I wish I were at The Profound Desire of the Gods, starting...NOW. I was downtown and Lara called me from bed, sick, wanted me to make her dinner and chill with her. Not that I'm complaining about that, but I can't remember the last time she requested some caretaking, and on a day that I was finally taking for myself (I did get to Atonement). 
C'est la vie.
How about "mothering"? 
What you just detailed is a pretty decent description of my life as a mother.
I prefer "caring" to "mothering", in addition to the gendered connotation, it has the potential to be read as controlling. I made garlic mashed potatoes and tuna, we watched a couple episodes of Corner Gas and a couple of Weeds, went to bed at the very reasonable hour of 10:30. I'm feeling a bit sick right now
Sick because too early to bed, too much garlic, or ?
Huh. So would you just like to delete the term mother/mothering from our language? And I refer to our earlier discussion as it dovetails with this:
But I wouldn't say I am I am belittling her protective "mothering" characteristics as merely role-playing, my point is that this type of act is ultimately how we should interact with everyone. That by making this an easy equivalence of "mothering" = being a mother doesn't leave room for "non-mothers" to be mothers.
and
Or, spun a bit, why do we want to see women as mothers? I like having the question raised concerning what it means to care for others, to show that it is not a gendered act.
Personally, I think the term "mother" has more to do with specificity than particularly offensive gendered-language. I like being called, I want to be called a mother, in part because of the very specific acts that I have been involved with or done because I am both a woman and a woman caring for children for whom I am responsible, in practical, emotional, and psychological ways. And frankly, the recognition of my actions is integral to my relationship with my children - it's partly why I'd prefer that they call me Mom or Mama rather than Melissa. So when I hear you seeming to say that mothering should not be seen as exclusively in the realm of women, I think you might be overlooking very specific caring and actions that women do for and because of their children.
