Abbey as a Chef...Landen as a Zookeeper
It was "dress up as what you want to be when you grow up" day at school. We only remembered at 7:30am this morning...after checking my email and seeing a note from another mom who actually did remember. I decided to go ahead and remind my kids, and Abbey was still pretty sure she wanted to be a chef. Her kindergarten year, it was a police officer. I was at Walmart at 10pm the night before buying a whistle to go with the hand-embellished blue shirt and homemade badge. She was legit. But, she knew she didn't want to be a police officer anymore, and darn it, Landen didn't want to be one either. Landen didn't really want to be anything until Layne started wearing his zookeeper hat this morning, and then he up and decided he needed the hat back to dress up as a zookeeper for school. And off they went.
I really can't remember what I wanted to be when I was a kindergartener, or even a 2nd grader. A mom was in there somewhere, but I had no idea it would turn out to be this super-busy-multi-tasking-super-woman! Maybe super-woman is a bit of a stretch. But I am sometimes amazed at how many different things I do in one day. Not amazing in quality, but in quantity. When my head hits the pillow at night, and I don't immediately pass out from exhaustion, I sometimes think about what else I could be doing right now. Sometimes, it looks a million times better. A chef? I would be in heaven running a kitchen. I already do, but I don't make a dime and I get lots of whiney, unfounded complaints. A zookeeper? O.k. really we don't have a lot of masculine dress-up items in our house.
But, I can come up with many more careers that are enticing to me on a daily basis. I don't think I ever really considered motherhood a career. I thought it was what you did while your career was on pause because you really wanted to raise your kids. Which I did. But now, I am fully immersed in this salary-less career. 40 hours a week, plus regular overtime. A full-time gig in the complaints department. Do you remember that cartoon? It's a very real visual to me. My head and shoulders peering above a desk, with a sign reading "complaints department" posted over me. In this department, sometimes I struggle to even make out the complaints, with all the R's coming out as W's and the L's that sound more like Y's and the screeches and grunts that come from the littlest one here who just forgets to talk when she's mad. Sigh. Sigh. Sigh.
Maybe I'm not the mom that can say in that completely confident voice, "I can't imagine doing anything else right now." Well, I can. And, I bet they secretly can too. But that's the real beauty of it. I can imagine doing a big list of other jobs right now, but I confidently choose to do this.
I really can't remember what I wanted to be when I was a kindergartener, or even a 2nd grader. A mom was in there somewhere, but I had no idea it would turn out to be this super-busy-multi-tasking-super-woman! Maybe super-woman is a bit of a stretch. But I am sometimes amazed at how many different things I do in one day. Not amazing in quality, but in quantity. When my head hits the pillow at night, and I don't immediately pass out from exhaustion, I sometimes think about what else I could be doing right now. Sometimes, it looks a million times better. A chef? I would be in heaven running a kitchen. I already do, but I don't make a dime and I get lots of whiney, unfounded complaints. A zookeeper? O.k. really we don't have a lot of masculine dress-up items in our house.
But, I can come up with many more careers that are enticing to me on a daily basis. I don't think I ever really considered motherhood a career. I thought it was what you did while your career was on pause because you really wanted to raise your kids. Which I did. But now, I am fully immersed in this salary-less career. 40 hours a week, plus regular overtime. A full-time gig in the complaints department. Do you remember that cartoon? It's a very real visual to me. My head and shoulders peering above a desk, with a sign reading "complaints department" posted over me. In this department, sometimes I struggle to even make out the complaints, with all the R's coming out as W's and the L's that sound more like Y's and the screeches and grunts that come from the littlest one here who just forgets to talk when she's mad. Sigh. Sigh. Sigh.
Maybe I'm not the mom that can say in that completely confident voice, "I can't imagine doing anything else right now." Well, I can. And, I bet they secretly can too. But that's the real beauty of it. I can imagine doing a big list of other jobs right now, but I confidently choose to do this.
.. and you do an EXTRAORDINARILY good job !!! (that is a word... right?)
ReplyDeleteYou might be biased :)
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