother looked when she would wash the dinner dishes while leaning her forehead against the cabinet door in front of her, just for that simple relief from having to hold her head up herself. I feel the way so many other women must have felt -- or currently feel -- as they find it within themselves somewhere to soldier through the days, despite bone-sucking exhaustion, and the pull of gravity more severe than it ever has been before. Seriously, couldn't you just fall to the floor sometimes, if you thought you could get away with it? And sleep for hours?

I think just about every afternoon at the office that tonight will absolutely be the night that I ask Lester to please let me disappear when I get home from work - just this once - to sneak in a little nap, while he handles dinner and bath time himself. But every afternoon, it never fails, I come home, see those two little smiling, peanut-butter or banana-smelling faces, scoop them up, give them a thousand kisses, and by the time that's over, I know there's no way I'd miss a night with them just because I'm tired.

So I soldier through. Because that's what Mommies do.

And I don't think that's something I'll ever get tired of.