My job

When Phillip got home tonight I didn't want to tell him about my day. He'd spent the last eight or nine hours sitting at a desk writing database reports and lurking about a windowless server room and showing people how to right click.

I spent my morning spending a scandalous amount of money on things I wished I was buying for myself, but was buying for friends about to experience wonderful moments in their lives. I took Jack to the little playground in the middle of the shopping center where I watched him watch the big kids run all around him. We looked at books in the bookstore. We ate pasta with fattening white sauce for lunch. We smiled at other babies. We walked wherever we wanted to walk, in nice enough weather, and we decided when it was time to go home.

Sure there was the hour when Jack, having woken up when I pulled him out of his car seat, decided that a ten minute nap in the car was enough nap for him. And after an hour of hoping and peeking I finally got him out of his crib and marched us downstairs in tears, because my nicely planned afternoon was now ruined and how am I supposed to clean up the house when he's awake to step in my piles of dust and crawl inside the dishwasher? I fumed and wiped mascara streaks off my face and Jack wandered over to me and patted me on the leg, as if to say, "All right, Mom, time to get over it."

I cleaned up anyway, and Jack "helped" and then we watered flowers and moved furniture for the party and made a last minute grocery list. I gave him a teether and we sat on the couch watching my favorite politics show. And then we tried for another nap and this time it worked.

I got everything done. I read a little bit of the umpteenth Magdalen Nabb mystery I borrowed from my dad. I tooled around on the computer. I heard Jack wake up and we went downstairs to play and get dinner ready. A little while later his dad came home and wanted to know how my day was.

And I didn't want to say, because so many times I think this can't possibly be my life. How am I getting away with this?

Comments

[Lisa]

That sounds like a most excellent day. Despite the one income and more focus on budgeting, being a SAHM pretty much rocks!

[Dooneybug]

I love those kind of days! People are always saying how as humans we focus too much on the negatives in our lives. Fortunately that doesn't hold water for memories of our children. That day will be one of your favorite memories of being a SAHM!

[HeatherK]

Getting away with it....I totally feel like that most days! And I hear ya on the car naps. How on earth does 10 minutes re-energize them like a 2 hour nap??