Child #4 sets off on a class trip to Germany on Tuesday, June 3, with my husband serving as one of the chaperones. Before he leaves, my husband says, “What are you going to do while we’re gone?” Implied in his tone is the idea that I will have a ton of free time on my hands, which is so far from the truth that I laugh out loud. Free time? What is that? Instead, I say, “I’m still teaching, and I have a full list of things on my agenda.”

That full list waxes and wanes as I finish some tasks and cross them off, add others, or move some of the unfinished items from one day’s list to the next. And while I truly believe my list will mostly cover my personal jobs or projects or tasks—after all, I am the only one of the six of us who is home—it turns out that I am very, very wrong.

A few days after the pair leaves, I receive a message from child #1 involving her car. Her plan? To drive home (she lives a little over an hour away from us), and drop off the Civic at our usual mechanic to get it’s AC tuned, and can I please pick her up from the mechanic? She arranged a way to get back to her own place, so all I need to do is drive ten minutes, grab her, and then drive ten minutes home.

So onto the list child #1 and the car go. But then the car cannot be fixed by place #1, and I have to ask a friend to drop me off at the mechanic before making an appointment at place #2 and finding a spot in our driveway for child #1’s car until said appointment. Several days later, another friend and I drop it off at place #2, and let me say this: that child and the car—so many spots on the list!

After that, child #4 wants me to sign her up for the August SAT. Sure, it could wait until she is back stateside, but I find out that her preferred test date is already full, and unless we want to drive thirty miles on test day, she’ll need to choose a different date. Who knows what might happen before she gets back; maybe the second date will fill too. Thankfully, I sign her up with only a few small back-and-forth texts and one minor hiccup.

Who’s next, you ask? Child #2, whose leopard gecko (Pilot) we’ve been housing since May 2024. We love having Pilot here, but having him here means we need to take care of him, correct? And having a leopard gecko means we need to worry about his habitat. Is it too cold? Too hot? Too humid? All of the above? We’ve tried to give him the best space we can, but Ohio summers can be brutal, and wouldn’t you know it? One of his bulbs (the heat lamp) decides to stop working. Then it’s too humid on the cool side of the tank. Fast forward through some research and a few texts, and I add several items to my list: find a small dehumidifier, get a new heat lamp bulb, consider AC for the room. I buy all three, only to find out the bulb isn’t the problem—the unit itself is—and here I am, several days later, and I still have to put together the AC, return the bulb, and get a new unit.

Let me stop to tell you that while I’m doing all these things for people WHO AREN’T CURRENTLY PHYSICALLY IN MY HOME, I’m also taking care of the other pets, my own life, laundry, weeds, cat litters, etc. My days are full, and I’m tired by the evening time. Which means I’m still going to bed early.

And so, when child #3 needs something, of course it’s after I’m in bed, ASLEEP, and his text wakes me up. And because I love my child, and the animals have already been a pain in the neck all night, I get out of bed and do as he asks—go to the basement and check and see if the computer there is on. It’s not because that morning, the power went out for a brief time, and so I do as he says: I press the on button because “the rest should set itself up.” I trudge back to bed, slide into the cool sheets, cover myself, and sigh, hoping sleep soon washes over me. Then another text comes in from child #3: “If you have time could you potentially use a mouse and keyboard to open the teamviewer application on the PC and send me a picture of the application once it opens. If not, that’s fine.”

Reader, I think about doing it! This is my child, asking for what he needs! Shouldn’t I get out of bed? Shouldn’t I go back to the basement and do as he asks? My fatigue-addled brain wavers for a brief moment until I quickly realize that child #3 doesn’t need to be on the server at that time. It’s not for school or a job. He’s just playing around with friends, and I do not, as mom, have to do everything on everyone else’s timelines. So I don’t (but offer to help in the morning).

This post is not a lament. I’m happy to help my people when and if I can, and I know that they’d help me too. This experience reaffirms, once again, that mothering is a 24/7 job. (As if I could ever forget!)

Image of planner, computer, and list by Marissa Grootes on Unsplash.com.