Even the best moms...

My sister is a great mom! She has wanted to be a mom since she was a little girl, and she fully embraces her role as mommy to my adorable nephew, age 2.

Not only is she a great mom, but she's also a wife, a Ph.D. student, a preschool teacher, a published and sought-after speaker for student and women's minisries, and a listening ear for hundreds of college students to whom she and her husband minister on a college campus in Texas. Whew!

I often wonder how she gets everything done in a day that's required or expected of her, especially when I can't accomplish the far-shorter list of "to-do's" expected of me. So, I was delighted, entertained and so grateful for the following email I received from her the other day for my birthday.

my house is a wreck
the backyard is up to my knees
i have two 30 page papers due by June 10th
and my inlaws are coming on thursday for eight days....

my cell phone isn't charged
my friends keep complaining that they never get in touch with me
and my co-teacher will be out this Friday

i have 10 scrapbooks to complete
along with mothers' day gifts that aren't yet finished
and mother's day was two weeks ago...
Drew's birthday gift is still sitting in the guest room
and my little guy doesn't want to take a nap

Hubby's birthday gift was a new tv
because the tube went out in ours
and the new tv is so big i need to rearrange
all the furniture in our bedroom

the dishes have been clean for 2 days in the dishwasher
so imagine what my sink looks like
i need to go now because my child is
screaming my name over and over in the next room...

Do you ever get tired of hearing, mama mama mama mama
am i a bad mother for wanting to put in ear plugs
needless to say, i haven't bought a birthday present for you yet,
but this email was rather therapeutic, I must say

It seems that each day, one of God's precious gifts to me is the realization that I am certainly not alone in this preschool parenting stage and that even the best moms sometimes just have one of those days!