Hello Blog! I've missed you. Whatever may be said about lazy summers, this certainly hasn't been one. I suppose if I were a professional making money with my writing, I wouldn't relegate composing posts to irregular lazy moments, but that "really makes no matter," as Lady Bracknell says in The Importance of Being Earnest.
Obscure literary quotes (or movie quotes) aside, it is good to sit down and write! It's nice to be a whole paragraph into this post without having said anything of real substance yet, which is perfectly fitting for a lazy moment. I did, however, open this page with the intent of writing about something, and must just call it to mind. One moment...
Ah yes. Stay at Home Moms.
Actually, not all stay at home moms-- just me. When a neighbor recently dropped his young grandson off with me because he was late to work and the babysitter "was only about 30 minutes away," and I supervised/entertained/mediated between three little boys for the following three hours--and it wasn't the first time this had happened, or even the second or third--I realized that (1) I should stop agreeing to watch neighbors' grandsons for indeterminate amounts of time and (2) some people must see me as having a lot of extra time on my hands.
Obviously, my readers all know I don't have a lot of extra time on my hands, because if I did, there would be a lot more blog entries. But not everyone I come across is familiar with my 2-3/month posting trend, so I would like to elaborate for those people. (Nevermind that "those people" don't read my blog and won't see this post; we'll just call this scribal processing.)
In a few weeks, Z will be starting Kindergarten (!!) while G continues on into 2nd grade. When I mentioned this fact to an acquaintance earlier this summer, she said, "So what are you going to do with all your free time? Get a job?"
The irksome idea that what I do now isn't a job aside, I have to admit, I had a moment of panic. "Oh no! Is that what I'm supposed to do?? Am I suddenly going to have all this empty time on my hands that will be squandered if I 'just stay at home'?! Do I need to squeeze myself into some mind-numbing clerical position so that I can earn money instead of having 'free' time?"
In spite of Jay's insistence that I need those eight hours, I still felt guilt about not wanting to get back into the "work" force. I calmed myself a bit by remembering that once the school year starts, I'm actually only going to have 8 hours per week without kids (we do a hybrid homeschool program, and Kindergartners are only in class 9 hours/week). But thinking about the new phase I'm entering caused me to look again at the jobs (yes, plural, thank you very much) I already have.
I've written before about the many "hats" I may wear in a given day; looking back at just the last seven days, I think I can group my activities into a few broad categories. In no particular order:
- wife
- mother
- multi-organization volunteer
- relative (sister, in-law, auntie, etc)
- friend
- informal grief consultant (which often overlaps with "relative" and "friend")
- home and garden caretaker
- motherless daughter
During the past week, I have spent every minute being/doing at least one of these categories. Now, I know that I'm a mother every minute, but--moms of infants and toddlers have hope--there are times of the day I'm not actively doing something with my kids. Believe it or not, the two boys do have moments of entertaining each other without eyes-on supervision from me, at least for part of each day, which is wonderful. Jay also does a fantastic job of doing things with the kids sans Mommy. Naturally, during those times I put my feet up, put in earplugs, turn off my phone, and eat chocolate.
NOT.
Although I think my life would be better if I did that combination of things a little more. Huh. Let's put a pin in that.
No, the moments that active mom duty is on hold--and even quite a bit of the time it's not on hold--are moments filled with one or more of the other categories. I'd like to go over some of the things I did this past week, and "those people" who think I have lots of extra time might understand my reality a bit better.
Since all of my readers are above-average intelligent (they have to be, to read this; after all, I quote Oscar Wilde), I'll dispense with delineating every category each activity belongs to. They often overlap, anyway.
Last Wednesday, Jay gave me the day off from active mommy-ing. I filled the day with birthday shopping for Z, and lunch and dinner out, catching up with two different friends. Arriving home refreshed at 8 p.m., ready to have a quiet evening with Jay in front of the TV, we unexpectedly got an urgent request from a friend whose grandmother was in the hospital. The next 4-5 hours were spent in caffeinated "friend" and "informal grief counselor" modes as I transported our friend from another city to our house for the night.
