What Happens When Mom Goes On A Secret Strike

This weekend left me a little, shall we say, perturbed. I attempted to handle it with grace with a semi-sweet letter to my kids, but if I'm being honest I've been feeling a little taken advantage of lately.

We mothers do it all really... We hold down full time jobs (even if you're a SAHM), we cook, we clean, and we care for our families day in and day out. There's no such thing as a sick day when you're a mom. Sick or not, tired or not, we're still required to live up to and deliver on the expectations of our children and significant others.

I know that jealousy and envy are B.A.D. but sometimes I just can't help it. Both James and I work all day long... The difference, I get home and the immediate question is "What's for dinner?" Most nights I don't even have my shoes off before they're already asking. I also hear things like: "Hun, I need a clean uniform for tomorrow, you're going to need to run laundry tonight." and "Hey mom, can you come here?" ::walk into room:: "Can you go get me a water bottle?" Um, did I not spend all day working my butt off too? Why is it that I'm responsible for dinner and uniforms while you play iPad? Did I not just come from the exact room in the house that contains said water bottle? Is there any reason you can't stop watching Netflix for 60 seconds and get it?

But alas, I'm evidently little more than the house elf personal servant these days and no one thinks it's absurd to ask mom to fetch things for them so they don't have to get up.

So this week I silently declared that I was on strike. I didn't bother to announce it, because honestly, who's listening to what I say at this point anyway. I did make dinner, but that's because if I hadn't Lena would have consumed nothing but Pop Tarts and Golden Grahams (no matter how irritated I get she won't be eating sugar coated sugar for dinner). Instead of just automatically running around policing up everyone's mess, I simply let it go.

This is only 4 days of my secret strike...

AND FINALLY!

Hmmm.. I wonder what would happen if I went a whole week? Have you ever been on a secret strike?

A Sprinkle of Old Water Slide and My Antibacterial Frenzy

I am freaking exhausted! Sorta. I was on a cleaning streak today. I woke up early today (James was long gone for work) and started coffee immediately. I screwed up and forgot to take my Claritin before bed last night and woke up with a monster of a migraine. I've learned that my allergies really only try to kill me in my sleep and if I forget to take it, I'm miserable the next morning. I downed a couple of my prescription strength Excedrin with my coffee this morning and I was good to go about a half hour later. I try not to have to take it though because it geeks me out. Bad!

Lena and Anne thankfully woke up on their own this morning without any prompting, we had stuff to do this morning so sleeping in was not an option. I'm always grateful when I don't have to chance getting my extremities bitten off by waking them up. I made the girls cinnamon toast for breakfast and when I asked Lena how her toast was, she responded with "Its good. Only one piece tasted like an old water slide." She said this as if it was the most natural response in the world and wasn't the slightest bit weird. I'm nor exactly sure how many water slides she's been licking but I think I'll be cautious next summer, just in case.

After the girls had finished their cinnamon sprinkled water slide, we packed into the car and headed off to my best friend's house for a bit. I would like to say that it was just to catch up, but it's because she just moved this week and needed a hand. She decided to move in with her long time on again off again boyfriend (mostly because she didn't have a lot of options... LONG story!) and with 3 boys there was a ton to be done. Not to mention the fact that she was moving into a bachelor pad. It may be a 3 bedroom house, but you can totally tell a single guy lived there. It was downright filthy and my girlfriend is a tad OCD. We were there for 3 hours before I had to head back and we didn't even make a dent in everything that needs to be done over there.

As I mentioned, my migraine meds geek me out, so when we got home I started on my own cleaning. Lena went off to the birthday party for her friend down the street and poor Anne got stuck with future step-mommy on overdrive. I did dishes, I vacuumed, I dusted, I scrubbed... There is not a corner in our house right now that is not clean. And sorry for Anne, but she got her's and Lena's room. Usually Lena is the one stuck cleaning up whatever tornado they've created over the weekend, so I didn't really feel all that bad about having her pitch in and assist me on my antibacterial frenzy. Thankfully, she's still young enough to think the vacuum is fun, so I didn't face any resistance when I asked her to pitch in.

I'm loving the clean house and the smell of my Scentsy burners wafting apple all around, but boy am I ready to crash! At least I won't have to do anything tomorrow when I finally come down.