Where is Mom?

I woke up in the middle of the night and I was alarmed.   Mom wasn't there.   I thought about it, my husband had come to bed, so dad was there, but where was mom?  And then I thought about it.  Wait a minute, when was the last time mom had come to bed because I couldn't remember.   

Maybe she came to bed late, my husband did, but, no, I don't remember her coming to bed at all.   Which meant where was mom?   I started thinking more and I realized I didn't remember her around the house either.   The children's father, my husband, had been there and I was there, but where was mom?   I didn't remember her being there at all. 

I remembered my husband and me making the decisions and taking care of the children, but if we were doing that, where had mom gone to?   She was just gone.  And that wasn't right because I know the children didn't seem to be missing their mother. 

If this is all sounding confusing, it was to me too.   I had gotten mixed up in my head that my husband was the children's father, and my mother was my mother and somehow in the middle of the night I'm not sure what role in the family I fit into in my head, but my husband was "dad" and my mother was "mom" and she hadn't been around and no one seemed alarmed that mom just wasn't there.  

There was a strange sense of fear that no one had noticed this and no one was upset by it.   It was about this time that I realized my mother was *my* mother and not the children's and that is why she wasn't coming to bed because I was the mother and I was already there.  And as it always goes with dreams like this, I was very relieved. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son has been so kind to me lately.  I don't know what's going on, but he comes in and hugs me.  And not a little tap hug where he tries to keep the rest of his body away from me, but a real hug.   I don't know what changed, but it's nice. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter wanted me to get a recipe for her online yesterday for chocolate chip cookies.  I found a long article with the recipe at the bottom.  It explained all about why the different ingredients were in the recipe and how they made the cookies better or softer or why you needed to refrigerate the dough or have the butter melted and the eggs at the same temperature.   She read the whole thing and has been making the cookies with her father today.  they just came out of the oven and boy are they delicious.