Snow Days

We flipped our week and weekend ... five days of at home and only two of at school.  Gus and Abe and I had a good time (Chris went to work every day--makes you wonder about the school and these "snow days" doesn't it?).  We made dozens of snowballs and threw them everywhere (trees and the side of the car were favorite places to hit).  We walked through lots of snow and enjoyed the satisfying crunch (sound and feel) under our feet.  Actually, the way fresh snow feels when you walk on it is one of my all-time favorite things about snow.  We made a little snow man.  We played with our neighbors.  We watched the squirrels brush snow off our porch railing with their fluffy tails. 

And we did lots of fun indoor snow-day activities too.  We made a birthday present for Chris.  We made some bouncy balls in a kit sent by surprise from my mom.  We played games.  We watched the inauguration!  We baked a Martin Luther King cake.  Oh, and we ate it too.  And then, we brought a little bit of Little House in the Big Woods into our little house:

We just used sugar because I certainly don't know how to tap a maple tree, even if I could find a maple tree ready to be tapped and also because we don't have any maple syrup in the house.  It was fun, even if we did toss the "candy" after a few bites.

Please ignore the dirty stove, cleaning didn't really factor into our snow days.  I find that my attitude really determines how days like these will go.  If I'm frustrated because I am not going to get done the list of things I had planned on then no one ends up having fun.  If I think what cool activity can we do today that we couldn't do another day, then that activity is often just exactly what we all needed.  Then we can go do separate activities for awhile and I will get some of my to do list done.  Not that the to do list is the be-all and end-all ... but for me getting something tangible accomplished makes me feel much better about my day.  Definitely that lack of tangible product day to day is the hardest part of full-time mothering for me.

This also leads to my main source of guilt though.  I'm enjoying so much staying at home with Gus and Abe, but I'm not contributing financially and all that responsibility is put on Chris.  So when I'm not the "perfect" homemaker I feel guilty.  If the house isn't clean (a serious weak area for me; I hate cleaning), if I buy dinner instead of cooking it, if I shop for something unnecessary and spend too much money; I start to feel like a drag instead of a supporter. 

I value what I'm doing.  It isn't that I don't think parenting is extremely important.  And I work very hard at trying to be the best parent that I can, and that means spending real time doing things with my kids, not just running some pristine house, still I have that "modern" woman's disease:  why can't I do it all?

Ironically when I had my law practice, in Austin, adding the work into my day of parenting freed me from feeling guilty.  I hired a housekeeper, I got more exercise, I loved working.  Things weren't perfect and I had lots of help from my parents and my parents-in-law, but I think grandkids and grandparents who get to spend lots of time together are lucky so I certainly didn't feel guilty about that!  Abe is too young for me to want to go out and find work just for the sake of finding work.  And in Durham I don't know who would help me take care of him...but I want to think more about how to recreate that feeling and efficiency from when I was working now, while I'm not.

Comments

[Gretchen]

I want to compliment you on your great blog. I was in your AHS'88 class, saw you at the reunion, but didn't have a chance to say hi. I was Gretchen Dornheim back then. I was an observer in high school, not much of a participant. I can really identify with the stay at home mom syndrome. My house is always a mess even though I am always cleaning something, and the spending guilt when I buy something I don't really need. I have 3 kids (8,5,1) and have been home for 8 years.
BTW-You have really opened my eyes about plastic, I am making different decisions about cooking, food storage, etc. Thanks!

[maya]

Gretchen! Can you send me an email? There is something wrong with typepad and it isn't letting me reply via email to your comment like I normally can...just click under my picture over on the right. Thanks, Maya

[Chris]

Snow + sugar <> yummy treat