Friday, July 16, 2010

Home or Work

It is 9:00 in the morning, and I still am not dressed and I have not brushed my hair.  I have eaten breakfast and fed the kids and come up with a rough plan about what we are going to do today.  I have tended to my mafia on mafia wars and read the paper.  Sounds pretty good doesn't it?  Even as I type it, I think, why isn't it adequately communicating the angst I feel about staying home, or perhaps envy of my friends who have jobs.

8 years ago, I decided to stay home with the kids.  For various reasons, it seemed like a good idea to swap my high profile, high pressure, high income job as a marketing exec for the playground and dirty diapers.  But when things get really bad, I transport myself back to work.  Where no body yelled, everyone took turns and there was never the sound of Strawberry Shortcake in the background.  I got to hang out with adults ALL day and they used their big boy and big girl voices. 

I never had long in depth conversations with them about the benefits of crust, or had to state that the charter in our house includes eating toast and sandwiches with crust.  Never did I have to pour the juice into the Red Robin cup with the scratch on it, because that one is better than the Red Robin cup without the scratch.  Silly me, of course the scratched one is better.

No one ever climbed on me.  They never rifled around my desk to see if anything I had was good and that they might want to have it to use for their batman project.  My computer was mine.  My desk chair was mine.  My paper clips where mine.  My phone was mine.  No one messed with my stuff.  Be it a cubicle, an office or just a desk, that space was mine.

As I sit here in my Peanuts jammies, and ponder how much different my life would be if I had not decided to stay home.  I think I could wrap it up with something sappy about how no one gives you sticky hugs and kisses at work; at least not without a corresponding trip to HR, but I won't.  I will share with you that if I was at work today, Mac would not be watching Dollars and Sense and learning about how people want to defraud you through mail and the internet. 

2 comments:

  1. There are Batman projects? I need to get some kids. Nevermind that every time I see a kid wandering around the Adult Department, I keep up an internal prayer of "please don't come to me please don't come to me."

    I take it throwing a tantrum when they touch your stuff doesn't work?

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  2. I'd take the Red Robin cup without the scratch. I think my older son would too, as he'd notice the scratch and think it was broken or something. I know what you mean about the crust issue.

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