Motherhood 101

While waking my trying-to-be-college-bound senior this morning, a feeble voice pleaded,"Mom, I fell asleep writing my essay last night (the essay for an overdue college application), and I need for you to proof it. Can I please stay home and finish?"
"No!" I replied defiantly, "I have to be somewhere by 8:30 ,and your not going to school means I become the carpool driver which means I can't be where I need to be on time ! You cannot miss APChemistry which means you have to be at school by noon which means I'll have to be proofreader now which doubly makes me not be anywhere anytime this morning!" How dare my son mess with my busy schedule like this?
Flashback...18 years...I am able to hold this 5A -Conference- Championship -football -lineman -West Point -wannabe in my arms. It's a quiet morning in the perfectly- planned, meticulously -matching nursery, and I am changing the day's first diaper of my beautiful son, when, suddenly without warning ,comes projectile diarrhea all over his hand-sewn bumper pad... and beyond. How dare this baby mess with my pristine setting?
After months of waiting and organization, the very one for whom the room was prepared becomes the one who is extremely inconvenient!
Ring the bell: Motherhood 101 is in session.
I am now rounding the bend of this Mom-Race preparing to sprint the final 200 meters. Somehow, between carpooling and essay editing, I am able to pause for perspective.:
1.) Editing a college application essay is better than cleaning projectile diarrhea from the nursery.
2.) I haven't yet graduated from Mom class.
3.) He's still here.