There is a quiet moment in my day when the breakfast dishes are put away, the kids have been dropped at school, I’ve swept the dirt from the twenty-feet surrounding the mat with the shoes the kids SWEAR they haven’t stepped off of where I would like to write with my finger in the dust, “My Kids Did This.” Note: Not a spec of dirt on the mat. How is that possible?

Quiet.

I make a cup of tea, maybe I put away some laundry, sometimes I google, “skinless, boneless, chicken recipes” (okay, I always google, “skinless, boneless, chicken recipes”) and I take a deep breath.

And then in a snap, I’m making snacks for after school, packing swimming bags, charging ipods for kids to take to the pool to watch their sister(s) practice, searching for the green pencil case with the skinny markers, not the blue pencil case with the vertically-challenged markers, thawing something to eat later, slicing something to eat now, packing spare pants for Chloe because who knows what new stain or hole she may have created at school (yesterday’s was just good-old-fashioned dirt), “It’s dirt Mom.” From where? “Um, the dirt.”

I pay a bill, I look at paint samples and tile for the shed, I pick up the mail, stir something on the stove, wash, dry and fold more laundry, clean the spill inside the crisper drawer in the fridge that I would like to use another finger to write, “The Ghost of Fridges Past Did This,” I vacuum the van and then turn the hose toward the dried dirt from my pants that has successfully transferred from the sliding door, I make three kinds of sauces for two kinds of noodles for three picky children, drink more tea, google more chicken, stir, sweep, fold, wash, weed, whisk, lather, rinse, repeat.

What happened to my lull?