Teresa Strasser by Teresa Strasser

I'm just a working mom, not a Navy SEAL. Still, other than the risking-your-life and sacrificing-for-your-country parts, I like to think moms and Navy SEALs have things in common, at least as far as the beginnings of both endeavors go.

To become a SEAL, a person must leave his routine and everything he knows and see what happens when he is pushed to his mental and physical limits for 30 months of rigorous training. Speaking for myself, especially in reference to the past week when I had a big work project due and a toddler with Hand Foot and Mouth disease, I can relate.

You want to get up and ring the bell, which is what SEAL trainees do when they are ready to drop out of Hell Week during training, but you can't. Between bouts of staying up with a sick baby, I sneak into my office and write, on alert, waiting for him to cry again, and then go back to my project, and then back to baby: rinse and repeat until morning.

The kid — better and no longer contagious, but too rash-covered for day care — wakes just as I have slept a couple of hours. My husband takes the first shift, chasing after him while trying to answer only the most urgent of work emails.

We are going on day five over here: two jobs, one sick kid, one heroic occupation to look to for inspiration.

The work of a SEAL is secretive, so while they are celebrated as a group, individuals don't get much attention and, as I understand it, are woefully underpaid for what they do. And listen up, new moms and dads, the ones who are up all night taking temperatures and worrying and running out for popsicles in the night and washing the barf out of the crevices of toddler sneakers. I'm talking to you. Does this sound familiar? It's from the official site of the Navy SEALs:

"Trainees are constantly in motion; running, swimming, paddling, carrying boats on their heads, doing log PT, sit-ups, push-ups, rolling in the sand, slogging through mud, paddling boats and doing surf passage. Being still can be just as challenging, when you're standing interminably in formation, soaking wet on the beach, or up to your waist in the water, with the cold ocean wind cutting through you."

Obviously, ignore all the stuff about mud and boats. But philosophically, essentially, you are feeling this, right? The site goes on to explain the training that breaks a majority of recruits:

"Students perform evolutions that require them to think, lead, make sound decisions, and functionally operate when they are extremely sleep-deprived, approaching hypothermia, and even hallucinating."

Parents, I'm telling you, I have hallucinated.

I've been so sleep-deprived that I heard the baby cry when he was sleeping quietly.

The SEALs website explains further:

"While trainees get plenty to eat, some are so fatigued that they fall asleep in their food. Others fall asleep while paddling boats and have to be pulled out of the water by teammates. Teamwork and camaraderie are essential as trainees alternately help and encourage each other, to hang in there and not quit."

Again, ignore the part about paddling boats. But fatigue? Yes. The sense of duty? Roger that. The teamwork and camaraderie? You get that when you have no choice but to pull it together, get your grocery shopping done, meet your work deadlines, pick up your child's prescriptions, Google symptoms, rush to the doctor and maintain your composure (or at least try to weep in a dignified manner, like hiding behind a door so your kid can't see you) all while reaching out to sitters, neighbors, friends and spouses and counting on them to encourage you and maybe throw you a line if they can.

This isn't any big deal. There is no special-ops mission or underwater demolition to be done. This is just everyday stuff. I'm just another working mom with a working husband and a kid with a garden-variety pediatric virus. Yet, it's the little things that can break you. It's the coffee spilling on your keyboard forcing you to compose emails without the letter "M" until you can tote your kid to the mall, hoping the Genius Bar guy takes pity on you and wishing you were at a real bar.

It's the confluence of challenges into one big river of sludge and stress that gets you. It's the sum total of all the mundane snags you overcome, hoping, like those SEAL trainees, that your decision-making abilities haven't tanked.

At some point, it will be calm again. You'll be kicking back, victorious. There will come a day when the worst is over and you're having a beer with Viggo Mortensen. Oh, wait. That was the movie "G.I. Jane."

In any case, when the icy wind cuts through me as I slog the metaphorical coast of motherhood, I'm warmed by the notion that I'm not alone. And I can't quit. Parents don't get a bell.

Teresa Strasser is an Emmy-winning television writer, a two-time Los Angeles Press Club Columnist of the Year and a multimedia personality. She is the author of a new book, "Exploiting My Baby," the rights to which have been optioned by Sony Pictures. To find out more about Teresa Strasser and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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