What I want to be when I grow up

My friend K recently blogged about finding herself again now that her 3 kids are getting a little bit older, doing things she used to enjoy doing before stay-at-home motherhood became her life 24/7.

I am completely guilty of allowing motherhood to swallow me up.  I think if a woman stays at home it is easy to fall into this, particularly if you also have a tendency to be one of those "I give everything I do 110% or I feel like a failure" types.  Which I do.

My mom and MIL help me out, but I honestly need them so often while I do things like run to the grocery or take kids to doctor appointments that I can't justify calling on them so I can do something fun for myself.  And given that I earn no money, I can't really justify paying someone to watch my kids.  I mean, isn't that what I'm supposed to do as the stay-at-home mom?  (I don't necessarily agree with these lines of thinking but it is the rut I am in and have been in for almost 7 years now.)

I have thought about finding someone to co-op babysitting for, but I am so flippin' tired from taking care of my own kids, I really don't want to watch someone else's.

So I just sometimes daydream about what I will do with myself once my kids are all in school full-time.  Although I even feel a little guilty doing this, as if I am wishing their young childhoods away.....and it is so fleeting as it is, I really don't want it to be gone.

At one point I said something to D about going back to work when M is in 3rd grade or so.....because I'd want a couple years to do things to the house and volunteer at the kids' school(s).  His response was, "Well, who would get the kids off to school in the morning?"  As a middle school teacher, I'd be out of the house at 6:30ish, so I replied that he would have to do it.

I don't know if he gave me a look or actually verbally responded, but the jist of it was......
DO NOT EVER GO BACK TO WORK SO LONG AS THE KIDS ARE IN THE HOUSE AND NOT FULL-GROWN ADULTS.

It is nice not to be pressured to go back to work by the hubs.  It helps that I do the budgeting and pay the bills and am frugal to a fault most of the time.  D knows that I am not blowing money on shoes and dresses and manicures.

But there is something about earning one's own money that I miss.

I imagine I will probably substitute teach, limiting myself to schools in which my kids attend or where I have friends and former colleagues who still teach.  That way I can work 1 day a week at most, if I so choose.  And it will give me a little money.

When I do start to daydream, as I am now, I do get a little freaked out.....because it is hard to imagine my children not as needy as they are now.  Hard to imagine when they are all in elementary and middle school....what they will be like as they grow up.  And even harder to imagine what I will be like as they grow up.