I'm not insane

Ok, some of you might have issues with my title, but oh well! As far as I am concerned, I'm NOT insane. A lot (alot...snicker snicker...i felt pain in the eyes of one reader) of my time this summer has been spent with children, hard to avoid when they are mine. And I love it! I really do. I get so excited when school gets out. I love knowing that we can stay up as late as we want and get up as late as we want and eat breakfast at lunch time and lunch when school would be getting out and dinner sometime when it should be a bedtime snack. I love knowing that we get to play and hang out and just watch t.v. and read books all day long. I love knowing that my kids will most likely be in their p.j.'s until sometime around noon. I do believe that being a mom is the greatest thing that I can do with my life. I love spending time with my children....MOST DAYS! But I'm not insane....I do need breaks sometimes too in order to feel this way about my days. The breaks are what gives me room to breathe and to know that I am still hidden under all the peanut butter and jelly, Dora the Explorer episodes, four thousand legos, endless tea parties, countless piles of laundry and ever full dishwasher. I need days that are about me...And I do not feel guilty about them! As a matter of fact, I know without those days I would be a terrible mom. A. REALLY. BAD. MOM. I have lived through days that did not allow for those breaks. My kids did not benefit from the 24/7 mommy presence. As a matter of fact, it was really bad for them! And for me! And for DH! As a matter of fact, the world in general suffered. And then a bit of heaven happened one day...My oldest started preschool. Of course I still had another child at home, but somehow, it seemed easier...Like the oxygen somehow became pure and sweet. And then, two kids were in school and I had an infant at home. Later, once child # 3 was two, a friend and I started switching off days where we each had an ENTIRE day without children....And it was GREAT. FABULOUS. HEAVENLY. I almost cried at the sheer joy. Then, I was attacked by guilt. Should I really be this happy to have time away from the very beings that had clawed their way out of my womb? But a soft spoken word came to my heart. RELAX!
As a mom, I had seldom allowed myself to be "off-duty" even when DH was home. After all, this was our agreement, I would stay home and he would trot off to work. I would care for, influence, raise, teach, mold and clean the kids and he would make sure there was income being brought into the home. But when he came home, I seldom felt like I could ask him to be in charge since it was my job...Almost like hiring a temp while I went to Utopia (walmart).

Now, four kids later, I have a grip on this SAHM thing. It REQUIRES breaks! Demands them!

The other day Jean 2 asked me "Are you ready for school to start back?" and I said "No, I hate it when they go back. They are then gone the bigger part of the day and that makes me sad. I hate not getting to spend my days with them. I know there are a lot (alot..snicker) of mom's who are ready to get the kids out of their house, but the way I feel is, why have them if you don't even want to be around them? I'm just not ready for that. I miss them too much." I stand by that statement, and I also take time every few days to spend alone, or with Jean 2 or go play tennis.