The Telecommuting Mom

As a telecommuting mom I get the pleasure that comes from working – making money, accomplishing projects – and staying home with my kids -playing, teaching them and reveling in their accomplishments. And so, after checking my work emails this morning, the kids and I went to the craft store to get some new projects. Just a side- I was highly disappointed when I went into my local Jo Ann Fabrics, which used to have aisles of kids craft supplies and now has just one. The other aisles have been replaced with more fabric, which is really more in line with their actual name anyhow.

We strolled the one aisle looking for some fun activities. My three-year-old son became very excited when he saw the Perler Beads package with the trucks and cars made out of “pegs.” He was very disappointed, however, when we got home and opened the package. Each bead is very tiny, perfectly fitted to his hands, yet he didn’t want to take the time to place each one onto the pegboard. I think he thought they were going to be similar to Lite-Brite sized pegs. “This is hard work,” he said. So mommy spent the next hour and a half placing beads onto the board, picking red ones and yellow ones from the tub, while my fingers became increasingly stiff and my shoulder muscles tensed up into a solid arch.

The most fun was fusing the beads together with a warm iron, but again this was a mommy duty. While ironing one of the vehicles my son said “This is really hard work.”

Hmmm.

I handed the finished vehicles over to him, which were pretty neat, and which, oddly, gave me a great sense of accomplishment. But the best part, aside from spending two uninterrupted hours with my son while the baby napped were his admiring words. “Mommy, you are really good at this,” he said. And that made my day.

Filed under: parenting