Being a stay-at-home mom is NOT a glamorous job. Our best days involve doing a series of repetiive and often icky jobs for a bunch of people who don’t appreciate us. (And who often wish we WEREN’T doing those jobs — who really wants to be washed behind their ears or to have to eat their peas?) Our successes are measured in accident-free trips to the potty and the number of days we’ve gone eithout either yelling at our darling children or having to cart anyone to the Emergency Room. And yet, what we do is pretty important, it’s just not always easy to see that part when we’re down in the trenches every day.

Last week, when we were visiting Disney, we were standing in line at “It’s a Small World”. It’s a water ride, and we were almost to the front of the line, so we were on a bridge-like walkway, elevated, with water all below us. It had been a long, hot day, and the kids were getting tired, and a little cranky. I caught a movement, out of the corner of my eye, and just as Liam used his future NFL quarterback arm to lob his favorite sippy cup over the edge, towards the water, I reached out and snatched it out of the air, without even having a good look at where I was reaching.

It was a good moment. Dan was impressed. I saved the hell out of that sippy cup. Tragedy was averted — no sippy cups were lost, no patrons splashed with ancient, icky ride water. It was a glorious moment in parenting.

I am a pro-fessional, and I am good at my job. Sometimes you have to take a moment and celebrate the little victories.