Being a mother is a thankless job. Please don't misread what I am saying, because there is truly nothing better than a hug from your nearly two year old and a big sloppy kiss and "luvvvvv youuuuuu tooooo." But, I am assuming that love runs pretty thin in the teenage years, and there is no one there to pat you on the back every day and tell you you did a good job. Which is why I think there should be medals for motherhood. Lots of them. Here are a few I think I should receive for my work over the past couple of weeks:

1. The 'I Successfully Did A Full Week Of Grocery Shopping With Two Kids Under Two' Medal. Seriously, people--this is an accomplishment! One kid in the cart, one kid strapped to me in the Ergo. No joke, I was proud of me. You should be too!

2. The 'I Persevered And Wrote This Blog Over Two Days' Medal. I think I wrote three sentences at a time before Little Lady would wake up and need me.

3. The 'I Have Taken A Shower Each Of The Last Fifteen Days' Medal. Little Lady is fifteen days old (how the hell that happened is beyond me!) and I have been clean for all of them. I'm sure that will be changing when The Hubbs returns to work next week (thank you Irene for blessing us with no loss of power and for keeping my husband home for another week...), so I want to collect my medal now before I turn into a dirty, vomit and breast milk covered mess.

4. The 'I Will Not Sleep Through The Night For God Knows How Long' Medal. Actually, I think this warrants a medal for every night that I don't sleep through the night. Which, I'm guessing, is going to amount to a lot of medals.

5. The 'I Successfully Disciplined My Toddler For Climbing On The Kitchen Table/Touching The TV/Generally Not Listening In Toddler Fashion While Simultaneously Keeping My Infant Latched On' Medal. This is a skill. You should try it, I'm not kidding.

6. The 'I Am Sustaining An Entire Other Life Besides My Own 24-Hours A Day, Seven Days A Week' Medal. Yeah, yeah...I know I heart breastfeeding (at some point to be a blog of its own) and la-di-da for me--but seriously, I still consider this an amazing miracle. A medal-worthy miracle.

When I started this blog, I wanted to have a list of Ten Medal-worthy accomplishments, hence the title. But that was two days ago. And I am tired. And Little Lady just vomited her entire stomach contents all over herself in bed and I had to change her pajamas and her swaddle and I just don't have the will power to go on.

But if you know a mom (and who doesn't??), especially a mom with little kids--tell her she is doing a good job. It will make her day. And what have you done this week that is medal worthy?