A Day to Myself & Why I Prefer to Mother on the Go

Today is a very rare day.

My boys are at camp with my in-laws (I drove back yesterday) and I'm home alone while my husband is at work. I think I have had very few days like today in my 11 years as a mother. Of course I should be waxing my legs, blow drying my hair, packing for our return, but here I am, blogging about my children! haha... ;)

Mothering is hard work. Parenting is hard in general, of course, but in our family, the minutiae of the boys lives (making sure they have clothes to wear, that their bedrooms are in OK shape, that their favorite toothpaste is available & other million small tasks) are my responsibility.

I enjoy doing these little things. I miss my boys when they are not here, I just thoroughly adore being their mom.

Of course there are things I'm very bad at. I'm really good at being out and about with the boys -- that's one of the reasons I miss living in a big city like Philadelphia with so many things to do, so many places to go.

If you've been reading for a long time you know that beginning back in 2006 -- in October when I had a 2 and a 4 year old, I've been going on lots of long car trips with the boys. The longest (2,210 miles) was in July 2010, to Canada and back.

I think I'm good at keeping them dressed & at giving them lots of cuddles, but I'm not very good at enforcing things (such as making sure they do chores and homework and vision therapy) and even at cooking things and feeding them at regular mealtimes. In short, everything that is hard for me from my ADHD affects my parenting very strongly.

Thankfully, it never really concerned me too much that most parenting experts say that children thrive on routine. Mine thrived on relative chaos and improvisation and impromptu excursions since babyhood and they're fine. Of course they were always warm and fed and... entertained! :)

I really am most happy when I am in a car going somewhere with my boys. At home I'm not very productive, they complain of boredom, I start screaming that they need to do this or that. So... it's almost unreal to have a quiet house. I open their drawers and put away the new pajama that I bought at the outlet yesterday. I bend down to pick up tiny legos on the floor and find a tiny piece of a train that I know they'll be delighted we can super-glue back).

The boys' presence is felt everywhere. On the train tracks and trains on the living room floor to the clothes on the floor in their bedroom.

In the end, I don't blog very much about mothering and about my boys, in spite of the name of my blog. This sometimes surprises me, but mostly, it does not. Mothering is what I do on a daily basis, blogging is a space for myself to reflect on life. That's why, I guess, it's easier for me to blog about my sons when they aren't here.

Well, now I will try to go and do some things just for myself before I get going at the end of the day to be reunited with my boys!