[real-life chronicle of a student mother]

I am balancing between breakfast and lunch. I notice that the child starts to get restless. When I focus, I start a dive and enter the tunnel of the concentration wave… bam !: Mommy, I’m hungry!

Ahhhhhh !!!!! No!!!!!!

Cookie, a fruit not to weigh on the conscience. Let’s go again. The climb begins: I put on my boots of disposition, I wear the backpack of availability, I peak the mountain of research with the tip of my pick of perseverance and bam!!!: Mommy, I want to pee!

Ahhh, you know how to do it yourself! Remember?!

The child goes to the bathroom. I’m already a big guy, he says, but he often forgets. He comes back, I still float on the surface of a sea that I really would like to enter. But I can not. I’m drifting, I’m lurking. The noise of the music on the cell phone irritates my thoughts. This program may not be appropriate for your age. No, the little tiger will not release the bone.

I take a deep breath, watch the time. The deadline flashes in my mind. Balance researcher student mother. There is an idea, I know there is. It is there, somewhere in my mind. I try to catch it with a butterfly catcher. Words fail me. The little song, the jumps, the screams, the idea, the drain, everything going away.

Mom!

It’s nothing, he just wants to take my concentration. But so what? I stand here paralyzed watching it fly away. I wanted that idea …

I spy the window, cloudy, cold, good, I can’t wash clothes, I have nowhere to dry, everyone at home, nobody needs clothes; that idea, the deadline, the comparative analysis, the bibliographical references!

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lunch time. Research: what do we have in the fridge? I haven’t been there yet: there is a child climbing on my legs to sit on my lap and stand in front of the computer pressing the keys, erasing what I wrote, opening the developer screen… ahhhh !!!!!!!!!!!!

Image Credits: Competition Strategy

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