This is hardly a revelation - my karma has always sucked. Ask, and ye shall receive - no sooner did I finish musing about what I was going to do with my "free" time than I received my marching orders: remodel the bathrooms. I already knew that the downstairs one needed help. The soap dish is loose and therefore allowing water into the wall behind it. Not a good situation. Solution - take showers upstairs. That gives me time to address the lack of funds for a real remodel.
Not so fast. Or, maybe - faster still. Getting back to my karma - I finished my postings, then went to take a shower. As I made my way back to our bedroom downstairs afterwards, I realized the hallway floor was wet - too wet to be from wet footprints. I peered into the downstairs bathroom only to find it very, very wet - from the ceiling. Something is leaking from the upstairs bathroom. It seems like my work it cut out for me after all.
I mused to BUMD that perhaps my prior post was responsible for this occurrence - if I got a paying job, we could afford to have the bathrooms fixed by someone else. He looked at me, cocked an eyebrow, and said, "Well, you're a home builder, right?"
Oh.
Right.
On with the show....
Saturday, August 30, 2008
The Last Weekend before The First Week
This is it - my last weekend as the mom of three kids at home. As of Tuesday, all three kids will be in school full time. K is going into fourth grade, C into second, and A is starting kindergarten. For the first time since, um, ever? - I will have uninterrupted time to myself. I have no current intention to go back to a paid job. Therefore, the time is "mine" - I get to decide what I am doing. Anyone who has ever been a "housewife" (ugh), "homemaker" (do I look like a builder?), or "unemployed" (since when was running a household not work?) knows that there will still be quite a lot to do. It's just that I now get to decide what to do and when to do it, and to spend more than an hour or so on the project.
I was a "working mom" from when K was born in 1998 until C was born in 2000, at which point I became a "stay at home mom" (SAHM) since C was born in 2000. I've done some paid consulting work since then, but most of my efforts have been geared towards the kids. From my POV, the only major difference in how this role change affected my kids was that I quit outsourcing the daytime childcare. All moms work hard, regardless of whether they have an income that the IRS recognizes. Before C was born, I was dual-income. Now I just get a single income - I am paid in hugs and kisses. Any money I get comes from the BUMD. As far as he's concerned, I am more than earning it by making sure all of our lives go smoothly. Between his often-crazy schedule, three kids with ADHD, one who also has Autism, and another who also has a rare genetic condition, and Moi, this is no mean feat. But that's my job, and I signed up for it.
Sure, there are people with more complicated lives. Bless their hearts, but I'm not writing for or about them. This blog is just about me, my family, and my next step in motherhood. I've survived Mom 101, the little kids at home years. Now, I'm on to Mom 102 - everyone's at school most of the time. Hopefully, I'll someday be writing about Mom 103 - the empty nest years. And maybe, just maybe - Mom 104, the grandparenting years. That's to be determined by the kids. No pressure to have grandkids - that's perhaps the greatest gift our parents gave us, and look what they got in return:
I was a "working mom" from when K was born in 1998 until C was born in 2000, at which point I became a "stay at home mom" (SAHM) since C was born in 2000. I've done some paid consulting work since then, but most of my efforts have been geared towards the kids. From my POV, the only major difference in how this role change affected my kids was that I quit outsourcing the daytime childcare. All moms work hard, regardless of whether they have an income that the IRS recognizes. Before C was born, I was dual-income. Now I just get a single income - I am paid in hugs and kisses. Any money I get comes from the BUMD. As far as he's concerned, I am more than earning it by making sure all of our lives go smoothly. Between his often-crazy schedule, three kids with ADHD, one who also has Autism, and another who also has a rare genetic condition, and Moi, this is no mean feat. But that's my job, and I signed up for it.
Sure, there are people with more complicated lives. Bless their hearts, but I'm not writing for or about them. This blog is just about me, my family, and my next step in motherhood. I've survived Mom 101, the little kids at home years. Now, I'm on to Mom 102 - everyone's at school most of the time. Hopefully, I'll someday be writing about Mom 103 - the empty nest years. And maybe, just maybe - Mom 104, the grandparenting years. That's to be determined by the kids. No pressure to have grandkids - that's perhaps the greatest gift our parents gave us, and look what they got in return:
