Union break!

Wow, sometimes I wish Mother's had a union. I would really appreciate a 15 minute break every four hours. Heck, I wouldn't mind being paid overtime, with 4 breaks on my 17+ hour work days. And how 'bout paid vacation? So many great things about unionizing mothers. Could you imagine a strike? How many high school kids could not pack their own lunches? Or father's going off to work in mis-matched socks - or worse yet, "yesterday's" socks? Would we have to stay after to make up "missed days" from the strike?

I remember in 9th grade when my Science teacher went off one day about how "stay at home mom's" have nothing to do all day. I mean how long could it take to do laundry? He went through and listed all the things that he figured she should spend her time on and how much time it should take. He decided the majority of her time was available for lounging around and watching TV. I laugh at that now realizing that he was so amazingly clueless. What I find the most interesting was that he dedicated no time to a mother nurturing her children, the most important and time consuming portion of my job. I too underestimated how much this would take until a few years ago. I have always been able to sneak in time here or there to get breaks, shop for gifts, read a book, etc. For a while I was staying up too late to try and catch up on things. Now I have finally realized that if I want to do anything, it has to be done as a mother (baby on the hip, and another holding the other hand). This week I have started an exercise program again. This time, however, I don't try to get up before the kids (because they would just keep getting up earlier and earlier), I do it right in the midst of them. I did some step aerobics this morning and I laid down a cloth diaper for one child and a pillowcase on the other side of me for the other child and encouraged them to join me (thankfully I had not got all the linens put away and they were still sitting on the back of the couch).

So now I blog while my child crawls across my lap or while she is playing with my feet. It is not very time efficient and my 9th grade science teacher would balk at how much time I take to get through a post, but my kids are turning out good, we are having a happy family who loves to spend time together, so I have to say that this experiment should please him, although I know it won't. and I don't care.