Appreciating Myself

Last week I felt very unappreciated. While I was at home alone with the kids for 5 days straight including the weekend, my husband got to have drinks at a bar, didn't have to cook any meals, wash dishes, or take care of sick kids.

Normally, I am a reasonable other-half spouse, meaning I don't generally begrudge him taking time for himself. He is the one with the greater-earning potential moneywise, and its partly due to that traveling aspect that a typical nine to five job situation won't work for me. We did the math, and if I were to get a typical job, my earnings would go straight to day care costs, plus I'd probably loose it based on when kids inevitably get sick, summer vacation, and other school breaks which were not designed for working parents.

But when I think of all the work I've done so far this year, aproximately cooked 48 muffins, 4 banana breads, packed over 36 school lunches, 25 cooked dinners, the 29 loads of laundry, scrubbed 40 toilets, vaccumed over 4 hours of my life away to equal about 10 minutes a day; and its only the end of January, and what do I have to show for all this work? I'll be doing the same things next week without earning any pay checks, or any recognition except for what I show myself.

Mother's day is so not enough recognition people! To know that tomorrow there will be another load of laundry, more lunches to make, and kids will complain because they didn't like the bread, could be depressing. To pump myself upI will do the following:

1. Play the Staple Singers Respect Yourself at full volume after the kids leave for school.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1II2nPmBZJk

2. Get a grip. Appreciate that all jobs can get mundane every now and then even the mom variety. Be glad that I can at least do my job while listening to a book, or walking around wearing whatever I want.

3. Even if nobody else notices stand back and be glad that everybody has clean under wear, food to eat, and its all because of me.

4. While I take a minute to appreciate myself, remember to appreciate the little and big people who I do all this stuff for. Its hard to be a kid and as much as I can barely remember the days when I did have an actual paying job, that isn't always a walk in the park either.