I managed to stay home for the first two weeks of our lives here. Week one was just me trying to get my office settled and figure out what the heck I was supposed to do on a daily/weekly basis (still a bit of a work I progress) and week two was the week our stuff arrived and Liz had a job interview. I also managed to stay home the last week of August which coincided with the first week the kids started school and Gabe’s 3rd Bday. I know…mom of the year right?!
I’m fairly certain that the kids think I live in hotels and on an airplane…somewhat true. Time is a strangely difficult concept for kids to grasp so ‘I’ll be home on Thursday night’ doesn’t really work for them. We started measuring my time away in number of sleeps I will miss…’mommy will be gone for 3 sleeps this week’. They like to Face-Time when I get to a hotel so they can check out where I’m staying that week. It has morphed into a virtual tour of every Courtyard Marriott I stay in. I’ve heard some interesting questions out of them during all of this rapid fire travel….mommy, where are you? A hotel in (blah blah) sweetie….ahhhh, again mommy? Mommy, why do you have to get on so many airplanes? Mommy, is that your new house? Mommy, is that where you live now? Mommy, why do you have to travel so much? I want to snuggle you mommy….each one of these little questions/statements are like tiny daggers in my heart.
I have some stay at home moms (friends or otherwise) who come up to me and tell me how much they admire me for ‘having it all’….To be clear, these are their words not mine. They say, you have a successful and demanding career and you are a great mom. I politely thank them and tell them they have a really hard and amazing job of their own and that if I could stay home with my kids I would. I think they partially believe me and partially think I’m full of shit. What I want to tell them, and sometimes do is that I actually feel like I’m “half assing” my way through all of it. I NEVER feel like I’m giving work or my kids enough…and don’t get me started on my spouse or myself. Because after kids and work those two things are on the back burner or maybe not even on the stove yet. What I have come to appreciate is my friends who can keep it real and be vulnerable and just admit that this (having a career or being a stay at home mom) is hard and they don’t have it figured out…because to be perfectly frank, no one does. We are all just doing the best we know how to do.
I try my best to enjoy every moment with my kids when I am not traveling…I wake up with them early on the weekends even when I feel like I could use a few more minutes sleep, I stay in the pool until I’m a shriveled prune, I take them to do exciting things and fill our every living moment with activities. And I buy them ice cream way too much…overcompensating much?! Maybe, but I don’t care. Because I’ll sleep when I die, water pruned hands go away in 10 minutes, and who the hell doesn’t like ice cream? My kids are everything to me and I can only hope that the example that Liz and I are setting for them is a good one. That woman are strong, specifically their mommies are strong, that hard work pays off, and that we will do whatever it takes to make sure they are provided for in life. I also hope they are learning to make the most out of every moment you have with the people you love. “Quality not Quantity” to quote my mom. I don’t know if I can or will want to do this job forever. For now, we are counting sleeps and doing our best to ‘live the dream’.
OMG…so much to say…and maybe one day, I’ll be blessed with the opportunity to say the things I’d like to say, in person … but for now … you are one damn strong woman, feeling the way we all feel. It’s all good. Just keep loving your family – that’s all they REALLY need!!! Xoxo