| The Vacuum of Motherhood |
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Hi! My name is Jaime and I have a 3 year old boy, and a 5 month old girl. Between the kids, my online boutique, and life in general, I seem to always be running! A few mornings back, I took my son to nursery school, and I must admit, I couldn’t wait to get back home, put my daughter down for a nap, and relax. At the time, my sister had been in town for 7 days and counting, and it had been quite busy with visiting and dinners and the like. I noticed on the nursery class door, that they were going to be talking about Mother’s Day, and families. So I ventured home, put my daughter down, and tried to relax. For some reason, it seems impossible to just do nothing. Read a magazine? Ha! Watch a show on TV? Hrumph. These things seem to be SUCH a waste of time, when I look around and see toys everywhere, dirty dishes in the sink, and cat hair tumbleweeds making their way across my path. (Where did all these puzzle pieces come from, anyway?) I proceeded to scurry around the house, doing one menial task after another – picking up this, putting away that, throwing in a load of laundry, emptying the garbages. I pulled the vacuum out of the closet, but the time flew by in what seemed like an instant, and I’d have to get around to banishing the cat hair when I got back. I felt no closer to having a clean house, and definitely no closer to feeling rested. I looked around, and although there was less clutter and utter chaos, I still needed to vacuum and dust and, and, and…. apparently find a magic genie to help me take “ewww” and make “ahh.” I packed up my baby girl, who was not happy to be disturbed and wedged into her car seat, and trudged off to pick up my son. Of course I was looking forward to our regular question and answer period for the car ride home : “what did you talk about today?” or “did you play with any little friends?” or most importantly, “did you keep your pants on this morning?” But I was really looking forward to getting a glimpse of the mother’s day craft that I knew they all had been working on for the past couple of mornings. My son, the serious child that he is, promptly told me that I could not, never, ever, look in his backpack because there was a “gur – prise” in there. Drat. I’ll have to wait. The really funny thing is that the teachers had asked all the kids what does being a mother mean? What do mothers “do” exactly? There was a big board where the teachers wrote down all the answers that the kids had given them. Some kids had said that their moms gave good hugs, took them to the beach, read stories…you know, typical, good old mommy stuff. I scanned all the answers for my son’s response. I thought, “maybe he’ll say that I make crafts with him, or make cookies…” all of which I do regularly, by the way. What do I see? “Vacuuming.” Vacuuming? Really? This, is what I am known for? Gee, I better step up my A game. I put the vacuum back in the closet as soon as I got home. We made muffins. We read stories. I pretended I was a pirate named Janet and we sailed the sea looking for treasure and mermaids. (True.) And there is still cat hair everywhere. I suppose we all can probably take a breather every now and again. After all, raising our kids is an important job. Spending time with them, talking to them, playing…this is what we are supposed to be doing with our time. Vacuuming and tidying can wait! *Jaime is a work-at-home mom, who runs Lavish Lamb Bedding, an online boutique selling modern and sophisticated baby bedding and blankets. Visit her site to check out her current lines, or to start working on a custom bedding project. www.lavishlamb.ca |
