St. Patrick's Day Paddy

Motherhood for me is changing. I used to be tired at the end of the day since I spent my time doing physical tasks such as feeding, changing diapers, dressing, pouring drinks, cleaning messes and all the rest of it.
I'm starting to get to the point where the kids can dress themselves, tidy their own rooms (with bribes), get their own drinks and snacks. I no longer have to change any diapers whatsoever and the messes are getting fewer. Of course there's still all the things that go along with maintaining a home but it seems manageable.
However at the end of the day I feel just as exhausted if not more so. I have realized that it's a mental exhaustion of constantly striving to guide my children in the right direction. It's the worry of letting them walk home from the bus stop and debating whether to trust them in another child's yard. They were playing across the street today with two children in their yard. I was by myself in the house doing this and that. Leia runs in breathless, saying that there was an emergency. Apparently Nathan had dropped something from the deck onto the patio below and it had smashed, releasing lots of white liquid. I was mortified and ran across the street fully expecting to see some kind of chemical that was ruining the neighbors patio. Thankfully it was nothing but a bit of leftover drink, covering an area about the size of a quarter. Of course it took a while for my pulse to return to normal.
And when Leia came home this afternoon, she rushed downstairs expecting to find a room that had been tidied by the leprechaun and a pot of chocolate money somewhere.
Now I have never in the whole course of my 29 years celebrated St. Patrick's Day. This year is no different and Leia did not even know the holiday existed this morning. But she had been well and truly indoctrinated at school and had also been pinched several times because she wasn't wearing green. I take issue with that for one and then also with the grief she exhibited because the leprechaun had passed her by. There were tears, clenching of fists, throwing of homework books and so on. I hinted that maybe there was no such thing as the leprechaun and her response convinced me she is not ready to handle the truth about Santa anytime soon.
Now I have enough to do with homework, swimming lessons, parent teacher conferences, spring break, and all the other holidays where I have to take on multiple personas. I am Santa, the Tooth Fairy, St. Valentine, the Easter Bunny, not to mention the organizer of birthday parties. I am not going to be the leprechaun as well. I'm sure Ireland is a great place but I've never been there and the holiday doesn't mean anything to me.
I am so thankful that Gary showed up 10 minutes ago. It's noisy downstairs as Daddy Monster is in fine form, but I can finally switch off from my "alert" status. And sometimes I think that takes more out of me than anything else.