As a first time Mom I am always learning. And while on vacation last week, I learned an important lesson about what I call “Mom Muscles.”
You see, it started on a typical Thursday morning. I’m up and ready for work, so I go in to get my daughter ready for day care and I find her face down in baby barf. Immediately, I trade my sweater set for sweat pants and rearrange my entire day to care for this sick baby. For the next four days I nurse this barfly baby with a double ear infection back to heath and then board a plane to Aruba for a week’s family vacation.
Now let’s pause and reflect on the fact that a four-day weekend with your child is a long time in Working Mom Land. While the stay-at-home-mom views four days as a blip on the screen, the working mom only experiences this for one or two weeks a year. I have only fourteen days off a year!!! I see my daughter for a scant three hours a day during the week: from 7-8 in the morning and 5-7 at night.
Suddenly vacation hits and in a beautiful condo on the Caribbean, I rise to give my little girl breakfast and then go for a walk and hit the pool. Then it’s lunch and naptime and then back to the beach and now It’s snack time, dinner time, bath time and bed time. We have jumped waves, chased birds and iguanas, and always reapplied lotion: It is a whirlwind. I am exhausted and I realize my Mom Muscles are not what they should be. I think it must be like getting up one morning and saying, “I am going to run a marathon today.” You don’t do that: you need to train, be in shape, own the right gear.
This working mom needs bigger Mom Muscles STAT! I’m mentally strong from a forty-five hour week. I can multitask with the best of them, and I can get more done in my lunch hour than a whirling dervish, but that doesn’t get me ready for an eleven day marathon with my daughter. I came home from my vacation with a new found respect for my friends who stay at home. My hat goes off to the moms with well-developed Mom Muscles. I’ve got some work to do to get mine in better shape! We hit the Outer Banks for Memorial Day and I will be ready next time.
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9 comments
I love this post…esp as a SAHM. So Thank you!
Thank you for your post — I can relate as a working mom. Usually, if I am going somewhere where I have to lift 20-30 pounds (static weight, mind you, not weight that can shift, cry, or smear you with food), I wear gym attire and sneakers. I am really struggling with the fact that even through my pre-baby work clothes fit, there is no place for skirt suits with heels in my life now. Maybe in a few years, but what on earth to wear that works in the office and for the precious time before/after that isn't ridiculous?
I want to fly back home and kiss you! Thanks for giving us stay at home mommies some well deserved credit! Love you Lisa. Come on over to my house and workout anytime!!
I just laughed out loud at the comment about what to wear as a workin mom. I have to say I have not looked half as good at work post baby as I did pre-baby. And having baby snot or food on your shoulder is just a working mom's badge of honor! The single girls in my office are always kind enough to point out if I am wearing any breakfast or bodily fluids when I finally get to work.
I'm pumping at work, so my winter outfit has been either tan or black pants with some sort of sweater; now it's the same pants and a shirt and jacket. Cannot wait to have more options (and less stuff to forget in the mornings).
Lisa, Great post. Although I am a stay @ home mom – I give you working mom's TONS of props! Honestly, I don't know how you do it too!!!
Love this post, very funny and very true. I work part time so I have a foot in both worlds, but I can honestly say the at home on 24/7 job wears me out more than the other does, I joke that I have to go to work to get a little rest!! Most of the time I am more mentally worn out after a full day home with the kids, especially when I am asked a million questions all day long, than when I am after a shift in a busy ICU at the hospital. I do feel for you full time working parents too, I am sure that when you are home that you have to be "on" the entire time the kidos are up and around, at least being home a good part of the time, I dont feel like I have to engage with the kids every single second I am with them, I am sure there are times when you get home from a bad day and want to zone out but then might not feel like you can if you have been away from home all day. At least I have the luxury of being able to say mommy is tired and needs a few minutes to herself, go and play on your own and I will come over in a little while. And I will say the other thing that is fun is seeing my husband having to use his mommy muscles on the days when I work, he always tells me that it is good for him to have them for a full day when I work so that he gets a good dose of what I am doing during the week, he completely understands why the wine is already opened when he gets home from work!!!
This is a great tribute from a working mom to a stay at home mom. Awesome! I have my hand in both sides. I was a full-on SAHM in the early days and loved every second of it. Until I had my 3rd. I kinda felt like "been there, done that." Then I became jealous of the working moms – I was starving for that brain food that working as a parent provides. Now I work from home and love it. Some days I think it's easier to be a working mom. Some days I think it's easier to stay at home. Some days I want neither and I'm terrible at both!
From an old co-worker who embarressingly pressured you into arm wrestling after a few too many glasses of wine years ago, I can totally appreciate the working moms lack of arm muscle. Love ya, Lis!