On Mothering

I have this habit of mothering people. It's not exactly a bad habit, but I can always imagine myself later in life treating everyone in a very Mrs. Weasley-ish way, (annual hand knitted Christmas sweaters included) whether they are my own children or not. In fact, if I could be as awesome as Mrs. Weaseley, I'd be set. (I am also jealous of her magical, self-knitting needles. Jealoussss.) Brandlyn can attest to my mothering habit, Abby can attest, I am sure that you could get Ana and Jane, Barb's girls, to attest, too. It's a pretty strong urge at the worst of times. Now, I'm not a mother, not going to be a mother any time soon (Mom, breathe), and since I have no small children to mother while I'm at college, Abby has more often than not been on the receiving end of this for the last few months.

Well, today Abby has been the sole recipient of all of this mothering attention, and it has simply drained me. I am exhausted.

Abby has the flu.

(No, I am not sick, and I am doing everything in my power to keep it that way.Uber vitamin C, flu prevention medication, religiously cleaning everything. You know, the works.)

It is the perfect storm of circumstances for me to exhaust my entire stock of mothering attention in a few short hours, and I have definitely gotten rid of some of it. I wrote a funny "feel better" note on the whiteboard this morning using funny nicknames that would cheer her up (Hers is Superego and mine is Id, just so you know. She nicknamed me Id because I have this habit of constantly pointing out really stupid and useless stuff "that we need!" when we go shopping. It's a good game when we're at Costco, because there's lots of fun and useless stuff there!) I went shopping and bought medicine, food, and a thermometer, and brought back vegetables to make delicious, homemade soup. I proceeded to make the soup (it turned out perfectly, by the way), the Theraflu, tea, snacks, and anything else that Abby wanted all day... and boy.

I am exhausted, but it's that good kind of tired where you know that you got so much done today that tomorrow is going to be better.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go down a glass of orange juice and then go to bed!