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Today. Total insanity.

Here was my life: Wake up at 5 a.m. to meet friend at the gym at 6. Run for an hour (must exercise! I'm only working out four days a week or so, every day has to count!). Shower and dress for work. Get my coffee (yeah, this is a luxury: I drive a mile out of my way to a certain coffee shop that makes the best espresso around...I guess I feel like I deserve it). Go to work. Go to 9 a.m. meeting at another work site with a team I don't know very well. Go to a 10 a.m. offsite with another team I don't know well. Leave first offsite early to drive into Seattle for a second offsite. (Stop and get second cup of well-earned coffee). Insist that offsite end on time - 5 p.m. - because I have a 45-minute drive back to the eastside to pick up one of my children from daycare. Fight rush-hour traffic and a car accident in front of the daycare center to get to my son on time. Pick up my daughter from her friend's house. Go home. Make dinner (broiled salmon, rice, green beans). Put up a load of laundry. Pay bills online. Call friends - I forgot tomorrow is Good Friday and therefore my kids don't have school or daycare. But I still have to work! At least no school means no need to help my son with his homework.

As I was driving home from Seattle, I was already exhausted. So exhausted I didn't even want to lift my hand off the steering wheel to change the radio station - even when I went into a tunnel and only could hear static. I did not know how I was going to make it through the evening.

But something happened when I pulled in my driveway. Despite not getting a third cup of coffee (can't have it after 5 p.m. and still sleep well), I was suddenly awake and alert. I switched from tired software developer to bright and cheery Mommy, engaging with my kids about their days, cooking dinner, doing my chores. I even found the energy to go into the garage and clean out my total pit of a car.

I don't know what it is, but for me, because my time with the family is so limited during the week, my body kicks it into overtime and lets me finish out the day right - not flopped on the couch in front of the TV, but doing the right things to keep my household running and parent my children. And I'm so thankful for that ability: my house would be a total mess otherwise, and my kids would be eating potato chips and cookies for dinner.

I think it's that it's so important to me to be a good mother, despite the fact that I have a demanding job. I refuse to allow one role to consume the other: I won't be just physically present at home and work, but instead I must be engaged, participating, contributing. And fortunately, it's a different part of my brain that has to be "on" when I'm at home versus work. At work, it's all my critical-thinking skills; it's technical knowledge and written communications. At home, it's love and cuddles and fairly mindless chores like preparing dinner and doing the dishes.

But let me tell you, as soon as the kids are asleep and the house is picked up and my clothes are chosen for tomorrow and my head can finally hit the pillow, I am out like a light - to sleep deeply for six or seven hours until it's time to get up and do it all over again.

Thank goodness I'm taking a vacation next week!