Who Are These Modern Moms?

I got up this morning and did my morning routine... well, most of it. I showered, brushed my teeth, applied lotion, got dressed. I didn't do my hair or makeup because my Vascular Plant Taxonomy class was cancelled today. So, instead, I'm going to stay home and study for the mid-term exam we'll have next Thursday.

Normally, I'd have class in the morning, four days a week. Then, I'd be working on my research project on the fifth day. On my current agenda: I'm making a giant paper mache shark for M's birthday this weekend, for which I'm still waiting on wrapping paper I ordered, and I'm not even making her cake this year, because I don't have an entire day to devote to it. The holidays are quickly approaching and I still have to figure out who is house-sitting for the week of Thanksgiving, one of my kids doesn't have a Halloween costume yet and we haven't done our pumpkin shopping. When we went shooting a couple of weekends ago, I discovered that ear plugs are completely impractical for children's ears, so I did some hunting for better solutions on Amazon. But I'm not comfortable buying something like this without seeing it, so shopping for over-the-ear ear protection is on the schedule for this weekend. I need to get back up the green roof tomorrow to get working on percent coverage estimates, now that I've managed (just last night) to throw together a reasonably useful map of the quadrats we finally finished marking out (about a week ago).  I have Plant Tax homework to do, and I've got a Genetics exam on Monday...

Oh, yeah! And it's Fall Break?! My two public school kids have a week off in October for no apparent reason. This week. That means all four kids are just home... all... the... time.

Who are these moms who are drinking wine, shopping a all the weird grocery stores, and taking their kids to Toys R Us and having play dates? My house is a mess. I do all of my shopping at two stores: Costco and Target. Because if I can get it at Costco, I don't have to buy it again for a month, and Target has everything else all in one place, so I don't have to waste my time shopping around. My time is valuable because I don't have much of a discretionary time budget right now. In fact, even as I sit here typing this, I'm thinking about all of the other things I could/should be working on: the shark, the homework, the studying. There's always something.

Ultimately, I don't think I would be happy if I didn't challenge myself. It's difficult, and I complain, and I'm sure it's pretty annoying to be Papa, sometimes as a result. Still, in the end, I get the satisfaction of having overcome an obstacle... having accomplished something difficult. As my friend and research partner (a girl of equal or greater levels of motivation) recently said, "A comfort zone is a beautiful place, but nothing ever grows there."