Saturday, September 10, 2011

The Working Wife. The Stay-At-Home Mom.

Friday night.
She feels exhausted.
Her three kids have left for the let's kick up our heels evening.
She?
She is stretched out on the brown bland-looking corduroy couch watching TV, eyelids drooping slowly.

Sleep is not welcomed, yet.

She will need to pick up the not even near driving age child of hers in a few hours. He needed the night to romp with friends, have some quality time for them to play jokes on each other.

She's a working wife.
She's been in the classroom all week teaching, teaching, teaching. This. That. And the other.

As she readjusts her position, sits up-a bit slumped over-but mostly straight, she begins to reflect on her non-scheduled, no deadlines life she had only a few months ago.

It was the summer months, time away from the school setting.

She was a stay-at-home mom.

Oh, how she enjoyed waking up at a ridiculously late morning hour, like 7am, rather than her working girl hour of 5am!
She drank her tea, watched Good Morning America, then took her time writing the blog post for the day.
When her son would wake several hours later, she prepared him a hearty breakfast...
 .....instead of just strategically placing a granola bar next to his cup of tea; after gently waking him before she leaves to the school year has begun work in the morning.
 She talked with him. Learned something new about him. His likes. His dislikes.
She watched over him when he was feeling under the weather.
They walked together.
Enjoyed lunch and a movie together. They shopped. Both window, and for real.
Those are the kind of days she feels like a truly devoted mom.
There.
One hundred percent.
Missing nothing.

She knows she has the best of both worlds.
Staying at home with the kids is just as beneficial and rewarding as working outside the home.
They need her just as much as she needs herself.

So, there it is. A Friday night. Her year has begun. So has the readjusting to her body's response. It is only a matter of time, another week or so, and she will once again have the energy to do it all.
Cooking.
Breakfast. For now, weekends only. Dinner. She's working on it.
Wife-ing.
As best she can under the current circumstances.
Lesson planning.
At the end of the school day, sitting at her teacher's desk; AND at home, work spread on the quarter end of the kitchen table.
Reading.
Not only educational texts, but good reads; both literally and virtually bookshelved.
Blogging.
Two. One for the classroom. One putting her personal life on display.
House-managing.  
Organization is part of the key to her sanity. A big part.

"Anything else?" her tangled thoughts wonder. Probably.

Oh, yeah. Exercise. Not a priority for her right now. It's all about excuses, excuses, excuses. "I'm so tired," she tells herself. During her time off, exercising is at the top of her list of things to do in her day.

She is, by no means, complaining. Not one bit. She is simply adjusting. Just as she does every fall. Adjusts.

She works because she wants to; has followed her passion. To teach.
She works because she needs to; bills need to be paid.

She's a stay-at-home because, well, her job allows it.
She embrace's her stay-at-home status because she wants to, chooses to. Needs to. For herself, and for her still have questions no matter how much they've grown kids.

Phone rings.
"You can pick me up now," his cracking the hormones are beginning to kick in voice tells her.

Upon her return home, after food is placed on the table for a hungry "You didn't eat over there?" child, she retires to her room.

No reading. No writing. No nothing.

Lights out.

Sleep.

Until a text from her daughter being silly wakes her at an odd hour.

She's adjusting.

Give her a week or so.....

2 comments:

  1. I can sure relate to this post D! There are so many things which need to come into a tighter space of "have -to-do's" this week that it has been a challenge to readjust to the time frame of busy once again. Busy in the kind of fashion that requires slots of designated time, rather than the blank slate of get it done in a day time... "No reading. No writing. No Nothing" but getting back into the swing of a schedule that is something other than familiar for me yet :-)

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  2. you must be busy.... a new chapter for you... a new way to balance it all... good luck.. and have fun...

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