People warned that I’d be in tears during my first day back at work after maternity leave with my first child. Instead, I felt like a kid on the first day of kindergarten.
Sure, I was nervous leaving my infant daughter and going back to work. But as I sat at my desk — which hadn’t changed in the three months I was gone, the desk calendar still on April 2009 although it was by then July — it was an eerie feeling that nothing had changed, even though everything in my life had. I had become a mom, and now like my mother before me, I was a working mom.
And for me, it felt right. For the first time in weeks, I felt like myself again.
I’ve discovered in the last six years that there are some moms who are amazing stay-at-home moms. There are women who seemingly have endless patience and energy, women who can go from play date to grocery shopping and still make yoga pants look glamorous.
There are the women who shuttle from piano lessons to ballet class and still have time to meticulously clean the house or organize the pantry and make detailed lists for supper weeks ahead. There are women in tennis skirts I used to jealously eye in the preschool pickup line, the women who make staying at home look easy.
But I’m not one of those women. During my maternity leave this summer with my third child, I’ve enjoyed the precious moments at home with my kids. We’ve gone rock-wall climbing and had play dates at the pool. We’ve gone to the free summer kids movies and weekly events at the library. We’ve had tennis lessons and vacation Bible school.
But last Monday, I spent three long hours in my van with my three kids, driving back home from a weekend at my mother’s house, followed by two hot hours in the sun at swim practice. Soon after, I had one child who was crying because I got her a pink Icee instead of blue, another child who was screaming because he had to go to the potty right now and a 3-month-old who was crying because, well, probably because everyone else in the car was crying.
Eventually, the baby went silent, but only because her 6-year-old big sister tried to share her Icee through a straw. (Oops. Definitely not meant for an infant’s consumption.) My 3-year-old son didn’t quite make it to the potty, but instead ended up peeing in the grass along U.S. Highway 43 through our open van door, just before a Northport police officer pulled up behind us just to make sure we were OK.
It was 1 p.m. and we still hadn’t had lunch, I hadn’t had a shower yet, I hadn’t worn makeup in weeks and I hadn’t been on time to anything all summer. It was then that I realized: Staying at home with three young kids is harder work than going to work.
There are women out there who are amazing stay-at-home moms. I’m just not one of them.
And so, this week, I’m headed back to the newsroom, a place I’ve missed, a place where I’ve spent the last decade doing what I love. And while I love my kids more than anything, I’m excited.
I’m once again starting to feel like a kid on the first day of kindergarten.
Reach Lydia Seabol Avant at lydia.seabolavant@tuscaloosanews.com. Visit tuscmoms.com to read her blog.
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Exchanging one demanding job for another