Midnight Madness

by Cathy

Last night, at precisely 12:04 a.m., I was rummaging through my freezer. I was all tucked away in bed, almost adrift in lala land, when out of nowhere, this thought smacked me awake, like all the random thoughts that fly in and out of our brains at equally random times of day or night. I shot up in bed. "I forgot to defrost the meat for dinner tomorrow."

Before I actually ventured out of my cozy covers, I did the schedule thing in my head - anything to avoid getting out of bed and losing yet more sleep. 'Do I have time to do it tomorrow morning? Will I remember? Will it have enough time to defrost before I need to make dinner since I'll be gone all day and the kids need to eat the MINUTE they step foot in the door after school and before Bella's volleyball game?' So I sat there thinking the day through forwards and backwards in my head. "Crap," I mumbled under my tired breath as I got out of bed.

So there I was, one of a million over-tired, over-worked, over-scheduled insane moms around the world, whom I was sure were all standing at their freezers with me, shuffling around bricks of frozen meat, crackly waffle bags, bins of ice and 8,375 loose ice cream Dove bars just waiting for the one slight move to send them tumbling into a cacophony of "I Woke The Whole Building" onto the floor. I wondered how many women were stooping near their washing machines and dryers in their pajamas because they forgot to put the just-washed clothes into the dryer. And how many more were up making sure they signed that school form or sent that work email.

A woman's work is never done.