The Blurry Lines of Working Mom-hood...

One thing that I am realizing about being a Working Mom ( Or Working-Outside-of-the-House Mom, or whatever the PC expression is these days, because I REALLY do not want to offend the moms who take care of their kids at home during the day. Those moms work damn hard!) is that you are never TRULY a 100% Working Mom during the day. You are more of an 80% Working Mom, yet still holding onto that 20% Mom-Mom role. It's one of those things that just happens, even if you try and convince yourself that you CAN go to work and forget the fact that you have kids for 8 hours. Kids are sneaky that way. They make themselves Unforgettable.

Take today, for example. I had a prep period right before lunch, which already got cut short about 10 minutes when I had to take time out to go and deliver  Skyelar to her toddler class. After hurrying back to my classroom to deal with the stack of marking that I had to do,  I was met with an email from Kaia's teacher, informing me that my dainty, darling daughter had somehow managed to cut her lip during recess time. She suggested that I come on over and take a look.

I had a pretty good idea of how it happened, as she DOES seem to have my grace and coordination. So, you know, I figured that she just fell down while walking. However, the Mom Voice in my head told me that unless I wanted to be racked with guilt for the REST OF MY LIFE, I'd better high-tail it on over to the elementary campus and make sure that she was OK.

Obviously, this voice was also accompanied by visions of my sobbing daughter, sitting in the nurse's office with a giant bag of ice to her mouth, wondering why her mother hath forsaken her. Because that's just me. Then the visions drifted into the next scene, which found me comforting my traumatized daughter in the emergency room as she received a dozen or so stitches in her mouth.

Again, you've met me, right? My motto is "Prepare for the worst".

Needless to say, I high-tailed it on over to the elementary campus. Did I mention my giant stack of marking? Consider it re-mentioned.

When I arrived at the building and ran to find my "traumatized" daughter, she was in class, cheerfully showing everyone her lip. She saw me and was elated to take me outside and show me exactly how it had happened (and just as I'd thought- it wasn't too far from my Fell-While-Walking theory. Do I know my offspring? Yes, yes I do.)

There were no tears, no ice packs, no stitches to be had. Just some odd looks from other staff members as they expressed their sympathy and I responded, "Ah, she's fine! I'm just glad that she still has all her teeth!"

This entire episode lasted for most of my ONLY prep period that day, and for some reason, that ginormous stack of marking hadn't magically corrected itself while I'd been gone. If anything, I'm convinced that it somehow GREW in my absence.

Sigh.

So, once again, I'll be hustling to get it done in a timely manner. And waiting in anticipation for whatever child-related distraction will interrupt TOMORROW'S prep period,  thus ensuring that I'll be going home with a stack of marking to entertain me during my weekend.

It's a good thing those kids of mine are so stinking cute...