Who works outside of the home at least 4 days a week. I am not scheduled to work Friday but sometimes the court schedule leaves me little choice.
I am also a mom who likes to be involved in her child’s activities and school. It’s a fine balance, isn’t it. It will be an even finer balance when I have 3 in school and I am juggling class trips, concerts and activities x 3.
I never doubted our family’s decision that I would work. I enjoy working outside of the home and it affords us the luxury of family vacations, going to concerts, taking weekend trips, buying a camper and other perks that we don’t even realize. The girls have sometimes said to me ( or to Craig), “but I don’t want you to go to work today”, but they have never shown signs of stress at going to day care or staying home with our nanny.
On Thursday, Piper had her first official field trip. They requested volunteers, sent out a permission slip and made arrangments for the kids to be bussed one hour to the zoo. She was excited. I was excited for her. I had considered volunteering but decided to save that time off for a long weekend camping. Off she went without a word about it.
Thursday evening when I asked her about her trip, she didn’t say much at all. In fact, all she said was, “it was good, Mom.”
WHAT! That’s it. Just good. You sat on a bus with your friends, without Mommy or Daddy and went to the zoo and it was just good. I was crushed. I wanted her to have a great time on her trip and then to excitedly tell us all about it. I didn’t push or pry. I let her be and later that evening I had a chance to re-visit the topic.
We talked about her trip and I asked her all kinds of questions. Who did you sit with, what did you see, who else was in your group, did you have fun, were you tired? She answered them all. Then she told me that there were a lot of Moms there and then she said this,
“Why weren’t you there, Mom? You should have been there.”
I had let her down and I felt terrible.
Trying to explain to your six year old why you work is hard. We all have different reasons and trying to get your children to understand them is tough. My heart was broken. I decided to let her come to our room for bed that night. Something she hasn’t done in over two years.
It made me feel a wee bit better about things.
I think that she has just been missing us lately. The crazyness of our schedules has caught up to her. Both Craig and I were saying that we were feeling overwhelmed with our life right now. Busy schedules and the desire to be at the camper every weekend. If we are feeling this way, then I am sure the girls are too. Our weekends at the camper are care free and relaxing and yesterday after we were all bathed and putting the girls to bed Davilyn said, “I want to go camping. Not just two sleeps.”
We have always made and tried to make our time together as a family a priority. I need to work a wee bit harder on that.
