A few extra hands

After our move to Evergreen, I was housewifing.  The Bug was in school four days a week, the Bunny went to daycare once a week, and things were pretty manageable.  Yeah, I'm a crappy cleaner, and I actually learned that dusting is even worse than mopping, but we ate three somewhat healthy meals every day, there were clean clothes in the drawers, and the kids got to go to the library and the park and my grandparents' house and other cool places.

But as soon as I returned to full-time work, I realized how much was falling through the cracks.  I rarely never cleaned, laundry piled up, grocery shopping was done while emailing, my kids would watch TV while I attempted to work (fyi, school until 2:45pm is not "full day")... and don't even ask about showering.  It boiled down to this for me: even with an extremely flexible and understanding work situation, and with a rather helpful husband, it is virtually impossible for a working woman to do all the mommy and wife-y stuff.  Especially if she's not supposed to be an enormous grump at the end of the day and/or drink an entire bottle of wine before dinner.

But - hooray! - we have gotten to a rather wonderful place, with the addition of a few helping hands.  I have someone cleaning the house every other week, which means that after nine months of just sitting there, my bookshelves have now been dusted.  Twice.  And this week we found a delightful babysitter who can pick up the girls a few days a week, leaving me with some precious extra hours to devote to my job while the girls get to play outside and have adventures. 

To all the superwomen out there, huge kudos for handling what I cannot.  And to you normal women, trust me, we all need help.  Now let's go grab a drink.