Are there any other trees out there?

I say this to the other trees in the forest who will, or will not, hear me as I fall:

This mothering gig is by far the hardest, most soul-wearing, most 24/7 thing I have ever tried to do in my life. Skip the whole artistry thing of my youth, the doctoral studies gig, the career driven to excess thingy - this momma gig is a killer.

And after a full weekend of gardening, organic marketing, cooking, cleaning (bums, boys, household, dog), wagon horse rides, laundry, meal planning for the week, story reading, and little boy shoe shopping, I am ready to cry uncle and defeat... if it wasn't still almost my turn for nighttime stories after nursing Winston, I'd crawl into a hole and cry.

And Monday awaits. Monday with its get-the-boys-ready-for-the-day-before-I-head out-the-door-to-work list of things that need to get done (including call the plumber as the entire basement stinks of human waste due to some unfortunate incident with the basement washroom about which I still haven't heard the whole story) before 8 a.m. Oh yes - and I need to begin the nanny search yet again. Loving grandparents due to return to South Africa soon. Unless I tie the boys to Fan as a reasonable handrawn facsimile for childcare, we are all doomed. And as good as labradors are with kids, this may be asking a bit too much, even of sweet Fan.