This morning, I got both girls dressed and packed up The Bag (ballet shoes, tap shoes, diaper and wipes for Jemma, snack for Jemma, water for them, water for me, wallet, phone, toys and books to entertain Jemma) and were were out the door at 9:10, walking to Annie's dance class with Jemma in the jogging stroller. After dance, we walked it to the grocery store, where I bribed the girls with donut holes through the store and the whole way home. I unloaded groceries, made lunch, switched the laundry, and put girls down for naps. While they were napping, I returned phone calls and started making dinner. Jemma woke up after just an hour - in turn, waking Annie up, who was taking her first nap of the week. We scrambled through the afternoon with the help of a visit from Lucy (she and Annie played 'having a baby in the hospital' with no intervention from me for almost an hour!) and some good cold-rainy-day music.
Through all of this, I consoled myself with the fact that Jason would be home to relieve me at 5:30 sharp, when I would take myself to yoga and come home for a relaxing evening. But 5:20 rolled around, and I hadn't even gotten the "I'm on my way home" phone call from Jason. At 5:30, when I should have been driving to yoga, I was feeding the girls dinner, and since it contained spinach, they didn't eat it, anyway.
After dinner (and after Jason had finally called to say he was running late and why didn't he just stop and get his hair cut, too?), I was trying to take the girls outside to play. I was following Jemma around, trying to get her put her pants back on for at least the fifth time today while hunting down hats and shoes, and it all began to seem absurd, too much to handle for so many hours straight. There are some days when I feel like parenting is secretly so fun, easy, and amazingly rewarding (these days are mostly in the summer, when the kids are healthy, adorable, and just happy to flail outside while I drink coffee and talk to other moms); there are other days when the minutes tick by sloooowly and every minor annoyance feels like a major transgression (these days are mostly in the winter, when the kids are sick and we're stuck inside). Today at 6:00 p.m., one of those minor annoyances prompted me to say aloud, to no one in particular, "Oh My Gosh!" in a voice full of impatience and disbelief that getting two children ready to go play in the front yard could take so long and be so chaotic.
Annie looked at me across the kitchen. "Being a mom is a lot of hard work, huh?" she said.
"Yeah, sometimes it is," I said.
"You're going to be my mom forever, though," she said, and smiled. And I crossed the room and hugged her, holding her little pink hat while Jemma sat on the floor and put her jean jacket on backwards.
"Yeah, I am."
Through all of this, I consoled myself with the fact that Jason would be home to relieve me at 5:30 sharp, when I would take myself to yoga and come home for a relaxing evening. But 5:20 rolled around, and I hadn't even gotten the "I'm on my way home" phone call from Jason. At 5:30, when I should have been driving to yoga, I was feeding the girls dinner, and since it contained spinach, they didn't eat it, anyway.
After dinner (and after Jason had finally called to say he was running late and why didn't he just stop and get his hair cut, too?), I was trying to take the girls outside to play. I was following Jemma around, trying to get her put her pants back on for at least the fifth time today while hunting down hats and shoes, and it all began to seem absurd, too much to handle for so many hours straight. There are some days when I feel like parenting is secretly so fun, easy, and amazingly rewarding (these days are mostly in the summer, when the kids are healthy, adorable, and just happy to flail outside while I drink coffee and talk to other moms); there are other days when the minutes tick by sloooowly and every minor annoyance feels like a major transgression (these days are mostly in the winter, when the kids are sick and we're stuck inside). Today at 6:00 p.m., one of those minor annoyances prompted me to say aloud, to no one in particular, "Oh My Gosh!" in a voice full of impatience and disbelief that getting two children ready to go play in the front yard could take so long and be so chaotic.
Annie looked at me across the kitchen. "Being a mom is a lot of hard work, huh?" she said.
"Yeah, sometimes it is," I said.
"You're going to be my mom forever, though," she said, and smiled. And I crossed the room and hugged her, holding her little pink hat while Jemma sat on the floor and put her jean jacket on backwards.
"Yeah, I am."
1 comment:
...and that makes it all worth it. Precious!!!!
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