I should introduce myself. I'm a 40 year old mother of 3, and a step mom to 1. All are girls and the ages range from 20 years old to 9 months old. I'll repeat. 20 years old to 9 months old. I'll give you a moment to let that sink in a little bit before I hit you with the next thing. I also have a 13 year old and a 6 year old (she's the step daughter). All are girls. And I'm barely alive. That's right, you heard me.....hanging on by the skin of my teeth. Do teeth really have skin?
My 20 year old, we'll name her Pop, doesn't live in the house with me. Pop stays with my sister. My sister lives closer to the college where Pop attends and she lives directly across the street from Pop's work. So it's much more convenient for her to be there. Lala, my 13 year old, lives with my boyfriend (that such a strange thing to write being as old as I am with this family thing going on) and I and our 9 month old, Pumpkie. His almost 6 year old daughter, Belle, is with us on weekends.
Modern day Brady Bunch. How did this whole thing get started? Long story and I won't bore you just yet, but it's coming in another blog. My point to this blog is that I am slowly losing my mind.
This past weekend my beloved was away. He left Sat and just came back home yesterday. He was thrilled to see me and missed me so much. He missed the kids. He was in such a great mood in fact, that he actually wanted to tell me all about the fun time he had while he was away. The skiing, the poker, the dinners out, the gambling, the partying, oh and the inconvenient convention that went on for a few hours Mon and Tues. He laughed while he recollected the stories and really engaged in telling the, no, re-enacting them out for me. I got the pleasure of sitting through that for a mind blowing 30 minutes while I wondered if he would even stop for a moment to ask how my time, alone with Lala and Pumpkie for 5 days, was? No? You can't guess? He never asked. It didn't phase him.
While he was off on his excursion, I was thinking about all the things I could do to make money while still being available to my children. I didn't really have a free moment to myself other than when Lala would take the baby for 15 minutes at a time. She's only 13 so I don't want to put it all on her while I run for the hills as soon as she walks through the door.
I could go on and on, but I won't. It sucks being a stay at home mom. There are no breaks. The kids cry and whine, throw tantrums the size of world wars and somehow, you have to hold on to your sanity long enough to slide into home at 8pm. But at the same time, there are far greater rewards. When the man stopped talking about his excursion to adultland, I stopped being envious and pissed off that he got an escape from reality and really heard what he was telling me.
He said to me "sometimes you have to experience what you don't want, to see more clearly what you do want". I thought he was getting a little Buddah-ish on me. He followed it up with a nice little chaser - "I really missed you a lot and I just wanted to be home. I'm so comfortable around you." I thought to myself...."I love you too sweetie! Welcome home."
In all the craziness and all the madness, I wouldn't want to be anywhere else. It's never easy, but always an adventure. I think I'm getting a little Buddah-ish myself. Maybe it's my 40 year old molecules taking over my brain, but things are much clearer now.
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