Eight o’clock rolls around and the house finally starts to sound like it’s winding down, but my brain hasn’t gotten the memo. I look at my Fitbit like it personally betrayed me, because somehow it still says zero steps. Zero. As if I haven’t walked this house from one end to the other all day long. Up and down the stairs multiple times to check on C and to get to my office. As if I haven’t bent, lifted, cleaned, reached, stretched, and hustled. As if motherhood doesn’t count as movement unless it happens on a treadmill.
I tap it like that’s going to change anything. It doesn’t. It just stares back at me like, “Try again tomorrow.”
So I start pacing. Not because I’m trying to be cute, but because I’m trying to get something — anything — to register. I walk in place. I march in the hallway. I do those little side steps that make me look like I’m warming up for a Zumba class I’m not actually going to. I do chair exercises because sometimes that’s all my body has left. And you know what? It counts. It all counts. Every step, every wiggle, every stretch, every breath.
Because April 1st is coming, and with it the start of this weight‑loss journey I’ve been putting off, planning for, praying over. One hundred and fifty pounds feels like a mountain, but mountains are climbed one step at a time — even if the Fitbit refuses to acknowledge them.
While I’m doing my little “please count this” routine, C is in his room streaming. You can hear him through the walls — laughing, teaching, talking, running his world the way only he can. He’s got clients, viewers, people who look up to him, people who learn from him. He’s building something in there, something real, something that makes me proud even when I don’t understand half the words coming out of his mouth.
Every now and then he yells something — not angry, just C being C — and I yell something back, and that’s how we communicate. Loud families are alive families. Loud families are loving families. Loud families are real families.
David is in the living room, finally sitting down after carrying the whole house on his back since he walked through the door. The TV is on something loud enough to drown out the noise in his head but not loud enough to interrupt mine. The dogs are curled up like they’ve run a marathon even though they’ve done nothing but bark at shadows all day. And the house feels… settled. Not quiet. Not calm. But settled in that way only families understand.
And me? I’m working. Still. Because the day doesn’t end just because the sun went down. I’m doing Swagbucks. I’m doing games. I’m answering messages. I’m planning tomorrow’s posts. I’m trying to earn a little extra because every dollar matters. I’m trying to keep up with the things that keep us afloat.
This is the part of the day nobody sees — the late‑night hustle, the tired‑but‑still‑going energy, the “just one more thing” that turns into five. This is the part where moms push through even when their bodies are begging them to sit down. This is the part where the world gets quiet enough for the thoughts we didn’t have time for earlier.
By ten o’clock, I’m tired in the way only moms understand — the kind of tired that sits in your bones. But I’m also proud. Proud that I showed up. Proud that I worked. Proud that I kept the house moving. Proud that I didn’t give up on myself even when the day tried to swallow me whole.
And that’s the truth of our nights. Not glamorous. Not peaceful. Not perfect. But real. And real is enough.
Which is what kept the circle unbroken and this circus and these Monkeys in line.
Thank you,
Glenda, Charlie and David Cates
