Stay at Home Mom.com

Some mornings it takes me just a second to re-orient myself and pull myself out of bed. Saturday morning was one of those mornings. My eyes opened (although I wasn’t really awake yet) and I could see that it was still dark outside and then I remembered “Ah, that’s right, it’s Saturday! I get to sleep in - yay.”  Long deserved after a week of very early mornings.

Just about then my teenage son knocked on the bedroom door and said that he had just received a call from work and they needed him to come in early because they were expecting to be extra busy. So, I sat up, rubbed my eyes and waited for a second for the neon time on the Tivo across the room to come into focus. It was 5:34a.m.

I pulled on my slippers and just put a big winter coat on over my jammies to drive him to work. The air at 5:30 is so crisp and still and my little corner of the world was just waking up. As I drove him to work I looked around and marvelled at the beautiful red skies in the west (some good storms ahead for sure) and the sleepy blue skies in the east that faded into an almost white skyline where the sun was due to peak up over the horizon at any time.

The skyline and the hills looked almost like hollywood sets the colors were so vibrant. The quiet of the morning was absolutely peaceful. All of my kids are healthy, the new puppy is near potty trained and all was right with the world.

It made me think about all of the families around the country waking up on a morning like this who have family members in the military and who may be overseas fighting for my children and for the peace and freedom of children all across the country. My family will never be able to thank all of them personally - they will probably never the know the faces of my kids. But on this morning I couldn’t help but be thankful for all of the families who are out there with family members fighting for me and my family so that we can enjoy the peaceful winter morning on a very quiet Saturday in February.

Many of you who visit here regularly have very small children and get to look forward to that first day that you send them off to kindergarten - with lots of excitement and apprehension.  There are also many moms (like myself) who have been Stay at Home Moms for over 18 years now and have an entirely new experience to deal with.

This morning was harder than kindergarten.  I drove my son to the airport so that he could get on a plane and head back to school after a great President weekend break.    aghhhh. 

Yesterday I spoke with a stay at home mom who was telling me about her 11 year old son.  The week before Valentines day they were all sitting around the dining room table making valentines for his 5th grade valentines party and she realized it was probably going to be his last “valentines day” party.  Next year he would be in middle school and valentines would probably be uncool.

Oftentimes I hear stay at home moms of very small children say how they expect that everything will get easier once their child is out of diapers and into school.  And it is true to some extent that the physical requirements of being a stay at home mom do become easier as the kids get older - this job does not get any easier the older they get.

Bittersweet moments of motherhood make staying at home worth every diaper change.