National Housewife Day

It's National Housewife Day. I'm totally not making this up. Google it and see for yourself.

It seems like I've had this job for a while now. Look at the box behind me: Baby Care, for Pete's sake. I should be much better at all of this by now.

This isn't the job I planned to have, at least not long term, anyway. I was going to go back to work when Jack went to kindergarten and the other baby was two. Except the other baby wasn't two, and when Jack was two, we started thinking about homeschooling. Four years later, the idea of working outside the home right now makes me want to curl into a little ball and cry. I have no clue how working moms do it.

Back to the housewife job, though. It's hard. It's like running a marathon, except there are more frequent bathroom breaks and if I throw down my water cup, I have to come back and pick it up myself later.

It often requires more patience than I can scrounge up. Angela had posted this in discussing parenting children with special needs, but doesn't it really apply to us all?

Teach us, good lord,
to serve you as you deserve,
to give and not to count the cost,
to fight and not to heed the wounds,
to toil and not to seek for rest,
to labor and not to ask for any reward,
save that of knowing that we do your will.

There are days that I am such a cost counter you would think my degree was in accounting, not education. But what am I giving up? And what am I getting in return?

What kind of job has "afternoon sword fight at the arboretum" listed in its benefits package? The best one in the world.

In too few years they'll be out on their own and I won't be a housewife anymore. (Excuse me while I take some deep breaths.) I'm sure that the long empty stretch on my applications won't help me much, but I know that this is time well spent, even if there are days I'm not that good at it.