Slave to the Schedule

As a mother, do you ever feel like a slave? And I don’t mean in a constantly cooking, cleaning, and caring for another person way. I’m referring to time. From the moment your kids are born you are on the clock, and time no longer belongs to you. You have become a slave to the schedule. At first you are a slave to feeding schedules, and this is especially true if you are breastfeeding. Every few hours you need to make sure that you and your baby are in a comfortable place to feed. If you’re out and about and bottle feeding, you need to make sure you’re prepared.

More Than Just a Feeding Schedule

The next form of scheduled servitude is to nap time. Whether your baby is taking one or two naps a day, you know that if he doesn’t take them there will be hell to pay. So you’re trapped at home, or you’re trapped in the car because he fell asleep on the way to or from something, and you know that if you try to move him he’ll wake up and never go back to sleep.

Currently, I am a slave to potty training. Always keeping an eye on the clock, trying to remember when he last used the potty. When leaving the house, you have to time your trips, hoping not to get caught at too many red lights or in too much traffic. And no matter where you go, you always need to know the fastest way to the bathroom.

While being a slave to potty training will pass, like the others, just know there is more to come. In the future we can look forward to being a slave to sports practice and game schedules, dance recitals, plays and their rehearsals, and other after school activity schedules. As a mom, you don’t get much time for yourself, let alone have things work around your schedule, but I guess we knew that’s what we were signing up for when we took the job.