Clocking Out

Unfortunately a good chunk of motherhood feels like, dare I admit, work. You throw on so many hats in a day, its hard not to feel like a worker bee.

The Waitress Job
Kids - "What's for breakfast"
Waitress - "Buttermilk pancakes"
Kids - "Is that all?"

Exit Waitress who runs to the kitchen, makes the pancakes from scratch, pours the milk, brews the coffee, tries her best to creatively shape the pancakes into appealing kid shapes, brings the food to the table, calls the kids to breakfast, call the kids again, screams for the kids to bring their lovely bottoms to the table, retrieves the pancakes from the table to zap since they are cold, sits down to enjoy breakfast, leaps up to mop up spilled milk, clears the table, loads the dishwasher, returns to her own untouched breakfast to discover someone has removed the whip cream and strawberry's from her own plate, then decides to forget breakfast since it's time to make lunches.

Trust me their are many other roles where the scrips runs about like the above. Now, don't get me wrong, payment of smiles and pictures of rainbows are enough to keep me going. But, like all employees when the time has come for me to clock out for the night, I want to be done. I pride myself on running a fairly streamlined evening program. There is dinner, baths, occasional dance mania, books and then to bed. I will allow for the occasional re-tuck, book retrieval, or cold water gathering. However, if I have too many requests, I have the strong need to pull out my timecard and start demanding my time and a half. I realize that I'm a salaried employee that isn't paid by the hour, but I get resentful of people cutting into my non-work time. As a Mom you feel like the amount of time that you actually just get to think about nothing but yourself is about 2% of your day. So when the boss starts asking for part of that 2%, I'm irked (my middle child's new favorite word - love it).

And like any disgruntled employee, do I have an answer, a solution to this problem. Nope, I'll just write in my blog and pour myself a glass of wine and remember that this is the job of a lifetime and someday I'll miss it.