Today, a friend paid me a very nice compliment. She said I was the best working mom she’s ever known, with a job that entails a high degree of responsibility while also coordinating the busy schedules of two well-rounded, happy kids, and that I manage to do it all cheerfully and without ever having bags under my eyes.

I accepted the compliment graciously, because I was too chicken to tell her the truth of just how much of my kids’ lives I have already missed. I didn’t tell her that I missed Maia’s school award ceremony a few weeks ago (she received the Leadership award), because I was traveling, or that I missed a recent ceremony celebrating the publication of a book jointly written by her class, because I was catching up at work after having been traveling. I didn’t tell her that I was not there last December for Maia’s third surgical round of ear tubes, because I was, you guessed it, traveling, or that Maia left a message on my cell phone which brought me to tears, telling me it was okay that I had to miss her surgery because she didn’t want me to get fired from my job. I didn’t tell my friend that I have never been on one of Maia’s school field trips or volunteered in her classroom. I didn’t tell her that at Noah’s daycare, the director commented recently about how long it had been since she had seen me. And I didn’t tell her I’m entirely convinced that our pediatrician was recently shocked to discover that my kids actually have a mother.

This is not to say that I don’t get plenty of really excellent quality time with my offspring, however. I am there far more than I am not. I’ve never missed a dance recital or a school performance, and we have so many silly family moments that I treasure. Just tonight, I tricked Noah into giving me 100 kisses, and boy did he deliver! I gave him the option to call it quits after the first 50 sticky ice cream-faced kisses, but no, he kept going and even threw in an extra 10 for good measure. It’s moments like that when I know I wouldn’t trade my life for anything. Somehow, everything always ends up just right.

What I did tell this friend was that there is no possible way I could manage the juggling act without the world’s best husband and father who takes on far more than his fair share of household responsibilities and never complains, or the grandparents who always pitch in to help Kent when I’m away. And Maia wouldn’t get nearly the number of extracurricular activities without the friend who has taken her to dance lessons every Wednesday night for the last two years, and who for the third summer in a row is sharing carpooling duties with me for Maia’s and her own daughter’s busy summer schedule.

The reality is that Supermom is a big, fat myth. It’s more like super friends and family.