Hope you Have time to Read

I'm sitting at my desk between the family room and the kitchen, thinking, I don't have time to write this. I keep thinking I'll write as soon as things slow down. My life has been insane because we were moving. When the insanity of running between two homes stopped, I thought life would return to normal.
I forgot what normal was.
I've been waiting for a "regular" week. You know, a week without doctor appointments, birthdays, company coming, football games, orthodontist, dentist, dermatologist appointments.
You know the week, right? When no one needs a surprise physical for after school sports, when I don't have contractors coming to fix something, or coming for to give me an estimate for something new that needs fixing.
Okay, apparently, I don't either.
It's time to admit it, this is my normal.
Perhaps I'd get more done if I stopped expecting normal to be the exceptional week when there are no surprises. Surprises are the norm.
This week my youngest child turns thirteen.
This means, until Nov. 21 when my oldest daughter turns 20, I officially have four teenagers.
What right thinking mother of four teenagers think she gets a quiet day once in awhile?
Add to that a husband who works many late nights, so parenting is often a solo activity, even after 6 pm, a houseful of pets (three dogs, one with diarrhea who requires nocturnal outings every two hours) and menagerie of critters feathered and furry.
What imagined world did I think would allow me to have a quiet week? A week without vet appointments? A week without hatchings, emergency trips to Pet Smart because something has been out of food for a day or two and someone forgot to tell me?
Somehow, I thought my desire for peaceful days and restful nights meant, they were normal.
I need to adjust my normal to chaos and my exceptional experiences as the nights when I sleep through and days when I don't have to find a way to fit one more thing in before I can sit down.
I have as much time to write this as I have for hunting down the smoke detector that's beeping somewhere in the house. (Of course, it never beeps when I'm hunting it down).
The only problem with accepting this life I'm living as normal, is, it's exhausting.
It seems to offer me very little hope that things will slow down, and I want be insane, always.
My youngest child is only thirteen.
I still have a minimum of six years with a child at home and chaos reigns.
I need to pretend that a normal week, without crisis, without unexpected events, without that friggin smoke detector beeping, is a genuine potential I can achieve if I only catch up on the laundry and make all the dentist appointments in the same week -- or what's the point?
It's why Mom's move through life at a frenzied pace trying to juggle 36 hours of activity into a 24 hour day. It's because we have hope that the next day, will bring peace, if we can only get it all done today.
Hope.
Who would've thought, one little word could be responsible for so much activity.
For so much accomplishment.
For so much exhaustion.
Hope.
I don't know where Mom's would be without it.
Let alone how high my mountain of laundry would get, if I didn't have it.
It's the hope of finding the laundry room floor that keeps me washing, drying and folding.
It's certainly what keeps me walking around the house trying to find the beeping smoke detector. I've pinned it down to the upstairs. I might have to put up a tent in the hall for a night to pin point it further. Because we all know it won't go off again until 2 AM.
At least, I hope so.