What it Looks Like

So all week, I've been super tired in the morning when I get up and drag the kids, kicking and sometimes screaming, out of bed to get Sean to school by 8. He's done with that now for three weeks, which will be tough ones.

This morning, when I could have slept in myself, I'm not so tired. I guess it's because I can leave the kids in bed & do things on my own without them on top of me for a little while. This is a rare break for a mom of young kiddos. Often, they want to be on my lap while I type (difficult to do when you have kids as wiggly as mine.) Or they just want me to be sitting there, watching Thomas the Train with them, or outside playing in the yard with them. I do that most of the time, too, with very brief minutes stolen away to check FB (it keeps me feeling connected to an adult world.)

But Andrew works pretty damn hard nowadays (and here in a minute is where the title will come in.) He gets up most mornings at about 5:30, 6:00 and heads to work, where he is all day until at least 4. Then he works sporadically (his phone tends to go off every five minutes) on our various rental property issues. Especially right now with two of them vacant & needing tenants.

Earlier, I'm sitting at the computer with a cup of latte he very nicely made me, checking my FB while he finishes his morning routine. He's leaving and I'm asking him what his schedule will be like. I can tell he plans a pretty busy day as he contemplates his lunch, and when he might make it home.

I think of what it looks like I'll be doing today, all day. Sitting here, mucking around on the computer. Easy easy. But what dads don't see are the countless moments of chasing after a kid. Andrew's a GOOD one, helps out a ton, even does it himself now & then. And it's not like I'm Martha Stewart. Sometimes, when he comes home, the house is a bit of a wreck. But he doesn't see how much worse it COULD have been had I not caught the kid in the fridge after the eggs, or spilling green kool aid all over the house, or whatever interventions in 4 year old universe I will have to make today.

It looks easy, being me, from his waking up early, running all day perspective. I get a little more sleep, I get to sit here for a little while on the computer checking up on my friends. I can imagine how it seems. But I've also been the one at a workplace all day, too, and I know how different that is, what that feels like for a grown up, and how some days I really, really would trade with him. Let him stay home and be "dad" and me go to work all day.

Moms are never off work. Maybe when they're fourteen I'll have some time off. Maybe then I'll get an employee of the month plaque and my picture on a wall somewhere and a cool parking place. :) Something to look forward to, I'll bet. But I'll also bet some other suckup employee will sneak in there and get the plaque instead of me because that always happens to me.