The Working Mom

The life of a working mom is in constant motion. When things are going well, the schedule, tasks and hopes for the day are falling into place. These kinds of days occur as frequently as planetary alignment.

A working mom eventually learns to set her standards a little lower. She learns to tolerate the massive hair ball collections on the floor. She looks past the accumulated clutter on every horizontal surface of furniture. She learns to breathe through the clean laundry left unfolded. She learns to stay calm when the dishes have been left unrinsed in the sink. She tries to teach her children to not make more work for her.

On the days the working mom works from home, she's excited at the thought of waking up a little bit later than usual because she doesn't have to shower, or pull her children out of bed. The day begins with making coffee to encourage her husband out the door, walk the dog enough to let a few digestive functions out, and convert the dining room table into the work space. Energized by the caffeine, the walk and delighted the children are sleeping in - she eagerly reviews her schedule and tasks for the day. There is much to be done before the kids require breakfast.

Then there are the days that start out of whack when a child wakes up sick. Imagine waking up to this situation -->

The initial assessment leads to calling the pediatrician. The next step is to figure out how he got the obvious poison ivy/oak. Where did he play yesterday? Did is sister play there, too?

After a gentle interrogation the boy described playing hide and seek on the Greenway next to their school.

The working mom now has another task added to her plate. She calls the city forester to remove the poison oak her children discovered in the same location four years ago. She also knows that poison ivy has infiltrated the Sculpture Garden. Friends tell her that both poison oak and poison ivy grow up to 50 feet high along the Tow Path, and that poison sumac has started to return to the grassy areas around the SteelStacks.

She is keenly aware of restricted government budgets. She knows there won't be funds to cover paid manpower to remove all the offensive weeds. She also knows that she can't simply bring her own tools to the site and remove the plants on public property. While jail might be a nice break - she's got responsibilities.

The working mom is lucky enough to have some connections and initiative to organize people to actually work WITH the city to solve this problem. She just wonders when she's going to be able to start this new initiative while she barely addresses the things currently on her plate.

At the end of the day, the affected child has survived large doses of oral steroids. And the working mom cracks open another beer.

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#22 of 90in90 for #LUBlogTribe