by I’ve come to realize that, while I love my role as a working mom, sometimes no matter how much I miss Charlotte during the day, when I get home from work all I want to do is lay down. After commuting on crowded trains, sitting at my desk and doing work for 8 hours and then commuting back again, I am pretty damn tired. And if it’s a day when Charlotte decides to wake up at 3:30 for shits and giggles I am basically swaying on my feet with exhaustion. And while I only have a few hours with her before bedtime, I also know I need to make dinner, clean up the house and get ready to do it all again the next day, so my mind is never shut off. I wish I could do nothing but play with her for the few hours I have with her every night, but it doesn’t work that way. First off, I’m usually starving, so even if I don’t make a whole gourmet meal I have to shove something down my throat. Second, I’ve got to chase her around with something to eat that holds some sort of nutritional value. Although I have been known to hand her a veggie and fruit squeeze pouch and throw some kix or cheerios on the floor like she’s a dog and let her have at it. Also, playing with her is exhausting, because now she wants to do things like slide off chairs or jump on couches or try to climb the dining room table like it is her own personal Mt. Everest. Plus, I’ve still got to bathe her, get her ready for bed and read a book 75 times in a row before I put her down to sleep. I am tired.
So last night, she mercifully ate the healthy soup I gave her (and let me feed it to her without complaints), we played nicely with her play-do set, I cleaned up the kitchen as best I could while she snacked on pretzels and watched Mickey and we still had an hour until bedtime. So I plopped my ass on the floor and let her run around and every now and then I would shout something out to her that I deemed educational, such as “what color is this? What number is that?” It worked well. And then I had an even better idea of playing a game in which I pretend to sleep and then shout BOO after a few fake snores, which delighted her and kept us busy for at least 10 minutes. And you know what? All was well. It’s totally okay to lay down and not do a damn thing some nights. It’s totally okay to shout out colors and pretend you’re embarking on an educational journey. It’s totally okay to be tired. And my god, aren’t we mamas tired?
The Mommy Minutes 
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