The other day while the sitter watched the babies, I picked our oldest up from Kindergarten.

I had the dog and her Frisbee with me so we stopped at the park on our way home from school. While he amused himself by climbing on then jumping off the four foot perimeter walls and throwing rocks through the holes in the chain link fencing, I took the dog over to the adjacent ball diamond for a game of "disc".

When she was sufficiently tuckered I walked back over to the play area to find the six year old picking dandelions and making wishes. Do you remember doing that? Anyway, he didn't see me so I snuck up behind him to listen. Eavesdrop, I guess. This is what I heard as he blew the dandelion puffs out into the world.

"I wish my mom was nice to me every day."

Yeah. Ouch. And so close to Mother's Day too. What is that old saying? Something about "outta the mouths of babes"?

Well, after I pulled the knife from deep between my shoulder blades, I realized that he is right. How many times have I told my son I couldn't play Candy Land because I was cleaning the kitchen/loading the dishwasher/folding the laundry/checking my email? How many times have I "tuned out" while he was explaining the intricate details of his latest LEGO invention?

I am a mom now. So I'm not always nice. I can't afford to be. I'm outnumbered, I know this, and showing weakness could lead to an uprising. Stomp around and holler every once in awhile and maybe the offspring won't notice the child to parent ratio is 3:1.

Every day I seem to check off less and less from my "To Do" list. I'll admit, it causes me stress. I hate doing a load (or two) of laundry every single day but if I don't, I end up with a day long clothes cleansing marathon that leaves the smell of Tide in my olfactory system for days afterward.

Around here, I am the Laundry Fairy. It's not that my dear spouse can't do the washing; it's that he is not allowed to. Once, years ago, he washed a load of clothes all by himself.

And he left them in the washer, forgotten and drying into a ring of tangled fabric. For days. Upon discovering this laundering misstep, he did not (as I would've done) re-wash said clothes. No, he simply pried them, en masse, from the washer drum and tossed them, only mildly damp and smelling faintly of mold, into the dryer. You've heard of "permanent press"?

Well, we had "perma-wrinkle". And it was weeks before my washing machine stopped stinking like a gym shower. Laundry privileges suspended.

(Of course, while he must not touch the laundry, I am not allowed to come near the grill after an incident in which I used dryer lint as kindling to start the coals. We dined on steaks that tasted of Bounce sheets that evening. It will NOT be the next epicurean trend, I can assure you.)

It's not that The Husband is not helpful. He is. He was more than helpful when we put all these young-uns together and he still chips in all the time. He comes home from work early, goes into work late, and more importantly he stops at the liquor store for wine.

But I am the mom. So most of the domestic stuff falls (loudly and heavily, it seems) at my feet. (Feet which have not been professionally pedicured in months but that is another story.)

Somehow, I must find balance between my "duties" as the stay-at-homer and my love for just spending time with my children. It breaks my heart to think that someday my son may look back on his childhood with me and believe he was less important than empty laundry baskets or a sparkling kitchen.

Will my son remember how clean the kitchen was when he grows up? Or will he remember that his Mama played some killer Candy Land? The choice is mine.

And I think it's time to play.