Wednesday, January 25, 2012

What Does a Mom Do?

Last night after dinner, my teenage son asked me "Mom, why is it that when we first moved in here, the house was always clean and tidy. But now it's so messy?"

 I commented something about how everyone else in the house didn't seem to care or help out every day picking stuff up.

His reply was "Well, why is the carpet so spotty and messy?"

In which I replied about people eating and drinking in the living room and the light colored carpet. Then he asked why we didn't get dark carpet in which I said something about we BOUGHT the house, we didn't build it.. Had to get what was in the house.

Forward to this morning when we texts me while in a computer class (he is able to get on a texting website from the school) what was I doing. When I told him that I was trying to be productive, his reply was "Get to cleaning and vacuum Mom".

Well, you can imagine that I saw RED.

This got me on a tirade: between his and my conversation, the four-year old wanting EVERYTHING he sees on the television and trying to get the kitchen back to how I want it (it has become the medicine cabinet again even though I don't want it all in there. Mind you, I did put some of it down there but NOTHING gets put away medicine wise unless I put it up), I began to wonder, what did happen since Thanksgiving when we moved in and now that has changed... And I figured it out....

I started back up on the business! Well, TRYING is more the word. When I am down in the studio (it's in a room behind the garage so by definition, it's the basement but it's not underground) I feel like I should be upstairs in the house cleaning or making sure that a child isn't out on the roof or destroying the house.

This got to thinking about ALL that I really do and my children don't seem to realize. It's not anything more than any other mom does (work at home, work out of the home or stay at home):

  • Make sure the house is stocked with food. It may not be what everyone wants to to eat, but its nurishing and edible.
  • Make sure that everyone has something to eat (by cooking, eating out or having delivered). Again, not everyone is promised to be satified with the choices, but they are made :-)
  • Makes sure that there are proper fitting clothes for everyone in the house (who cares if Mom only has 2 pairs of jeans and a plethera of loungewear that she has had for nearly 10 years or more, the kids have uniforms for school and some have more clothes then a small country) It is not her fault that you turn your nose up at nearly everything that is picked for you that we can afford.
  • The bathroom doesn't clean itself.
  • Gets up with the little kids EVERY NIGHT they are sick...
  • Let's little kids climb in bed with her and gets kicked all over or pushed off the bed and sent to the couch.
  • Speaking of the couch, allows said sick kid to sleep on the couch and takes the love seat instead.
  • Takes kids to the doctor when they are sick.
  • Keeps up with every medicine that kid must take and can recite what to take when without having to look at the medicine bottle.

You get the idea. A mom's job is tough no matter what. My kids think that I should do everything for them and lose myself.

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