"It's hard to be a mom...isn't it?"

This is the question that my 7 year old asked me this morning.  Let me give you a preface to what brought up this question.  Last night my two boys had fevers, so we sent them to bed on medicine.  My oldest daughter also went to bed with meds because of a cough and constant runny nose.  I knew it would be a rough night. At 2 a.m. my 2 year old woke up crying and was burning hot, so I went to get him medicine again and he gagged  on it, which brought up the recent bottle of milk he drank.  He screamed when I threw him in the tub calling for daddy the whole time.  (Daddy of course, cannot stand the thought of throw-up, so he stayed in bed.)  After rinsing off the toddler, I threw him in bed next to dad so I could deal with the bedding. Rinsed it off...put it in the washing machine...put clean bedding on the crib.  Put the 2 year old back to sleep after finally getting him to take a chewable medicine.  The second I walked back into our bedroom, the newborn wakes up wanting to eat.  After feeding her, I was finally able to lay back down and go to sleep. (Oh, yeah, and while my 2 year old was screaming in the tub, he woke up his 5 year old sister who wanted to see what the hub-ub was all about.  Luckily she went back to bed pretty easily.)  I was awakened again at 6:30 a.m. when that newborn wanted to eat again.  While feeding the little one, the 5 year old came in and got in my bed since, daddy was on his way out the door for work.  I laid back down again still tired, then heard the 2 year old at 7:30 a.m...got him a drink, then laid back down and pushed snooze on the already going off alarm.  I finally sat up when I heard the 7 year old awake.  I asked him to come in so we could check his fever...102.  Lovely. He's not going to school today. So, I'm going back to sleep. Ya right. Everyone started waking up. 7 year old-102 degree fever, 5 year old- runny nose so bad she says a lot of 'b's, 2 year old--crying and back to a 100 degree fever again, newborn--ready to be awake, eat, and please don't put me down!  So, I get breakfast for those who feel good enough to eat, then try to put a load of laundry in.  This is when my 7 year old looks at me and says "It's hard to be a mom...isn't it?"    Yes.  Yes it is.  But, then his next act made it all o.k.  I took the empty hamper downstairs to get the load out of the dryer, to make the switch over.  While I'm carrying the baby and hamper down into the laundry room, my 7 year old grabs his 5 year old sister and says "Come on, let's take this down."  They, together bring the next load down the stairs for me and bring it to the laundry room.  I look at them and he says, "we didn't want you to do ALL the work mom."  How much do I love these kids?  More than they will ever know.  Is it hard being their mom...YES, but it is SOOOOOO worth it.  I wouldn't change today for anything.