Explorer Girl & Janice Take a Walk (and enjoy the season)

I have been having one of those weeks. It's been unseasonably cold and rainy and Stella has been beyond bored. It's still gross outside, but I'm so sick of sitting on the couch rereading the same three children's books and reading infuriating things on the Internet.

 

It's not like I didn't know motherhood would be boring sometimes. It's not like no one talks about it. But it's really hard to appreciate the toll that boredom can take on a person's brain, especially when she is a stay-at-home mom in a relatively unfamiliar city. It's gotten a bit better the past few months. I've met some women I really enjoy through Lucy's brownie troop (the love I have for the Girl Scouts deserves its own entry) and I get out of the house more days than not. I'm especially lucky because Stella goes to preschool three days a week, so I have time to do things like drive to Sandy Springs to have lunch with my husband, go to the library to browse the books without worrying that I'm boring the kids, and drink coffee while I read or write. Those twelve hours a week are truly lifesavers for me, and I feel guilty complaining about the two days a week (Monday and Friday) during which I have to entertain my 4-year-old all by myself. I know that staying home with my kids is a choice I made, and I am happy with that choice, but just like any job, it has its days when I wish I could call in sick or phone it in.

  

And, okay, I'll be honest. There are a lot of days when I do phone it in. I sit on the couch and read a book or mess around on Facebook or hold a Barbie in my hand so Stella thinks I'm playing with her when I'm actually catching up on episodes of Parenthood. Sometimes I get so frustrated with myself. I feel like a bad feminist because I have a degree in Women's & Gender Studies and I worked so damn hard for so damn long to get it and now I'm not using it in any capacity. My husband works and makes pretty good money and we live in the suburbs and I carpool my kids and husband all day every day and I really identify with those snarky comics on Facebook that say things like, "All the kids are asleep...it must be wine o'clock!"

Sometimes I really don't recognize my own life. And I'm bored, you guys. I'm so bored.

I'm bored enough that in the year since we've moved to Georgia, I have allowed myself to become obsessed with not one, but three (3) Mormon Mommy Blogs. What started out as a hate-reading things has become a part of my day that I actually really look forward to and love, which panics me a little bit. I look at the pictures of their kids and read about how confident they are in their roles as mothers and homemakers and how easy it seems to be for them to keep their houses clean and their children happy and their meals delicious and nutritious, and even though it pains me to admit it, a big part of me wishes I could be like them. Like them or like the women I know who seem to effortlessly balance work and school and children without breaking a sweat or a single commitment. And sure, having been on both sides of the "Mommy War," I know that there are struggles and boredom and joy and accomplishment and grief and pride and regrets no matter what we choose. No matter what choices we make in this life, we all-- from Mormon Mommy Bloggers to Staceyann Chin to Hillary Clinton-- wonder if we've made the right decisions. And sometimes we just have to sit around and feel shitty and lonely and unfilled for a minute. But then we keep going.

 

One thing I read in one of the Mormon Mommy blogs (and I wish I could remember which one it was because I would link to it or give her a shout out), is that she tries to remember when she is tired that this is a "season" of her life. That the time during which she will have children in her home who need and want all of her attention all of the time is temporary. There was a time before it, during which she had other priorities and interests, and God-willing, there will be a time after. It seems like a really obvious statement, but for some reason the image of life as a series of seasons really moved me and I still think about it a lot. Sometimes when I'm standing next to the car in the pouring rain, saying, "Stella, please get out of the car. Stella, please. Please, Stella. It's raining and Mommy is getting wet," I think to myself, This is the season where I stand outside the car in the rain while my kid takes five minute to put her raincoat on. Before this, there was a season when I worked full-time at a job I hated, a season when I worked full-time at a job I loved. A season when I was a student (that was a long one). I season when I was a single mother. A season when I was a college dropout. Seasons when I was a grieving sister, a newlywed, a "battered woman," a member of my high school drama club, a tap dancer (very short season), and on and on. Every season of my life has had its challenges, but every season has also contained moments of such beauty that cause me to look back on my life and know with certainty that this life is worth living.

I may not being using my degree or my feminism in a professional capacity right now, but that doesn't mean I'm not not using them. I'm raising two wonderful, intelligent, curious and impressionable girls right now. And if that's not a feminist act, what is?

Stella likes to play a game called Explorer Girl & Janice, in which I go about my daily life while Stella refers to me as "Janice" every five seconds and asks me questions about Janice's house, job, and family life. Janice couldn't take it for one more second today so she decided to take Explorer Girl on a tour of the neighborhood. 

For the record, Explorer Girl hates her raincoat, but it's adorable as hell.