Tidbits and Smiles

As all of you know, I work. I choose to work. I like to work. It gives me an outlet for my creative (and bossy) energy. Also because it helps to pay private school tuition (ouch!). But mainly because when I have stayed home with my kids...in the middle of nowhere...I thought I might just lose my mind.

But know that even in the comfort of my quiet, serene green walled office with no kid-related interruptions, I find myself thinking about my kids...often. I don't think that more than 15 minutes pass before I think of them, or worry about them, plan the time I will have with them, or (on certain occasions when the adults around me are acting like children) wish I was with them.

The best thing (and the hardest thing) about being a mom, is that you never get away from being a mom. I found several kid tidbits at work yesterday that reminded me that I am a mom.

Item #1: The binky
At our house, pacifiers are called binkies. And my sweet Jacklyn is addicted to them. Yes, she is 17 months old, and yes, I should probably wean her of them. But the second she does not have one and is upset, tired, or hungry, her thumb pops into her mouth. Because I believe that pacifiers are easier to take away than it would be to remove her thumbs, I have decided to let her have them as long as she needs them.

Yesterday, walking down the hall of the “Academic Wing” to my very official, very nice corner office, talking to a VP as I walked, I reached into my pocket to retrieve my office key. But instead of my keys, I pulled out a binky. I looked down, realized what was in my hand and smiled. And thought of Jacklyn. And her binky addiction. The VP looked down at my hand, and the item that had my attention, and smirked. He understands, but all I could think was, great Kathryn, very professional…

Item #2: The handprint
Rhian spent most of the summer in my office. I hadn’t intended to work as much as I did this summer, but my responsibilities kept me there most of the season. So with the younger girls at daycare, and Rhian by my side, I struggled to get my work accomplished amid constant interruption. Rhian tried, but really, what is there to do in a boring old office? She was patient and made the best of it, but occasionally, the opportunity to do something else was made available to her, and of course, she was out the door. One day, toward the end of the summer, she told me that when she grows up she is going to be a cowboy like daddy, because my job is boring—apparently all I do is shuffle papers and stare at the computer.

As soon as she started school, I went about ridding my office of all things kid, in order to prepare for the return of faculty and students. Crumbs on the all the chairs, crayons on the floor, the thirteen thousand pictures and doodles stuck with rolls and rolls of tape to my filing cabinet, the half drank cans of pop, the pile of change behind the computer screen, the strange smudges of paint, candy, soda drips and pencil marks on the work-study desk…

As I sat at my desk yesterday, I noticed that I had missed something—a perfect, greasy handprint on the window of my office door. I am not really sure what substance on her palm created the mark, but it captured every swirl to perfection—I am sure a seasoned law enforcement officer could not have been more accurate. As I rose to find cleaner and paper towels to rid my office of the final kid artifact, I suddenly changed my mind. I think I will leave it until one of the custodians notices and cleans it (which will, by my guess, be never). I smile every time I look out…

Item #3 The sunglasses
So I get into my car (or more accurately, my enormous, gas-guzzling, kid-crusted SUV) for one of my first lunches by myself since Rhian went back to school. Ignoring the kid-crust, I put on lip gloss, and try to convince myself that I look glamorous as I search for my over-sized sunglasses. Slipping them on, the world suddenly looks funny and blurry. My eyes focus on the lenses. Kid prints. Elizabeth. I smile once more. I had given them to her to play with the night before as I was desperately trying to keep her happy and entertained in a restaurant. One of her favorite things to do is play with my sunglasses and pretend to be the same glamorous movie star I was pretending to be just moments ago.

I recall reading an interview with Reese Witherspoon (the actress I was pretending to be...) about her self-image since becoming a mother. I will always remember her remark that it is difficult to feel glamorous with peanut butter stuck to the bottom of your stiletto. So true...

Like I said, I adore my girls. It is just very hard to separate the mommy in me from the professional academician I am supposed to be—but I don’t necessarily want to.

After making my rounds yesterday afternoon to collect all of the girls, I smiled as I watched them walking as they always do out of the daycare, one big sister on each side of the little sister, because both have missed her so terribly all day. I snapped a picture of them, just to preserve the tiny tidbit of time before the newness of being together wears off and the bickering begins…