Salute to a Mom-a-holic

21 children live on our street in Suburbia, MD. They range in age from 2 1/2 to 12. Seven of them are girls. At least once a day, when I hear the sounds of children playing outside (as they should be) I thank God that I live where I do. I feel comfortable saying without a doubt that all of the moms on my street, whether they work outside the home or spend their days kissing boo-boos or shuffling kids from school to soccer practice, to baseball games, are amazing. The love they each have for their kids and families is written on every hard-earned laugh line.

This post is about one in particular, who has a seemingly never-ending supply of love and energy for her kids. She has 3, and didn't always do the stay-at-home mom thing. She didn't decide to leave corporate America until after her third child was about 6 months old. Her youngest is just a couple of months younger than my oldest.

Yesterday, at a birthday party for one of the boys on the street, my husband saw her sound asleep on a couch. The party was at the Jump Zone, one of those very popular inflatable party places. About 20 kids were running around, screaming, jumping, and sweating in one of five huge moon bounces and there is my neighbor, crashed in sheer exhaustion on a sofa in the supervisor zone of the play arena.

We giggled, and pointed her out to othe grown-ups at the party.

Then we heard that in the previous 24 hours, she'd been to swim practice for the summer neighborhood swim league one which all three of her kids swim; a soccer game for her eldest; the first meet of the season, which required her to rise at about 6:30 AM to make sure the family was up and ready to get to the pool on time and to help with set-up of refreshments; and she probably even made time for a 3ish mile run.

This mom is amazing. She dedicates about 45 minutes a week to EACH of her children's classrooms, volunteers for PTA events, serves as room mom for her youngest child's K class, makes decorations and Halloween costumes that most people would opt to buy, and still finds time to hit the gym's boot camp three days a week and run in various races just for fun.

Yes, she makes the time to support her kids and family and do what's important to her. But she never acts like she's super human or any different than any other mom who loves her kids. Seeing her asleep on the couch with no worries of who would see her was just proof of how down to earth and fantastic she is.

So here's just one busy mom of three on my street who lends a hand without expecting anything in return and is an example of how to keep life real.