Conflicted

After a day full of breaking up screaming matches between my two boys, cleaning the grout with Mr. Clean's Magic Eraser, trying to make leftovers look enticing and trying to calm down tummy ache crying because one little 3 year old had a bit too much candy at the movie theater, I am left thinking, "I wanted this right?"

For 4 years I was a full-time working mom and hated it. In those 4 years I had frequent melt downs and crying sessions due to missing my children, feeling inadequate as a mother and feeling like I could never finish everything that was on my to-do list.

Yet now I am suddenly sad that I don't have a classroom to go set up, new lessons to create and new students to meet and challenge. I'm even feeling a bit sad that I don't have pointless meetings to attend in 2 weeks, meetings that would include catching up with adults. In other words, meeting that would include conversations with grown-ups.

Don't get me wrong. I never thought being a stay-at-home mom would be glamorous and perfectly wonderful. But maybe I never realized just how difficult it is. Maybe it hadn't quite reached this level of difficulty because before this my children rarely interacted with one another. But now they do and all interactions seem to consist of high pitched screams that make me seriously consider getting a restraining order for them.

It's hard to cope with these things knowing there will be no financial compensation. At least when I had a classroom full of crazy children I knew there would be a paycheck coming that would make it worthwhile (despite it's meager size). Now when I pick up yet another food product or toy that has been a victim to Ben's destroying nature, I know it won't mean that I will be able to buy a new shirt later on or that I can now take my hubby on a date to the movie theater. It just means that our house will be a little less disgusting.

Hopefully come mid-August when I start to tutor part-time (assuming I get more people than the one flaky client I currently have) I will find that that is the perfect balance for me. That I will get out of the house just enough to still love my children but not so much that I will feel like a terrible mother.

It's funny how I used to growl in anger at stay-at-home moms that longed to get out and work and at working moms who were perfectly happy and content to be out working and not at home. Suddenly I understand and can feel empathy for all sides of the motherhood spectrum. It is certainly not easy to be a mother.