This Is The Life Of A Working Mom

I haven’t been to the dentist in a year. I would love to go get a massage one day. Or meet friends for coffee sans kids. Or go away for a weekend with my husband. Or not spend the entire weekend doing chores.

This is life being a working full-time mom. I don’t want to plan dentist appointments, or anything for that matter, on my weekends because those are hours of uninterrupted time with my son. His face lights up when I tell him Friday evening that Mommy doesn’t have to go to work in the morning. My heart swells with happiness doing normal day-to-day activities with him on Saturdays and Sundays.

My husband tells me to book a massage, to go out and do some shopping. Instead, I try to cram quick shopping trips or any errands in my 30-minute lunch breaks. I frantically drive to the mall, which overall wastes 10 minutes of my lunch break, to try on some new sweaters for winter. I’ve become a pro at speed walking through Walmart and know exactly where everything is. I’ve signed up for grocery delivery because I don’t want to waste my Saturday morning grocery shopping.

What makes things worse is my husband works shift works. Two days followed by two nights. When his night shifts fall on week days, we go three days without seeing each other. After his four days of work, I try not to plan anything so we can actually have a evening to catch up and some family time together.

Don’t even get me started on exercise. I signed up for my first spin class the other night because, well, I’d feel a lot better if I lost 20 pounds and I really should try to take care of myself. I cancelled the class that day because it meant I wouldn’t see my son until 7 p.m. and would only get 30 minutes with him before he goes to bed.

My life revolves around being away from my son 9 hours a day, for 5 days a week, and then trying to spend every other minute I can soaking him up which means neglecting every other aspect of my life.

I tell myself this will get better. These early years fly by so fast and I want to spend every precious minute with him. But in reality? I’ll probably have another child in the next year or two. I’ll take my maternity leave then return to work and it will start all over again but now there will be two kids that I ache for every day.

But seriously. I really need to go to the dentist.