Today, it’s great to just be Mom

Today, on this day in history, I pick up the morning newspaper and read that the United States may soon be dropping bombs on Iran and that all Americans, no matter their education, income, gender or race, are at risk of receiving poor-quality health care. Today, I see that our local school district has been called into question for cheating on achievement tests and that the national debt has reached $9 trillion.

Today, I am aware that the avian flu has killed 100 people in seven countries since 2003 and that scientists continue to fear a global pandemic.

I know that some members of Congress are calling for the official censuring of our president for authorizing the wiretapping of U.S. citizens without a warrant.

I am aware that many New Orleans residents are still displaced seven months after Hurricane Katrina, including my sister who is living in Memphis in a donated RV camper the size of a Bob Evans bathroom.

Today, thankfully, I am most fully aware of my 13-year-old daughter.

Prominent in this child’s mind today is baking.

Specifically, she plans to spend the afternoon measuring, stirring and wreaking havoc all over her best friend’s kitchen so they can present a batch of homemade chocolate-chip cookies to their favorite teacher for his birthday tomorrow. Today, I can expect my generous-of-spirit, but very messy daughter to come home with cookie dough clinging to the soccer sweatshirt she never takes off and, possibly even, to the Pippi Longstocking pigtails she likes to wear these days.

Today, I am fully aware of my 17-year-old son.

A busy, involved teenager, he will more than likely fly in the door at half past five and ask the most important question of his day: “What’s for dinner?”

He will be very hungry as he will have just played two hours of tennis for his high school team, after which he will go back to school for a meeting to help decide on the junior class’ community service project, but not before eating half a pot of spaghetti.

“Is there anything else to eat?” he will ask before he flies back out the door.

Today, I am fully aware of my 8-year-old son.

The littlest person in our family who would like nothing more than to be big, he came beaming to me this morning because he had gotten himself ready for school, his room cleaned and his breakfast things put away half an hour faster than usual.

As a reward for good behavior and the fact that we now had extra time, I offered to challenge him in his favorite board game of the moment, not once, but twice, before walking him around the corner to school.

“Remember who lives in your heart,” I said to him, part of our daily ritual.

“I know: you and God and Dad and our whole family,” he said.

And he disappeared into the milk-scented halls of Walls Elementary School, where yesterday, he told me, he learned about the migratory patterns of robins.

My friends who don’t have children don’t quite understand when I say children keep me from going crazy.

From the outside looking in, children appear to provide their caregivers with sleep deprivation, money woes, big messes and a touch of insanity.

I know something different.

When my own mother died a tragic death last year, there were occasional moments when I didn’t have the energy to be a mother.

Most of the time in those tender days after we buried her, that was all I wanted to be.

Children set us on the here and now, even in those darkest moments of the soul when the here and now seems to disappear out of focus.

I think of the poster children for world hunger, children who are often starving and playing at the same time. Anne Frank, aware that the Nazis could come any minute, wrote about her hair and whether she should kiss her boyfriend or not.

Children keep going. They keep us going. They keep us grounded in the immediacy of right here, right now, even as our own small worlds become increasingly global and we are overwhelmed, lost inside thoughts of what we are and who we are becoming and whether we are ever doing enough.

Certainly, we must do our part against the injustices of the world. We must take up arms against bad politics. We must care about many people and many things. We must become part of the solution, or risk becoming part of the problem, so the saying goes.

There is also something to be had right here. Here on this borrowed speck of Earth, I can kiss the cheeks of sunshine good-night every night and know that right here, in this place, in this moment, all is well.