Last night (and the night before) Laurel said to me as she went to bed, “I’m sorry if I come in.”  Sometimes she wakes up in the middle of the night with a bad dream and comes in our room.

“It’s okay,”  I told her.  “It’s in my job description.”

I probably should have looked the job description over a little more carefully before I signed on.  Not that I ever really looked over any job description;  I was usually just glad to have a job.

Like when I worked at the Baseball Hall of Fame, I think my job title was “Souvenir Girl” and that pretty much summed it up.  I sold souvenirs and tickets.  Maybe it specified that I wasn’t supposed to try to charge VIPs, like the time I was going to charge Bowie Kuhn admission, but I honestly never read through it.

But a Mom Job Description — whew!  There’s a good one that I’ve seen:  The Mom Job Description. (Click to see it.)

I actually think I could do it in five words.

and other duties as assigned

No matter how complete the list, it would still be incredibly incomplete.

I knew I would have sleepless nights.  I imagined they would end when my children slept through the night.  Not so.  It’s not always Laurel waking me up.  Sometimes I wake with a particular child on my mind and just pray for them.

Prayer is definitely somewhere in the job description.  Under communication — with doctors, teachers, waitresses, and God.  Yep.

Jacob getting a haircut a few years ago.

No one told me that when I became a mom, I would have to cut hair.  But I have cut the boys’ hair for years.  All my boys are now teenagers and beyond.  I tell them to get their haircut by somebody who knows what they’re doing.  And yet, what did I do the other day?  Cut Jacob’s hair.  And I still don’t know what I’m doing.

I knew when I became a mom that I would have to prepare meals.  I was okay with that because I know how to read recipes.  My creativity in the kitchen is pretty limited.  But did I ever imagine that I would have to triple or quadruple every recipe every written?  And kids think math skills aren’t that important…

And all those years of raising children are really just a warm-up for caring for parents, a job I’m now cowering from.  Other duties as assigned.

It doesn’t seem to get any easier.

And I just seem to get tireder.

But Laurel can still wake me up any night of the week.

It’s in my job description.