Yesterday and this morning, I was pure mom. I cleaned house. I went grocery shopping. I made apple pie. You can’t get much more mom than that. This morning, though, I put a roast in the crock pot–so I guess you can get more mom. Sometimes I think that it would be okay to be doing this stuff all the time. God knows, my house could use a full time mom around. There are piles of stuff everywhere. I can barely keep up with laundry and I’m doing good to make a meal that isn’t partially frozen.

I could do it–work full time and come home and do everything. But I don’t want to and I don’t really have to. People make you feel like you do though. You can see it on their faces when they see the suitcase in the corner that’s been there the last 10 times they’ve come to visit. It’s true, I’d much rather the suitcase not be there. I’d much rather not be staring at the pile of still-not-put-away clothes. But if I did all that, if I kept my house clean–and even if Mr. GM did more than the 10% he now does–I’d never have time to read a book, to write anything, to even breathe. I know, because I have friends that do this–both at home moms and work outside the home moms. Their houses are spotless. They have nice gardens and cute decorations outside. But they haven’t read a book in years. They’re barely keeping up with the news. They’re in bed by 10 because their kids get them up at 6. Maybe I’m lucky that I can stay up late, but I say it’s a choice. At book club last week, one mom had made it through a bunch of books. I myself had read two books instead of our allotted one book. Another mom–a go-to-bed-with-clean-house mom–said, “How do you find the time?” And the book-reading mom said, “When you love something, you just do it, you find the time?” And I thought, “Yeah, you go girl.” Because I don’t love housework. I don’t even really love a perfectly clean house. I love my kids. I love Mr. GM. I love reading and I love writing. And those things take up all my time outside of my job–which I also love–so the clean house, the stereotypical mom stuff is just going to have to wait. It’ll happen occasionally, like it did yesterday, but only after the good stuff. Mr. GM really liked the apple pie–so it was worth the effort. 🙂