saying good bye to motherhood as i've known it

This is a hard post for me to write. Not sure what day I'll actually  hit "publish", but I'm writing early Sunday morning. I'm still in bed, looking out my window as I type--the now leafy assortment of trees in my backyard filtering soft gray light. A robin chirping his two-note song over the top of the not so distant sound of cars on the freeway. The kids haven't woken up yet, but I know when they do, they'll all make an appearance here, in my room--the big ones to say good morning, sit on the edge of my bed, and chat for a while. The little ones usually crawl  under the covers with me for a few minutes and warm their freezing toes on my legs, request various things for me to make them for breakfast, yet often manage to eat an entire box of Nilla wafers or some other half-appropriate food before I actually get to make anything. Peacefully crazy, usually happy, predictable...I love our mornings.

So what makes this post, this day, so difficult? After 13 1/2 years, today is my last day of being a stay-at-home Mom.

Kind of killing the vibe of ***Hey! I got this amazing job against all odds at the coolest firm where the floors are concrete and the ducts are exposed and the artwork is inspiring and and  I have a view out the oversized windows of downtown and my desk is orange and my computer is fancy and I have my very own comfy office chair and a boss who seems really neat and I start tomorrow.***

I hate it because of the statement I had to make: "I need to figure out what to do with my kids."

I would never mean it in such a way, but it sounded like I was going on vacation and had pets that needed boarding or tended. "FIGURE out what to DO"....ugh. Even going to school these last three years, I went out of my way to take classes at night, on Saturdays, online--times that wouldn't interfere with being there for my boys to drive them to and from school, to piano lessons, to run them forgotten homework or lunchboxes, bring them home if they got sick, to make cookies once a week, to teach my little J how to write his name and sit on the floor and play Tinker Toys with him as we spent our afternoons together. Now...I don't know what I'm going to do. I haven't had a 'go to the office' type job since 1995. I am as terrified as I am excited.

I've got makeshift babysitting plans for J for the coming week to buy me a little more time to look into permanent options, including for all four of them for the summer when school is out. Just the idea of someone not me having my kids 7 hours a day is making me sick to my stomach. J is barely 5! I remember being 5 and having to go to my babysitter's house. I hated it. The other kids there were mean. The babysitter sometimes got mean. Once she spanked me so hard with a wooden spoon over not eating my sandwich that the spoon broke. Her oldest daughter made me steal gum from the store for her once. It did not feel safe. I did not feel loved. I never told my mom these things or I'm sure she would have done something about them. Nor do I spend much time dwelling on them, because they all still managed to make me who I am and I wouldn't want to be any other way.

Speaking of my mom, though, it would be awfully nice to have her still living about now. She was the let's make a mess together creating something/ go on an adventure/ pitch the tent in the living room/ stop and smell the daisies/ climb on my back and I'll give you a horseride type Grandma. She was a kid magnet, and my boys--and I-- adored her. I don't think I'd turn her into my primary caregiver, but it would be a blessing to have a steady backup of some kind. Someone to count on. Someone who loved my kids as much as I did. Who could do the mom things I can't while I'm trying to do the dad thing. I'm sure, since she lost her mom in her early 20's and then was widowed by the time she was 37 with young children, she wished for the same thing.

But she made due working 12 hour days. So, I will, too. Somehow, as busy as she was and as much as she had to carry alone, she managed to put me in piano and cello lessons. Pay for roller skating and movies and ice cream outings for my friends and me. Let me participate in cheerleading and dance. Bought me my first Ensoniq VFX synthesizer that I spent hours writing music on. I spent two summers in exchange programs in Europe. I might not have had a cache of designer clothes, but I would draw what I wanted and Mom would stay up all night sewing my creations. She paid for me to get blue streaks put in my hair. She shelled out the hundred (probably extremely precious) dollars for Doc Martens and another hundred for a leather biker jacket. She kept everything I wrote. She always supported me in my individuality. Life was not how she wanted it, nor expected it to turn out---she expressed that to us often, but it worked. And she worked. And we loved her dearly for it in our own ungrateful, youthful ways.

My life is not how I wanted it, nor expected it to turn out either...but I'm hoping for the same result. I could not have tried any  harder than I did to create a different life for my own children than what I had growing up, and yet--here I am. And here they are with me. I don't know for what reasons God chose to make it so, but I have faith that He who knows not only what's best for me, but best for my children, will make it alright. In the meantime, I will work with all the ingenuity, integrity, and tenacity I can to get to a place where I can be home with my kids again--even if it is still working from my home. The Lord giveth no commandment save He prepare a way....

Wish me luck. Lots of it. And the ability to offer continued forgiveness towards Brad for putting the boys and me in this situation in the first place. Yeah.