When It’s Time to Sit Your Ass Down

Last week I was at my sister and her boyfriend's house upstate with family and was trying to be a helpful guest while wrangling two kids and a puppy. The kids are pretty self-sufficient overall but my little one still requires oversight during meals (or else they'll take two bites and decide they're done) and bath. My puppy was busy alternating between going apeshit over my sister's cats and peeing on the rug. If I left the room, he would lose his damn mind and come sprinting after me. Locking him away in a room would only have caused accidents. The only way to keep the puppy from getting into trouble (or eating the cats' food) was to keep him on my lap AT ALL TIMES, which made it impossible to do anything else.

I sat at the kitchen table, feeling tethered to this dog and unable to participate in cleaning (cleaning is my love language), or cooking, or any conversation that didn't take place near a seating area.  The feeling of being trapped and immobile was familiar. I remembered my younger motherhood, when I had a toddler who was stuck to me like glue and needed to be in my arms at every moment. I remembered how it took years for me to feel like I had any agency over my body. How it felt like I couldn't fully participate in anything because 70 percent of my physical and mental state was tied to managing a toddler.

I'm telling you this because I know as mothers how much we feel it is our "job" to constantly be doing, even when we are guests at someone else's house. You could look at having to hold a baby (or dog) 24/7  as an impediment to one's autonomy. Because it is. But you could also look at as your seldom-in-a-lifetime opportunity to simply sit your ass down. Think about that if you're over at family's this holiday and feel like you're not doing enough. Believe me -- you're doing enough and then some.