For 12 of the last 15 years I have been at home. I have done the laundry. I have done the cooking (which includes the planning and the shopping.). I have done the cleaning. I am the head taxi driver. I take them to the dentist and doctor and get them shots and refill their asthma medicine.
Life has changed. Not for the better or the worse. Just changed. Now my family is adjusting to the rearranging of their lives. I used to be home when they got home. Helped with homework. Was the mom that could pick up friends and run them home cuz their parents worked. Now I am that mom. The one that can't get Keegan to high school soccer tryouts in the middle of the afternoon so I have to depend on him getting a ride from someone else's mom. Part of it is killing me inside.
I never wanted to be anything but a mom. I know that I need to be doing something now that they are all in school. At some point they will all be gone and I definitely will need some skills to fall back on. Why not a job that has summers off so that I can spend time with them and someday their kids? But I still get a lump in my throat on Sunday nights when we are trying to go over everyone's schedules and I can't be there for everything. I know I need to let go, but days when I have to call Konley (like today) and say that I won't be home until 6, daddy is teaching, brothers have soccer and does he want to go or stay at home and he wants to stay? These are hard.
Nearly everyone I work with has grown children. Nearly. I had a mom come in the other day and make the "grand" statement "you never get to be done with work do you?" I was confused for a minute until I realized that I had just kissed kid #3 and sent him off to class from my desk. She was pointing out that we both go from working with kids to going home and "working" with kids. It's no wonder my brain doesnt' know which way is up by 8 pm.
Being that it's nearly 8 now? I am off to kiss my boys good night and hunker down with my blankies on the couch until my hubby gets home. I will worry about the guilt tomorrow...
