I am really good at peeling oranges

You know the ones.  The cuties.

The little mandarins that are probably genetically modified (HORRORS) or bad for us in some way – please spare me – to be easier to peel for kids. Not my kiddos yet though.  They need me to peel them still.  AND SO I PEEL.

I peel and I peel and I peel til I bleed.  My blood runs orange.

I remember years ago watching my sister in law peel til she bled for her kids and she couldn’t peel fast enough.  She peels like the wind.  She’s the peeling champion of the world.  She peeled because her kids wanted more.  And she could provide.

I recently discovered that I too am really good at peeling oranges.

I’m not sure I’m really good at many things, but I’m really good at loving my kids. All encompassing, I would do anything, suffer any harm, leave no stone unturned love for my kids. I am really good at letting them know at all times that my love will never stop.  That though I may grow weary and though I may be in pain – pain that maybe even they inflicted on me – the love still continues.  Always.

It just so happens that part of that love is the peeling of oranges.  My fingers may grow calloused and my cuticles may crack.

Every so often I get to eat one of these oranges I peel with you and we all enjoy them together.  The moment of sweet, succulent, juicy abandon, together.

You feel the gratitude for the stupid oranges slapping over you like an ocean full of rind and citrus, you wallow in the life preserver that is your kids arms around you saying MORE MAMA YOU LIKE IT MAMA WE WANT MORE and so you peel.

Because that’s what it feels like to be a mom.

You go hard and you go fast with no thought to how you are weary or broke from all the oranges.  No thought to how many orange strings are in the wake behind our glorious slippery massacre.  You just do for your kids because the want it and you want for them.  Eventually you say, THAT’S ENOUGH YOU MONSTERS YOU ARE GOING TO DEPLETE THE NATION OF ORANGES IF YOU EAT ONE MORE but until then, you just. keep. peeling.

Because you are really good at peeling oranges.  Because you are really good at loving your kids.

This is part of ChicagoNow’s monthly blogapalooza, we were asked to write a post in one hour with the subject: “Without trying to be humble, write about something you’re really good at.”
Now you.  YOU TELL ME SOMETHING YOU ARE REALLY GOOD AT.  GO!

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