Random thoughts on motherhood

I been have marooned at home with sick kids for the last 3 days. This has given me a chance to contemplate motherhood and all that it entails. Motherhood, my friends, is not for the following: the weak in body or spirit, if you are especially fastidious about personal hygiene, or if you like to get out and about with other breathing and alive human beings. Well, not when you have sick kids anyway.
Connor, 5, is a little clingy mess when he's sick. He's clingy when he's not sick, but when he's sick the ante goes UP. He will not sit alone or sleep alone. He wants to either be held or laid with 24/7. I take the day shift, hubby takes the night shift. I didn't take a shower for two days, I am not even sure if I changed my clothes. Part of the reason was due to the fact I had an 45 pound appendage velcroed to my side, and the other was due to my own laziness. What point was there in taking a shower when I wouldn't be able to blow dry my hair, because Mister Mister was gonna be screaming by the time I got out of the shower that he needed ME? I realize that there is many important factors to why people, mothers and non mothers alike, should shower and none of them include the ability or inability to blow dry ones hair, but it just seemed like it wasn't worth the effort somehow. And I knew we weren't going anywhere and nobody was coming to see us. So I remained unkempt and a slovenly for three days.

Today I woke up and knew I MUST leave the house, for my sanity and everyone who knows me, sees me, or can hear the sound of my voice. I must shower and do my hair and go to a magical place where nobody wanted me to hold them or lay with them. And if I happened to stumble across someone who demanded this intimacy, I would be under no OBLIGATION to oblige them. So, I did what any desperate mother would do, I called Grandma. She declined my generous offer to give her my grouchy, whiny, almost-better child. Can you IMAGINE?! She has a double ear infection and didn't really feel like company. HMPFPH. I almost started crying when she said she couldn't keep him for me, I HAD to get out. I decided that something had to give. I drugged him up and sent him to daycare so I could go to school. Am I bad ? He stopped running a fever yesterday, and he'll only be there for 4 hours, promise. I was thinking maybe we both needed out of the house?! He goes to a tiny daycare & I think it will only be him and two other kids there today. I am afraid to check my cell phone in case poor Paulette has left 50 messages demanding I go and pick him up. My conscience is killing me. I feel like such a LOSER just to say that I took him to daycare in a not 100% healthy state. *sigh*

Being home for all these days with a cranky roommate has given me a chance to reflect on WHAT I am. I don't know what I am. Am I a stay-at-home-mommy, am I a part-time mommy? I go to school MWF from 9-12. I am home the rest of the time. Does that constitute a stay-at-home Mom I wonder? I am having a hard time figuring out what box to check on the surveys I take, am I a full-time homemaker? A student? A full fledged insane person? Well, yes, to the later but there never seems to be a box with such a description. If there was how many people would check it, I wonder?

I am also forced to contemplate that as a society we seem to be hell bent on sustaining ourselves on two incomes. It is virtually impossible to have a somewhat "normal" existence on only one income. On the same token there is this whole backlash against daycare. And taking your kids to daycare when they are sick is normally out of the question. *guilty cough* So, what are you suppose to do? If I had a "real" job how able would I have been to call in sick for the last 3 days to stay with sick kids? And what about the fact that a few months ago I was home with sick kids for days and days too? Next week is Trent's spring break and he will be off school for a week and a half, what then? If I was working what I would do with the fruit of my loins?! It seems as though as a stay-at-home Mom, if that's what I am, you run the risk of getting all crazy and depressed-well I do anyway-and as a working Mom you are caught in a different kind of bind as well. In sociology they call this a "double bind". Basically you are up a river without a paddle. *sigh*

I truly admire true blue stay-at-home -Mom's who stay home and take care of their offspring and homestead 24/7. You are a hearty bunch. I stayed home with my kids for about 4 years and it about drove me to the brink of insanity. I truly admire Mom's who can do it and feel fulfilled, happy, and lucky to be able to stay at home. I really do. More guilt. *sigh again*

Alright, well, I am going to go and call my daycare lady and see how Connor the Grouch is doing.

Feel free to discuss and tell me what ya think.

NOTE: Called and checked with Paulette, Connor is doing great and announced his cold is all better. She asked if he could stay longer so they could go to the park. AUGH. I guess he needed out of the house as much as I did.