It’s been almost a year since I left the thrilling world of shopping center management to be with SB (small boy) full time.  For those moms and/or dads who are contemplating making this change too, I thought I’d lay it out for you so you know what you’re in for.  For simplicity’s sake, I’m calling it Then (work) and Now (home).   I wanted to make a chart but I’m much too dumb to figure out how to make columns on this blog, so here goes:

How I’d spend my time:

Then:  I’d stride purposely around the office, making big important decisions (or so I thought) and saying things like, “I need to finish the electrical re-forecast before we can talk about Midnight Madness” (those are real things and they’re as weird as they sound), planning events that would rock the retail world (at least for a few people for a few hours) and doing lots of math (which I hated).

Now:  I spend a lot of time gluing eyes on rocks.

Then:  I’d leave for work looking fairly presentable – make up on BOTH eyes most of the time, matching shoes; clean clothes and I’d manage to beat my hair into something close to a style.

Now:  Make up?  I’m lucky if I get lotion on most of my face.  I’ve seriously left the house without shoes before, gotten all the way to the car with SB and then wondered why my feet were cold.  Clothes?  I live in yoga pants even though the last time I did yoga was, oh, 1,000 years ago.  Hair?  Yes.  It’s that tangly mess on the top of my head.

How I spent my free time:

Then:  Didn’t have any.

Now:  Still don’t have any.  What’s that about???

So after a lot of thought (ok, about three minutes), I’ve come to realize that there are pluses and minuses to both.  The good part about being at work during the day is that you’re not responsible for keeping people alive the entire time you’re there (usually).  The good part about being at home is there’s about a two hour window during nap-time where I can nap too if I’m lucky. I couldn’t get away with that at work too often.

I do miss talking to grown ups at work, but the more I think about it, there were a lot of grown ups that I would have hid under my desk from, if I wasn’t worried about being caught.  With SB, a lot of our conversations are redundant, but I’m bigger and I usually get my way – that rarely happened at work.

A downside is that by the time my husband (or Big Boy – BB) gets home I’m so happy to see him that I’m practically jumping around and wagging my tail.  A grown up!  And he won’t argue about why he can’t put his shoes on before his socks!  Yay!

And then I show him all the rock people we made.  Sigh.