After months of being a regular office grunt with a day job, I found myself with a few free days out of the office this week.

Today happened to coincide with my sitter’s day off and the next thing you know, it’s 10 and the kids aren’t dressed yet and Sage hasn’t eaten breakfast and the TV’s been on pretty much forever. Then it’s 11 and Sage is still refusing to eat, although Thalia tells me she’s now ready for “her second breakfast” which is apparently a frozen waffle. Then it’s noon and I realized that Thalia still had to eat lunch before getting to school at 12:20, and she’s hungry but she’s not and now Sage is hungry too but just wants Care Bear Snacks, whatever that means (thanks Nate).

Also I forgot the hair brushing.

I think it comes down to the fact that I am just not a great weekday mom.

You full time stay-at-home moms, you are my heroes. Because I cannot do it. Cannot. At times I wish I could, of course. I love the romantic notion of spending all day with my kids, planning nutritious meals, turning vaccuming into a fun family game, and creating a new macaroni necklace each day, or whatever the hell the 21st century version of that is. (Penne perhaps?) I can only imagine what it would be like to actually have clean floors and a sparkling bathtub and still have time to be that mom at school who plans the auctions and the fundraisers and knows exactly who is responsible for bringing the mylar balloons and who is bringing the latex ones.

I won’t ever be that mom. I won’t ever be that person. I can’t even get my kids fed in time for school on a regular old sunny Thursday. (Which..shit. I think I’m supposed to be picking her up now.) I love my work and I believe it keeps me balanced. Even when I seem unbalanced because of it.

Sorry Thalia and Sage – at some point I know you’ll wish I were “like the other moms.”

And then one day you’ll realize that instead, you got the mom who lets you watch the Wonderpets at 8PM because she feels guilty for working all day, once in a while gets you on TV or in a cool music video, allows way too many animals in the house because man you love them, and is willing to carry you the extra three blocks to Haagen-Dazs on the first warm spring weekend for double scoops of peanut butter and chocolate.

The weekend mom may not know a lot, but at least she knows that life’s too short to eat crappy ice cream.