Back to Work

Savoring the last of my stay-at-home moments

Like most temporary stay-at home moms, I was only going to be there until she went to Kindergarten. He’d be in third grade, and they would both board the bus at 7:05 am, leaving me to finish my coffee, gather my things, and head out the door to my rewarding new job. Cue the screech: I found myself having to go back to work a year earlier than I had planned.

Now I am drinking it in, trying to become, in the next three months, the kind of Stay At Home Mom that I always wanted to be. The kind that sat down every day for craft time, the kind that always stopped for Slurpees, the kind that played on the playground with them instead of finding a bench and digging in my bag for the InStyle I had shoved in it on the way out the door.

I’ve always worked part-time, so every day felt like Friday. When I was at work, I couldn’t wait to hit the library or Chick-Fil-A with the children, and after hearing “Noo!” and “I’m hungry!” all day, I couldn’t wait to get back to work. It was the perfect arrangement for my temperament.

Soon I’ll be living with only one half of that equation, and I’m losing the balance that made me feel like a competent Mom and a happy employee. I can handle it; so many people do. But what about the kids?

The fact is that their worlds won’t change much at all. My boy will have instant playmates at his after school program, and he’s been going there part-time this year anyway. They have more Legos than could even fit in his room at home, and he gets his homework done with no nagging. My daughter will feel like a “big girl” going to school as her brother does every day, and she’ll be with friends she loves and teachers who feel like family.

Still, I keep trying to stamp some stay-at-home memories in my mind for easy recall when times get tough at work. Today, Instead of dragging her with me through the stores at the mall saying “We’ll be at the playground in just a few minutes,” I took her straight to the Petri Dish. I fought the urge to text, and instead tried to make a memory of her dancing, with no inhibitions, on a “stage” she made out of the huge stopwatch figure there.

I let her stay there “just five more” five more minutes as I watched her practice the songs she was learning for the pre-school spring program. I tried to remember the way her hair falls over her face, and her funny smile as she pretends to be Julie Andrews.

I found myself eyeing the moms near me with a mix of pity and envy; I had been coming to this germ bowl for 6 years, first with my son, and now with her, and I noticed now the way the rainbow carpets had faded and how the pleather benches were covered in the stick of dirty hands and spilled formula. I had some great times here when it was new—I’d meet my best friend once a week in the winter, we’d have lunch, and then go home for a three-hour nap. Not bad.

But it was time for me to go. I motioned for my little girl to come on, and she said, of course, “Noo!”.

“But I just want to tell you something,” I said. She skipped over to me and leaned in for the secret: “I love you!” I told her, as we put her shoes on and hit the Skittle machine on the way out to the car.