The Grass is Always Greener

On Sunday night of a three day weekend, I commented to my husband that every week should be a three day weekend. It was so nice to know that after catching up on errands on Saturday, and doing fun things with the girls on Sunday, that we still had one more day to rest and get ready to face the week. A four day work week seemed to offer the perfect home/work balance.


On Monday night of the same three day weekend, I locked myself in the bedroom and folded laundry with earplugs in. I could still hear my youngest daughter shrieking in the living room. It was no tantrum, not teething pain, just the chaos of two year old brain resulting in the temporary (I hope) loss of the ability to modulate her volume. But after hours of the audio onslaught, I was a shattered wreck who perfectly understood why Noriega surrendered even though all they did was play loud music. I was so glad that I got to work in the morning instead of stay home with my bundle of joy.

They say that human memory is short as a coping mechanism. We can’t move on after traumatic and difficult events if the memories are as real as the world in front of you. I guess that is why stay at home moms remember how nice it was to have measurable results at the end of the work day, and forget the sick feeling they got in their stomachs on Sunday night when they thought of going to a dreaded job in the morning. Perhaps it equally explains why paid moms remember snuggling sleeping babies and bringing cookies to preschool for Wednesday morning birthday parties, instead of staying home day after day because they didn’t have money to pay entrance fees at the exciting and educational activities they stayed home to share with their kids.

Sometimes, the memory is amazing short (mom brain?). On Tuesday night after a three day weekend, I rushed out of the office and raced to the bus stop. I couldn’t wait to get home and see my little girls. I just missed them so much while I was gone all day at work.