Chief of WHAT????

It's a big title for a mom who can barely keep her head above water most days.

Many of you have been wondering about my work, what I'm doing and how I'm coping being away from my sweet toddler girls who bicker and fight about everything under the sun -- including whether or not the sun is up or not.

I am working as a chief of staff for a local legislator.

And, from what I can tell after a mere two months on the job, it's a really good fit for the woman I have always been and the one I've become since becoming a mother.

The lens of the old me is much more filtered now ... many of the passions I had are now followed with a but, and a what if and why bother: and it always comes back to Jadyn and Liana or just plain being a mother in this generation.

There isn't an issue or a law or a complaint that comes along that doesn't fire me up about my love and appreciation for humanity. But I can't easily forget where I've come from just that morning -- wiping snot from one girl's nose just seconds after wiping diarrhea off her sister's butt. Life is good.

Motherhood -- parenthood -- is very humbling. My boss likes to tell me about the night he finished law school and was ready to celebrate -- only to arrive home to a floor covered in vomit, the result of his young son's cold.

There's no manual; no law book. There's no play-by-play for this parenting thing. It's a crapshoot, really, of every day trying to blend the new and exciting and joy with the mundane, frustrating and ready-to-move-out-of-this-phase phase. And I often -- meaning, several times a morning and a hundred times a night -- feel like I do not know what I'm doing, or why I chose to do it all in the first place.

And then they come along and look at me with their sweet eyes -- because they are starting to show those, now and then, -- and ask me a simple question, "My have that, Mommy?" And, they're starting to do little girl things like sit in front of my bathroom mirror and pretend to brush and fix their hair, and they love to fix my hair, too! And, they play some serious kitchen-play that includes lots of pretend hand washing. These are glimpses for me that there is light ahead, that I will be able to have fun as a mother -- some day.

It's still really hard to manage life with twins. And, it is because they are twins. We've struggled with much more fighting and bickering than previously. At my wits end, I found some research online and it's helping slightly. When they are playing well, it's very good. When they are not playing together and have selfish needs, it can be rather terrible and upsetting for me.

I miss them terribly when I'm at work, but I'm starting to find a balance - at least on the weekends -- that allows me to stay open and awake to them at certain times when not slaving in the kitchen or at the stores. There truly aren't enough hours in the day, dinner is ALWAYS a disaster and I now truly understand why more and more convenience foods are ending up on shelves despite the inconvenient cost.

There's no chief in my cap in the morning as I juggle the line between being woken up too early --well before dawn -- and tip toeing around, worried they will wake any second even though dawn has already arrived and yet I'm not able to get much done.

I'm not the boss of anyone as we make our way downstairs and bicker over what to eat for breakfast, which pants to wear and who will put on their socks, their shoes, their coats. There is no staff to help load the car with all the stuff, to help them realize we have to move along now or to race them to the car or to stop to look at a slug.

Mostly, I'm starting to find the cool groove of working while mothering, but I've been a very slow learner. VERY SLOW, in fact.

No, sir, there's no chief here.

Just a mom. And a very tired one at that.



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