A Mother's Time: So Rarely Her Own

I cut this out of the paper on Sunday...while I may have not visited the beach recently this picture is SO my life...Yours too? 

The funniest thing was that this morning, Scott gave me a "free time" pass while he made breakfast for the girls. I grabbed my computer, ran upstairs to our bedroom and geared up to start writing this blog post. Not more than two minutes into my opening my computer and getting ready to blog away I hear little footsteps up the stairs...

Those little footsteps pushed open my door, grabbed a picture book off the floor and dear sweet Ella looked up at me and said, "Book, book, book." 

How could I turn her down? Her sister is ALWAYS demanding my attention... wanting books read, or puzzles done, or help with a game, or coloring project...Sometimes I feel like poor little Ella gets so little of my time that when she came up and said, "Book" this morning, a mommas heart could do nothing other than read her a book. 

And then send her downstairs to her father! 

I'm sure all of you have similar stories...Of babysitters coming over and the things we end up doing for our children instead of ourselves! 

We have a babysitter over every Wednesday for a couple of hours. A new girl who lives across the street came over for two hours this week...What did I spend the first 45 minutes doing? 

Prepping lunch so that she could feed the girls, going through the routine with her, putting laundry in and then picking up the trail of cookie crumbs that led all the way up our stairs to the bathroom and putting some of the clothing and toys away that lined our upstairs landing lest anyone trip and fall (it had gotten pretty messy!). 

I did have a little writing time, and reading time and time to just find my thoughts again...which was good...which was needed. I find that I'm such an introspective, heady person that if I don't have some to digest what is going on in my head I get really crabby! 

I love Bil Keane and his Family Circus cartoons. I remember reading them as a young girl (I would grab the comics every Sunday and read through them all- Family Circus was always one of my favorite)  and now I truly appreciate them as an adult and a mother. 

Keane hits the nail on the head here...and what I love most, is that by capturing a moment like this in the spirit of "comical" I find some encouragement and a reminder that I, though often frustrated that I don't have more "me" time, am certainly far from alone. If the struggle wasn't universal Bil Keane's pictures would not resonate like that do. 

So to all you mommies, a reminder that your not the only one who only has one page read in you book! We're all on the same beach together!