primalmommy on thu 6 jul 06
I read the email about the man who wanted his wife's role for a day. I
chuckled but it seemed a little dated to me.
Dh and I have taken turns bringing home the bacon. Before kids, when he
went back to school, I did the paycheck routine and he was a student by
day and bartender by night. He had an associates degree -- got a BS
before kids and an MS after. He's a regular guy, fishing and hunting and
scratching and all that, but he's also a good cook. I'm handy with a
chain saw, he helped diaper and rock babies, I roofed my studio
(pregnant with my 10 year old).
I am grateful -- daily -- that he hauls off every day to a sometimes
unrewarding job that provides my kids with orthodonture, my family with
medical coverage and myself with an opportunity to homeschool my kids
and work in my studio all week. He goes in early so he can come home
early and spend time with his fam. But I know that some Monday mornings
he whistles all the way to his nice quiet office, leaving the house of
chaos, yammering, laughter, tattling, laundry, dishes and never-ending
chores.
And he is equally aware that my job is sometimes frustrating as well,
and that my ability to make a home and raise children allows him to
pursue his career the way his career allows me to be here. I sometimes
have the flexibility to say, "to hell with it", and spend the day on
some project like a clay oven or take the kids to the park to sketch,
instead of banking and paying bills and chasing my things-to-do list...
but then there are days when there's too much month at the end of the
money, or I had other plans but everybody is feverish and barfing, the
basement floods, the toilet overflows, and my shift never ends.
It's not that the email isn't funny. It just made me realize that while
my pals consider me pretty traditional, I'm not the June Cleaver in the
email, and I don't know many anymore who are. The majority work outside
the home. Some don't cook at all. I don't own an iron or an ironing
board -- when my kids visited grandma and found her ironing, they stood
in amazement, interrogating her about the odd equipment and why she
didn't like wrinkles in her clothes.
Today is a good day, here. Eight years ago this morning I finally met my
little Molly-pie, newborn and big eyed and impossibly petite. I had a
whole lovely day in the birthing center, w/ vases of flowers and a big
soft bed, to have her all to myself before we went home to hand her over
to noisy brothers and the three ring circus of our family life.
Here's my Molly a few summers back...
http://primalmommy.com/fairyfence.jpg
Today the EZ-up is a birthday pavilion in the back yard, Molly has
changed her party dress three times, and after we pick up her big
brother at his zookeepers-apprentice day camp, there will be little
girls arriving for angel food cake with fresh fruit, chocolate dipped
strawberries, bubble blowing and party games. The sky is blue, the
breeze is cool, and the borders of the back yard offer red raspberries,
red currants, gooseberries, bush cherries, lavender, vining sweet-pea,
mint, lemon balm, blossoming sage and red climbing roses...
yours
Kelly in Ohio... in this bittersweet place where my littlest one is not
a baby any more... but my hands and hours are every year more free for
work in the studio, or heading back to school for my own next-degree...
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