One Year and Counting

I hit the one-year mark at work last week.  It is hard to believe I have been back in the workforce for the past one year.  The original plan was to return to work for a year, pay our debts down, then resume stay-at-home motherhood.

Scratch the plan.

I like my schedule, I like (most) of my co-workers and my manager. I like the work that I do triaging people in withdrawal from substances, or who have suicidal or homicidal ideation.  They are in a moment that is ripe for change and opportunity.  And I like that Andi and the twins can hardly wait to go to school and that for the most part, they seem to have adjusted well to having a mom who has her own career. It’s been a good balance.  And I feel like I’m a better role model than I was as a stay-at-home mom.  (I am not slamming stay-at-home moms, I am just saying that I am not a particularly good stay-at-home mom.  Neither choice is better and I don’t like the whole “who works harder?” debate and I’m not taking a stance on that, either.)

I also like that after I find pee all over my counter, dripping down the cupboards and into the mixing bowls and onto the (just mopped for god’s sake!) floor because my three year-old couldn’t stop her hunt for the hidden tootsie rolls long enough to take herself potty – again – that I can hand my children off to someone else and go deal with other people’s crisis.  It gives me a chance to calm down and laugh at how Andi responded when I asked that she not let peeing her pants happen again... 

She changed clothes and put a panty liner in her underwear. 

Apparently she wasn’t taking any chances, though I don’t think a panty-liner could absorb the whole contents of her bladder.  But I’ll give her points for effort.

But going to work makes this blogging awfully difficult to get to.  I don’t know that I will keep up the blogging. I originally started it so family could see pics and read stories about the girls, but with an ipad that takes and sends pictures so easily and quickly, it’s made blogging less needed for keeping extended relatives mixed into the lives of the girls.

And while I do like writing, between cooking a weeks worth of homemade dinners during my three days off, getting all the errands run and bills paid and house cleaned and then trying to “just have fun” with my kids, Oh! and do the yard work, brush the dog, hit the gym and pump-it-up at Zumba twice a week, there just isn’t much time for writing.

But somehow, life feels better balanced – for right now…