Having 18 month old twin boys is exhausting. Physically, mentally, emotionally exhausting. The one thing that keeps me sane is the fact that I have an escape from the chaos of having two busy, bustling boys. Call me a bad mother, I don’t care. I love knowing that after a long weekend of swiping rocks and leaves out of Chase’s mouth; keeping Dylan from killing himself; hissy fits; scraping mashed potatoes off the floor, walls, face and anywhere else it winds up; screams of impatience while I frantically try to peel an orange within the requested time frame of an 18 month old (BTW… their timeframe? 1 second); fights over trains, balls, blankets and whichever other object they feel they need to steal from one another; and all of the other lovely traits of the terrible twos, I am able to retreat to my job and my office and regain the sanity that I had lost over the past two days.
Being a working mother is so emotionally cyclical. Come Monday, I am more than happy to grumpily trudge off to work like the rest of the 8-5ers of working America. Stepping into the office and having a small chat over weekend activities or recent news while sipping away on piping hot coffee couldn’t make me any happier. Nothing makes you feel more like an adult then grumbling about Mondays to your coworkers; I’m serious, if you haven’t experienced the bond that creates with your teammates, then you are missing out.
So Mondays, in my mind, aren’t really all that bad, because I’m ready for the break. It’s not until about Wednesday that I start to think about how much I wish I could be at home with the kiddos. Come Wednesday, the boys are back to remembering that mom can’t stay home with them and the small sniffles that I received on Monday and Tuesday as I walked out the door are replaced with an enthusiastic “BYE” as Dylan and Chase bid me farewell. (I know as a mom I should be happy that my kids are independent and not little attached cry babies, but it still hurts a little when they don’t throw themselves into a fit of despair whenever I leave the room. I’m selfish…what can I say?)
From Wednesday through Friday, I leave for work and secretly wish that I could stay at home all day and cuddle with the boys, eat lunch with the boys, and do all of the other wonderfully idealistic things that I visualize stay at home moms get to do every day of their lives. And then comes Saturday and Sunday, where I am reminded of how it REALLY is to stay home all day with kids.
The week is an emotional rollercoaster for working mothers, but I’m sure glad, for my sanity’s sake, I’m along for the ride.
