Guilty as Charged

Sometime around 2.5 years ago, I became a habitual phone "ignorer".  

I let emails sit in my inbox for days because I can't seem to find the time to respond.

All too often, I don't look at my text messages until I am laying in bed at night.

I admit to last minute dinner cancellations with good friends on more than one occasion.

And yesterday my house did not make it out of this state:

I have been thinking a lot about this article that I stumbled upon the other day on my friend's Facebook page (thanks Jenn for sharing) and I realize that I too, am guilty of not always having the time.  Or worse yet, finding the time and wanting to horde it to myself.

While I wouldn't go as far as the original comment to say that it's the "...Best Article Ever", it does validate many of my thoughts on parenting and eloquently answers the questions of: "What did I do all day?", "Why don't I have the time?" or "Why am I so exhausted at the end of the day?" that I so often ponder

And the answers?

"...It's constant attention from getting them out of bed, fed, cleaned, dressed; to keeping them out of harms way..."

"It's needing 45 minutes to what takes others 15."

"It's constant viligance, constant touch, constant use of your voice, constant relegation of your needs to the second tier."

"It's constant scrutiny and second guessing from family and friends.  It's resisting constant temptation to seek short term relief at everyone's long term expense."

"It's doing all this while concurrently teaching virtually everything - language,manners, safety, resourcefulness, discipline, curiosity, creativity.  Empathy.  Everything."

I am certainly not here to argue who has it the hardest: Stay at Home Moms vs. Working Moms.  Women with Kids vs. Women Without.  Those with One Child vs. Those with Multiple, etc. etc.

After all, there are plenty of times when I am at work and wish I was at story time instead of my weekly meeting or at the zoo with Logan instead of my desk. And likewise, when I'm at home and think "...what I wouldn't give for an 11:00am conference call rather than coaching Logan on the potty or a 2:00pm meeting instead of cleaning up play dough."

Rather, this article sums up the obvious that becomes hard to put into words.  Thankfully, none of my non-parent girlfriends have written into the newspaper about my behavior nor do I suspect that they second guess me when I say I don't have time, but nevertheless, it's nice to have concrete words to express similar thoughts on the subject.  Because sometimes the phrases, "I'm exhausted" or "I don't really have time (despite staying at home all day?!)" seem empty and meaningless regardless of my efforts to explain.

This article gives a voice to the picture below:

It's typing a blog post one-handed with a sick little girl on your lap and starting the long day ahead at 5:30 in the morning.  It's not knowing when you will tackle your messy house, your dirty pile of laundry or take a shower for that matter.  It's having already made muffins, written thank you notes, cleaned stains from the couch and have wiped a very runny nose time and time again.  All when it's barely even light out yet.

So to all of your waiting for a call back or an email answered, thank you for your patience.  I promise to get around to it...eventually.