Sweating the small stuff

I had an epiphany today - I never truly appreciated before my two little brats just how many decisions a mother makes. And I am not talking about the life changing, incredibly big decisions like "I am going to raise my children to be vegetarian" or the "I am going to send my children to a public/private/charter school" or even the "I will let my son wear pink and show the world that there is no shame there" kind of decisions. No. I am talking about the small(er?) ones which still consume and ultimately subsume us. The decisions like "Has Vinay outgrown this shirt so that his entire tummy shows or can I still get away with calling it a midriff showing t-shirt? Do I need to put this pant away now? " or "Do they need to eat vegetables twice a day ?" or even "Does Varun's cold look bad enough to warrant a day off from schhol and me a day off from work". Somewhere around the 4 month mark after my first was born, in the interest of "making decisions jointly where our children are concerned", I asked Patta "Do you think his pillowcase is disgusting enough to wash today or can it wait another day or a week or so?". He looked at me like I had grown two heads in addition to the 20 (ahem) pounds from the baby and and like it was totally obvious said "Just turn the pillow over ". Huh. So much for making decisions together. Since then I have been plodding through these decisions alone, deciding what color vegetables and fruits they eat today, what color socks go best with their shirts(the red or the white?), whether to let them nap or whether not to...You get the picture. And all I can say is, vive la madre! while debating to myself whether the kids get to go to the park or the pool this evening.