So, you know when you’re pregnant, and you decide to try to cut out doing so much of what you really aren’t required to do until you stop getting sick quite so much to see if that helps?
But then you meet this very impressive woman–a friend of a friend–and during the course of a night’s conversation with a group of, actually all quite inspiring women who happen to all be mothers of broods of tiny children, you learn that this particular woman, an ob-gyn, while literally in labor with her own child, performed a major surgery, which happened to be on an HIV-positive patient (apparently her partners at the time would not have taken kindly to her leaving the patient for them to take care of, so she felt like she had to do it before going off to have her baby, but that’s another story)…and you think, well, then…
So the next day, you paint your kitchen, take your children to 37 places that they have been wanting to go, write four (pretty bad, yet finished) writing assignments, and post on your neglected blog, all of which could wait, and none of which was major surgery, but still.
And, sure, maybe you throw up a little more, and eat a little less, but, somehow, feel a little more industrious and a bit more balanced and more like yourself…or is that guilt?
Yes, I had the very same day yesterday. Actually, John came home and asked if I was going into labor 2 months early because I had gotten so much done.
So, this is a disgraceful disregard of the substantive insights in this post, but… what color (you crazy woman)?
This is why I limit having overachieving friends. They make my quiet peaceful life look boring.
Oh good grief. I think Mom/Outside the Toybox should give this OBGYN her Wonder Woman cuffs. She’s already stolen her lasso!
guilt-schmilt. since super-mom already admitted it, i was thinking the same thing! what color? my landlords won’t let me paint so i have to live my love of colorful walls vicariously.
radical mama–yes, I’ve noticed, with a great deal of envy, how much you are able to accomplish these days!
mom and serahrose–I actually would so much rather talk about my painted kitchen than dwell on torturous thoughts of guilt, so thank you for asking. I think my newly bright yellow kitchen deserves its own post, so I’m going to get on that….
westward and Tracee–Yep, she’s very highachieving (and without a hint of an awareness of just how impressive she is) but, really, no more than any of us when it comes down to it.
Inspiring, but not ready to supplant Mom/Toybox–she’ll give Mom back the lasso if she knows what’s good for her.
And then there are other times, when you receive a blog comment from yet another impressive woman, mother of no one (unless you count the step-teen challenge), who spent the morning lounging in her pajamas, until she took a shower and then lounged in her sweats, wrote for several hours about the pains of her life, napped, blogged, and watched The L Word until it was time for a somewhat longer nap, achieving none of her weekend grading and even less prep for her classes for the week, and you felt like you had conquered the world by simply cooking one meal that day
I would love to see pictures!
Oh, I’m with Tracee. And Imani. I will celebrate my tiny accomplishments and cheer you on from your yellowy kitchen sidelines. Plus I want to hear more about those writing assingments. Are you taking a class? Teaching a class? Writing for eyes other than our own?
Ha–Imani–I like your style–on March 2, that is, because I know full well that you are achieving quite highly most other days, too. Where did you hear that rumor that I cooked a meal that day, though? I promise you that it’s patently false. Never happened, never will.
radical mama, I suppose a picture will turn out better when I finish painting around the edges, which I usually prefer to wait several months to do, but for you, I will get on it this week.
Wow…pregnant you has accomplished more in a day than non-pregnant me has accomplished in awhile. Good for you!
Oh, it’s so over, though, Vikki. I didn’t even finish around the edges. And half of it has only one coat.
Theresa, I wish I had something more exciting to share about that writing–it was blisteringly boring article summaries that I am only doing out of an extreme need to do something that has not a thing in the world to do with children and for a paltry sum.