Post Script from the Idiot.

Post Script to my recent entry that SAHMotherhood is making me a moron.

Note: this is not going to be a retraction. While some of my other entries could very much have benefitted from a mandatory cooling-off period (hello, bit I wrote about how I've stalked my exes on facebook, my husband really enjoyed you), this entry wasn't one of them. I stand by everything I wrote about being a SAHM, harsh as it may have come across (I'm talking to you, 3 people who voted "You Suck!" in the corresponding blog poll).

No, what I wanted to say is this. I may be a bit embarrassed by my "job" as a SAH mom on occasion, and I may worry that being a SAHM is turning my mind into mush...

but I am hella good at my job.

So what if, as we speak, my husband is sitting on the sofa reviewing important, small-fonted documents pertaining to an international negotiation, while I am on the floor painstakingly wrapping 15 small presents so that each of my 3 daughters will have a cheerful little surprise to wake up to on each of the 5 mornings my husband and I will be traveling next week. So what if the pre-K teacher gently suggested this morning that perhaps my eldest daughter is bringing in *too* many fun little show-and-tell related items to share with the other kids in the class (today, for example, per the week's theme of "Spheres and Cones" I sent her in with a jar of perfectly round marichino cherries and a box of empty ice cream cones). So what if my former neighbor once exclaimed to me, in the midst of a text war over something entirely unrelated, that she is "sick of making excuses for [me] to the other moms" (referring to my habit of bumming around in the sand pit with the kids while 99% of the other parents sit in the cafe area, sipping mid-afternoon lattes and half-heartedly looking on).

No, screw all those latte-sipping people. I am a million billion times better at my present job than I ever was at my "real" job. I take my children's happiness and well-being (mostly, happiness) VERY. SERIOUSLY. Yes I spoil them with presents ("What's the point of doing Chanukah?" my husband teased me last year as I was setting up the menorah. "In this house it's Chanukah 365 days a year." Sure I get a little shaky at the thought of going away on a mini-vacation without them in a few days, because there is absolutely NO WAY that I could transcribe all of the valuable information in my head into a single packet of information for my babysitting father to review (and annotate, and ask intelligent follow-up questions on, if he knows what's good for him) (there WILL be a test before I leave for the airport). And true, I hardly ever experience an actual deep, restful sleep-- nor have I for the past 5 years now-- because half of my brain is always, *always* tuned into the nearly imperceptible coughs and murmurs and rare but critical "Mommy?"s coming forth from the baby monitors in the middle of the night.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that yes, there are some days when I look in the mirror and am disappointed by what I see-- a person who looks more like an underslept teenager than a 35-year-old woman, a person who wonders why she became an attorney when she knew all along that being a SAHM was truly what she wanted, a person who eyes her husband with maybe a little jealousy in the morning as he is pulling on his fancy work clothes. But there are other days-- today is one of them-- where I think that, if my occupation were an actual paid position, I'd be on the damn cover of Forbes magazine. Every year. I hold my mothering to an extraordinarily high standard, and you know what? Who cares if I don't get written up with all "Exceeds Expectations" on an annual review. (Though I'm so proud of *you,* Stallion/Love-God/ Honey!) I don't need any person of authority to tell me that I am doing an awesome job and that I am raising the bar and that I "add value":

In my office, I *AM* the freaking value, baby.

So yay for Mommy. Today I am holding my head up high.