"Just a Mom"

My husband in a doctor. I'm not. In fact, I have a degree in English.  Whenever I am asked what I do, I instantly reply, "I'm just a mom." Sometimes I worry I am not enough. Sometimes I wonder what I am actually contributing to the world. I mean, my husband is saving kids with cancer for heaven sakes. I clean urine off the toilet seats. I do a great job at the urine cleaning and all...but it's not like I need a doctorate for it. But sometimes, just sometimes, my urine cleaning is put aside for just a moment. And something like this happens. 
I lay there in a king size bed. Smashed between two toddler bodies. One a boy. And one a 

girl.  It was late and dark. My four year old son lay on my right side. He quietly slid into silent slumber. I could hear his breathing slow, and then become almost inaudible. A sign of his passing into dreamland. My toddler girl, on the other hand lay to my left. She was uneasy. Perhaps hyper.  I was exhausted and couldn’t bear the thought of getting out of bed one more time. I tried all of my old tricks. Singing, scratching the back, whispering secrets in her ear. Nothing. Nothing worked. I finally decided to lay there. Still as can be. Maybe she would see that everyone was asleep and join her brother in his dreams. I lay beside her. Breathless. Pretending. She didn’t take the bait. She felt around in the dark for my familiar face. She reached her skinny, short, warm clammy arms around my neck. She squeezed my face next to her chest. I felt like I was being strangled just like a prey to a reticulated python…I knew every constricting snake, thanks to my years of reading disgusting bedtime stories to my now older boys. Even after years of trying to forget the disturbing snake images in children’s books, I could still see that reticulated python strangling it’s prey. I was now the prey. To a three year old little girl. But this time, it wasn’t disturbing. Not even at all. I struggled to breath in her death grip. I tried to breathe as quietly as possible. Her movements softened. Slowly. The adorable 3 year old python had it’s 38 year old tired, exhausted prey. The prey found herself to be unexplainably…happy. Perhaps even…joyful. I lay there in bed. Staring blankly at the dark ceiling. The python quietly slipped into slumber. Her grip still held my neck in firm choking stance. But that night, I lay there.  Strangely struggling to breathe. Completely at peace. Thinking that this moment, was worth a thousand bad ones. That at this one, little piece of time, I couldn’t have wanted to be anything…anything. But “just a mom.”