Our son is 11 1/2 and still hugs me every morning before he leaves for school and tells me he loves me. He was excited when we found out I was selected to go on his 3-day field trip and bummed when I couldn’t volunteer to teach art once a month with his class. He is a smart, sensitive kid whose courage is stronger than he realizes at first.

I sat and talked about haikus with our daughter at dinner and was amazed as she recited the poems she had written in school today. Even though I don’t do anything but sit and wait for her, she wanted me to be with her at dance class because she’d had a rough afternoon. She is a remarkable light, painting the air with her colorful presence.

There are incalculable moments filled with my irrational fear of not doing whatever it is that I am supposed to be doing right as not just anyone’s mom but their mother. With God’s guidance, their souls somehow picked me to help them through this life and I am usually so overwhelmed with trying to make sure I am not doing something wrong that I am missing all that is right.

And something is right in our world.

It’s Friday night after a pretty good week. It’s been long, for sure, but manageable. I feel pretty good. The most pressing issue I have at the moment is an annoying hangnail on my left forefinger and I cannot locate a single pair of nail clippers in the house to remedy it.

Tough, huh?

There have been many times in my life when I have successfully escalated a mere hangnail into a confounded chasm ripping through the center of the Universe (aka, Me) and splitting its nucleic core.

Not tonight.

Tonight is about celebrating small victories in the battle against such manically senseless mind games.

Another week’s worth of daily posts. Six straight days of exercise and mostly sensible meals. Numerous beneficial base touches with a friend that help keep me on track. Quick and clear annual mammogram. Cards mailed to my mother on-time for her 75th birthday. Enjoyable family time. A plethora of positively grown-up behaviors.

And so, I honor my achievements mightily with a cleansing sigh, self-assuring internal pat-on-the-back, and sleepy yawn.

Peace.

After a brief argument between my two dueling selves, I got out of bed at 5:45 a.m., exercised for 30 minutes, got the kids up, made breakfast, got ready for work, made it to work, attended meetings, went to the gym over lunch hour and exercised for 35 more minutes, dashed over to car wash to get Hitchcock-style Birds attack of poo off of my Sachi, raced to another meeting only to learn it is tomorrow, headed back to work, finished out the day a little late because I got into a conversation about how important mammograms can be, picked up the kids, and made the executive decision to celebrate our daughter’s long day of mandated public school testing by getting some free pancakes in celebration of National Pancake Day.

I rarely, if ever, use these post to list out my boring-ass litany of daily activities. Don’t worry – I do have a reason.

While celebrating our free pancakes, we were given an opportunity to donate money towards Shriners Hospitals. While they do amazing work around the country for our kids who have been victims of fire as well as those needing orthopedic care, I got them confused in my head with the Scottish Rite Hospital where I have a had more than one friend with children be treated.

Sitting with my two healthy (albeit quarrelsome-of-late) kiddos, I was smacked in the face with blessed gratitude for never having yet needed either of these two worthwhile organizations.

We donated anyway even though I thought I was helping the institution that helped my friends’ kids. I may bitch about how tired I get from working two full time jobs – one 40 hours a week and the other 24/7. I may whine and require a bit of vegging out while composing angsta-poems. I may even feel sorry for my incredibly blessed lot in life on occasion.

However, just the thought of the families connected to both of these hospitals and others, makes it pretty damn impossible to think my day was anything but a gift I am honored to live.