It might be the mind-numbing aspects that often have me despising my 24/7 job. The pleasant and unpleasant things you have to do over and over every day.

It is not like in the corporate world where those brain freeze tasks were not life threatening, and there was always some poor underling who would adopt them when you got promoted and earned the right not to do them anymore.

It is more the lack of choice.

Sometimes I feel like waking up and deciding, “I am not going to touch excrement in any form today.” Which sounds great in principle but when I wander out to the living room, my two-year old has already made my decision for me by removing his pull-up.

Now it is all over his legs; on the toilet where he remembered to dump it after we showed him where poo goes; on his hand from his attempted wipe; and on me where I grabbed his hand in an effort to reduce the ooze.

I can’t hold onto my promise. In fact, if I can’t wash my hand in the next 15 seconds -- I will have an out-of-body experience.

I’ll have to compensate. Though my usual mind-numbing task of bathing the kids takes place at night, I will instead do it before my morning coffee.

Something to look forward to. The coffee, that is.

Yet, it is also the sounds of laughter when the water comes out of the faucet and the look of glee in their faces when something as simple as bubbles form.

It is about noticing the small moments and trying not to lose it too much over the more trying ones.

This allows me to get through the daily blahs.

By Jennifer O’Shaughnessy

Labels: children, Jennifer O'Shaughnessy, work

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