Making the Tough Choices

“Mom, will you play a game with me?”

The voice was muffled from his distance outside my bedroom and the sleep still clouding my ears. I slowly rolled over and checked the clock: ten minutes until my alarm would go off. I think I grunted in response but my feet found the cool hardwood floor anyway and I padded my way into the brightly lit living room.

There were two stacks of Doc McStuffins UNO cards dealt out and a disarray of memory tiles scattered on the ottoman.

“Either one, okay? Memory or UNO… I’ll let you pick.”

It was 6:15 in the morning. The coffee wasn’t even made yet and the dog’s tail was still thumping against the side of her kennel, ready to be let out into the brisk pre-sunrise air.

Every inch of me wanted to revolt. UNO in the morning? Memory before coffee? Every. Single. Piece of me thought it was a terrible idea. But I stared down at my five year old’s smiling face, his hair mussed, his batman pajamas all crooked and slept in. I stared down at him and realized this was the moment I’d think back on all day.

I had a choice to make. I had a big, humongous, life-altering choice to make and you know what? I think I made the right one. I let the dog out. I made coffee. I took a shower and got dressed. I slapped make up on at a rate of speed heretofore unknown to womankind.

And then I sat down with my first cup of coffee and I played UNO. And then I played Memory.

Both.

See, every day in my life is a mess of choices. It’s a long list of decisions on what comes first: work, life, love, family. Every single day is a choice between who and what should come first or take priority. And there’s just never enough time in the day for everything… or so I like to think. But this morning, I drank my coffee while J, drunk with joy, beat me in both UNO and Memory and I didn’t let him win. We were still out the door by 7:45, only fifteen minutes later than normal. This morning, I managed to make it all come together perfectly… mothering, working, LIFE. I was fist-bumping myself all over the place because dammit, I MADE IT WORK. Single parenting? Excelling. Working mother? BEAST MODE.

And then I dropped J off at school and, with a smile on my face, made my way into work.

Where I realized I had on awkwardly mismatched clothes.