Mom. Wife. Military Life.

My husband has been gone for a good chunk of time now. The kids and I are finally finding our groove, running to the commissary, BX, beach, pool, anywhere with an AC or water to get in. Yesterday we packed up after running errands and headed to the pool. After lathering everyone in SPF 1000000, I hoped in, lined my three up on the side of the pool and stood there as they all took turns using me as a floatation device to swim back and forth to the wall. As I stood there juggling all 3 of them like a professional circus clown, I realized I wasn’t a one woman act.

I looked out to my left and saw a mom with 4 kids. One in arm floats, 3 swimming, all under age 8. She was a boss. I think I have my groove down pretty well with my 3 and she made me look like amateur hour. She was the ring leader, the mom you look at and think, she’s got this down. They were well behaved, she was patient, and the woman made it look easy.  I have seen this mom at school drop off before, and she just oozes “cool, calm and confident”. She’s the mom that doesn’t have to wear a lick of makeup and still looks absolutely put together in her comfy clothes. She’s awesome. The best part yet, if you told her all of that, she would have absolutely no idea that is how she comes across because she is just doing her mom-thing.

To my right I had a mom with 2 kids 3 years apart… Im assuming 5 and 2 because she said her son was starting kindergarten. This mom was the queen of the balancing act. She had one baby old enough to swim freely and she had one baby that was still figuring out the water. She was stuck in the middle of both. You could tell her life was the same way. Her kids slowly crept down the wall with every jump coming down closer to where my kids were jumping in. We ended up having a short conversation about how her husband was deployed, and the thought of having a third kid. She was wanting more but her husband wasn’t sure. She was just in the moment juggling life, and I appreciated seeing the optimism in her eyes.

I saw the tiger taming moms, you know the ones with the wild children. They know the exact look or word to say to make their kids get it together in an instant.

The showgirl moms, who’s kids are old enough that they have had the time to get their body back in shape. They can lay out lazily and watch their kids from a distance because they are old enough to handle themselves. They watch all of us more junior moms and think “I see you, I have been there, and you will be here soon enough… we all pay our dues”.

You have the anxious audience moms. The moms who are sitting and lurking on the edge of the pool. The kids don’t swim, they are in floats, hats, sunglasses, swim shirts, white as ghosts from the 10 layers of sunscreen that have been applied. The pool is to deep for anyone but adults to touch and mom knows that this trip to the pool is an uphill battle. She also usually just has one child. Your doing what you think is best momma, and I applaud you even making the effort, it doesn’t go unrecognized.

The thing is, we are all living life in this circus. We all have our own act we are performing. Some can recognized (or sympathize) the acts in the moment. The fact is we are all out there doing one thing and one thing only, we are doing what is best for our family to get through. We are tough. We are getting through the end of summer break, we are getting through TDYs, we are getting through deployments, we are just getting through the day some days, but guess what? We. Are. Getting. Through. Embrace your circus. Grab some popcorn….and wine, and sit back and enjoy the show, appreciating all of its moving parts.