Thursday was mostly spent in that same mode, driving our friend to transport her out-of-town relatives to the ICU, where I stayed with them until the grandmother passed away Thursday evening. (Thankfully, Jay thought to remind me to get a sub for my volunteer duties at my Thursday Al-Anon meeting, so I was able to coordinate that in time.) As much as I tried not to slip into the "motherless daughter" category, the traumatic memories from my time in the ICU with my mom took their toll.
I spent Friday working off physical and emotional exhaustion. In the morning, I got a message from another friend whose dad was in surgery after a heart attack, but prayer doesn't take too much physical energy, so I was happy to support her in that way. I also prayed over my daily email update from a friend whose 1 yr-old has stage 4 neuroblastoma. Those updates aren't fun to read. :-(
Perhaps surprisingly, by Friday evening I had recovered a bit, so I cleaned a bathroom and the living room floor, picked some tomatoes, and had a wonderful visit with a local friend who came over after the kids were in bed. We chit-chatted over a wide variety of subjects while experimenting with a new French macaron recipe in my kitchen.
At about midnight, seconds away from being fully asleep, I suddenly realized I'd forgotten to wrap Z's birthday breakfast gift. Enter mother mode again. I get up.
Saturday morning officially began awfully early, because Z was so excited to start his 5th birthday! Who wouldn't be? The morning continued with making a grocery list for a 12-person dinner, packing the boys off to the store with a long shopping list.
The afternoon was filled with birthday/dinner prep (along with stolen bits of auntie time with visiting Baby K), and I spent the evening hostessing. Incidentally, that may be the last 12-person birthday dinner I make. There was too much work and not enough fun. Putting a pin in that, too.
The guests were gone and excited boys in bed by 8 p.m., and my aching, grumpy body had just sunk into the couch when Jay said, "So I guess we should start planning tomorrow's Sunday School lesson." Scream! He reminded me that this Sunday was our turn to lead the 3s-5s class.
Finding me taciturn (that's a nice word for "surly," right?), Jay did as much planning on his own as he could, leaving a few bits for me to look over before church in the morning.
Sunday morning started well, perhaps in part because I donned an adorable outfit, and even though we scrapped our Sunday School lesson because only two kids showed up to class (one of whom was Z), I was content with being in volunteer mode.
But in the parking lot, headed toward lunch, "motherless daughter" showed up out of nowhere and smacked me across the face. A friend at church asked me if I knew how to can peaches. I'll leave the peach-canning back-story for another time; suffice it to say that it triggered a lot of happy memories of growing up with my mom, and a lot of weepy feelings that I can't call her and talk about it.
Those feelings stayed through Monday morning, thankfully relieved a bit by two tearfully-cathartic phone conversations with sisters. Monday was also Jay's first day back at work, so all three of us were missing him after a summer-full of Daddy time. "Mother" mode was definitely back in full swing, but we made the best of it and had a nice day.
Tuesday started with a playdate with another young mom who is motherless, and while our kids poured sand over each other, the two of us shared struggles and encouragement with each other. In the afternoon, I found some new fresh tomato recipes and put a lovely dinner on the table (while texting back and forth with my sis-in-law), which felt great! After putting the kids to bed, I had a conversation with yet another sister, focusing mainly on her boyfriend, whom I haven't yet been able to meet. It was delightful to hear her gush on about this budding relationship...although I have to admit I felt a bit old and matronly.
Today we got out of town for a zoo visit with another family, and I--mostly--enjoyed cooking another tomato-centered dinner this evening. The four of us definitely enjoyed eating it, at any rate!
Looking over this rather lengthy narrative, there are two main things that stand out to me:
- I have a lot of friends and sisters.
- I have a jam-packed life.
Eight non-mom-mode hours per week might just allow my life to be a little more paced out. Or maybe other unexpected events will challenge my time in new ways. Or maybe I'll get to have fewer multi- and more single-tasked times.
Or maybe, just maybe, I'll start the school year by putting my feet up, turning off my phone, and eating chocolate...at least for the first few hours.
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