Little b has both parents cracking up…

Man, I am thirsty!

Me, Mommy and Daddy

My toes!

Child's pose

They're not listening to me...

Getting my hair done

Taking a break

me and my buddy 2

Sleeping1

I have a doctor appointment this afternoon. At my last appointment, she asked if I wanted to be "checked" (and those of you who have been "checked" understand why I use quotation marks because it is quite another thing ENTIRELY) and I was all, "No thank you!" Because why would I want to do THAT?

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For the first time ever, my kids got together this summer with all their cousins at one time. We spent a week at my parents’ house in Montana, eating their free food, playing on their personal playground, and coloring with their crayons.

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I am not a great sleeper. No. I must amend that. I am not a great nighttime sleeper. I am either working (having become so entrenched in writing, I don't realize it is 3:47 a.m. and I need to be in bed) or I start playing a video game because my children (a.k.a. the little gamer pushers) begged me to do one last Game Quest with them. As I see the sun rise, I ground them all for making me stay up all night. Because, you know, it is their entire fault. I am just the tired parent.

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I’ve been thinking, for a while now, that it might be nice to have one day off each week where I could spend it prancing around town with my Stay-At-Home-Mom friends.  I’ve longed to meet them at the park for playdates. Or at the zoo.  Or the aquarium.  Or their house.  Or my house.  Anything.

I even went as far as to ask my boss about changing my schedule for the summer only.  Of course this was met with a side look and talk of “what would everyone else think if you got to take off every Friday?”  Needless to say I’m still working five days a week and dreaming of what it’s like to be a SAHM.

Enter Amy.

Amy got to do what I’ve been wanting to do.  She’s been able to take a break from her career to try this out this whole SAHM thing.  And because Amy rocks (and has all this free time now.  HAA!), she’s been awesome enough to share with us what she’s learned about becoming a (temporary) SAHM.

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This summer I’m taking my first summer off of work since I graduated college. It was one of those things that just worked out. I was in between projects and since my daughter is starting kindergarten in the fall, I thought it’d be a great time to be around to make the transition a little easier.

It didn’t hurt that after our especially dark, dank, and long winter this year, sunny afternoons outside sounded infinitely better than back to back meetings in an over-air conditioned office building.  It also didn’t hurt that after many consecutive nights last May of frantically and unsuccessfully trying to sign two kids up for consecutive summer day camps that were located within ten miles of each other, I realized that I’d waited too long and that my husband and I would have to devise some pretty creative carpooling strategies in order to get three kids to where they needed to go each morning. After eight years of wondering if the grass was really greener on the SAHM side of the fence, I was going to see whether or not it really was.

And do you know what I’m finding? The grass is pretty much green in the shade and brown in the sun no matter what side of the fence you’re standing on.

I knew that staying home would be hard. Three kids with completely different interests makes activity planning difficult. Plus, there’s naptime to honor for my two-year old and playdates to schedule for my increasingly social eight-year old who has become addicted to sleepovers. And then there’s the fact that I’m bound and determined to teach  my five year old to swim this summer, as well as replant the yard, clean out our closets, learn to cook a few new recipes, paint the hallway, rebuild the deck, and a few other little household chores along the way.  But I figured I could do it since every kid needs to experience at least a few hours of summer boredom. It’s a rite of passage.

They were bored out of their skulls.

So I took them to the wading pool at the park, where they splashed around happily and then played on the playground, easily meeting new kids and floating effortlessly in and out of games. I sat in the shade alone and watched some of the other parents, most who came with friends, and felt a bit lonely. And, though I feel guilty even saying this, I was really bored.

We continued this routine for weeks. Everyday I’d attempt to cross some projects off my list and then we’d set off for some activity. During this time, I noticed that my laundry pile grew more gigantic than ever, my house looked like it has been attacked by the same pack of wild monkeys each day, and the garden was yellowing and crackly and less vibrant than ever. And to top it off, I rarely had time to stray from my old safety meals, let alone cook.

I was losing my mind. But the kids were in heaven.

They loved having me around and they loved having weeks of fairly unstructured time. They went to bed more easily after active days and were less clingy when I took some time for myself–something that previously looked like something out of Sophie’s Choice. They seemed relaxed and happy, and that made me feel like this was a good thing.

I think my main misconception is that I had this idea in my head of what staying home looked like—happy kids, lovely family dinners, carefree afternoons and a clean house—and pretty much that exists only in Ozzie and Harriet, or else with a lot of practice. It’s not something that can be achieved over a summer–or even in half of a summer, since I’m generally an impatient person.

But what I’m learning this summer is something closer to what I experienced all those years ago during my younger summer vacations. I’m learning a lot about myself. I’m learning that it’s hard to feel carefree and successful when you really don’t like cooking lovely meals, but prefer eating them out, or being lucky enough to have a husband who loves to cook. It’s hard to care about laundry when it’s more fun to play with the kids, especially when you know this summer is a special one. And nobody really minds so much that they have to go find their clean clothes in the laundry room.

And even though I love my children with every ounce of myself, I am a much better mom when I’m doing the things I love—being a mom and growing a career.  And it’s important to remember that they’re happy during the year, too—that this summer doesn’t have to be the end all be all of my parenting experience.  But I do hope that this summer I can show them the importance of being who they are and valuing their gifts and talents. And I’ve loved (almost) every minute of spending extra time with them and falling into this lovely relaxed routine together.

And hopefully, they’ll inherit their father’s love of cooking.

Isabel is a pseudonym for this Seattle-based blogger. She’s been working since the day she realized soda and lip gloss weren’t free. Isabel became a mom in 2006 and continues to work full time, outside the home, since diapers and mortgages aren’t free either. You can read far too much about her personal life at hola,isabel.

If you have questions, anecdotes, or topics for “Double duty. One paycheck.”, email Isabel at holaisabel [at] gmail.com.

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