What Do You Do All Day?

After, "What do you Miss most about America"....the question I seem to get most isn't so much in regard to our ex-pat life...but rather it applies to my (admittedly against-type) choice to stay home with the kidlets.  I prefer that question to "What Do You DO All Day?" (because, seriously, any mom who asks that must not have ever spent a weekend at home alone with their children.  And also, it's just unabashedly rude). For the record, I was thrilled when the opportunity presented itself those 6 long years ago.  Stay At Home Mom sounded like the Holy Grail.  I was emotionally bruised and saddled with weighty guilt over missing many of Miss Drama's "firsts" in the early months of her life.  I always had lofty aspirations and the (possibly delusional) self-identity of a Leader.  I identified with the 80's Career Woman Archetype and never considered giving up my career to be a mom.  I loved that for the early years of my marriage I out-earned my husband and imagined that I would continue to do so...wielding my independence and determination like a weapon.

Until.

I think it happened sometime mid-maternity leave.  I got a call from my then-boss...telling me that he was leaving and that they were happy to offer me his position upon my return.  Hell Yeah!  But...it made the reality of my having to leave that incredible little creature, who became more human and more Herself every day, completely real.  And I was devastated.  We lucked into a fabulous nanny, and I left the baby version of Miss Drama with a little tear and a set jaw.  I loved having my identity back.  But I missed her waking hours.  And Drama, unlike her darling baby sister, Slept Through The Night...so I didn't get her company in the nighttime hours.  I actually might have liked that.  Wait....No.  I'm romanticizing, but still.  Our nanny warmly and openly shared with me all of her moments and took lots of photos and called me with regular updates throughout the day.  She phoned me one very memorable day, when I was on the road, to tell me that Miss Drama got her first tooth.  I remember that flight home, sloppily sobbing like a heartbroken pre-teen.    I snuck into her room (like that really creepy mom from the I'll Love You Forever book) and picked her up and rocked her in her sleep, weeping over my failure as a mother.  So, when the younger version of Circus Dad (who at the time wasn't really so circus-y) called to tell me that he had an opportunity in Switzerland...but it meant that I'd have to quit work, I actually did a little happy dance in my office...much to both of our surprise.  We discussed that I had no work permit and that it was possible that I might not be able to find work as long as we were abroad, but I didn't blink.  Every day!?  With my Baby Girl?!?  Awesome.

Only, it's hard.  Like, crazytown hard.  Add to that the new-culture, language-barrier, no-friends, thousands of miles from friends and family...and you get a tiny idea of what that meant.  Nonetheless, I reminded myself every day of my Good Fortune.  I got to live in this amazing, beautiful, safe country.  I got to spend my days completely immersed in learning a new language.  And I got to be The One that influenced the development of our daughter.  Only, that's kind of scary, too.  When she pipes up from the backseat as we've been (once again) cut off in traffic by a lunatic Swiss Vespa driver with "Jackass!"....there's nobody to blame but myself.

So, that's how I found myself...until moving to Hong Kong.  Hong Kong is a fascinating little micro culture.  You can find somebody speaking nearly every language on the planet inside this tiny little island.  The Mom culture here is nothing like Switzerland.  En Suisse, we needed each other because of our cultural outcast status.  So, we leaned on each other and became like a surrogate family to each other.  Or a really gossipy sorority.  Well, probably the best and worst of both.  So, I landed in Hong Kong expecting to make ex-pat friends by offering to babysit and share dinners when husbands traveled...like I had in Switzerland.  Ha!

Lesson Number One about life in Asia?  Not only is having Help common, inexpensive, and easily available....it's Expected.  Life is structured in such a way that it is a basic expectation that everybody has a Helper (read: Maid/Nanny/Mother's Aid).  The first week we were in Hong Kong, I was invited to the New Parent Coffee at the school where Miss Drama had started Kindergarten.  It was at 9am.  Younger Siblings Not Welcome.  So,  I'd been in Hong Kong for 18 days.  I had no friends.  I had said hello to my neighbors but didn't have any of our worldly belongings so I was living like a freaky  hermit and still trying to adjust to Driving on the Wrong Side of the Road and the shock of hearing so much English/so little French all the time.  In short: I didn't know anybody to ask to watch Trouble.  When I called the school to ask, the secretary said, in abject horror: "You DON'T have a Helper?"

In those 5 years in Switzerland, I took great Pride in being a Kick-Ass Housewife.  In case you missed it earlier, I'm Competitive.  Why Do It if You're Not Going to Do It Well?  I took the annoying inconveniences of charming village-life in Switzerland in stride (with regular snarky side-comments, of course).  But I Rocked it.  Daily Grocery Shopping, Tire Rotation, Dry Cleaning, Doctor's Appointments, Home Repair, Public School (in a language I never got too far beyond conversational in), Kids' Activities (en Francais!), and even (eventually) coffees with the local ladies.  So, I entered into the Asian life (with Helper!) with trepidation...and wondered...no, seriously...what WILL I Do all day??

I'll tell you.  In this moment, my life is a million times better than Circus Dad's.  But if you tell him I admitted that, I'll deny it.  I run around like a crazy person...but it is all my own doing.  The things I hate (laundry, dry cleaning run, all of the house chores and a good portion of the cooking...not because I hate it but because it takes up valuable time) are all the responsibility of the Helper.   But juggling all of that was what defined me as a Kick Ass HouseWife (Femme au Foyer, thankyouverymuch) in Switzerland.  I have found that I have to keep my days full.  So, I fill my days as follows: 1-3 hours per day I exercise.  I hike or run with friends, take tennis lessons, or workout in the gym.  I take my girls to and from the bus and or/school.  Which sounds like, DUH, but my kids go to two different schools and have widely varying hours.  I still manage the grocery shopping, the kids' activity schedules (7 activities per week for Drama and 4 for Trouble), all finances (in three countries and three currencies), and doctor's visits for the family.  I'm a Daisy Scout Leader and I volunteer in both girls' classes as much as I am permitted.  Trouble goes to half-day school...so my afternoons are full of play-dates and Barbie fashion shows and tea parties with the 3 year old crowd.  On average, Circus Dad is out of town 35-40% of the time.  That's a lot of nights where it's The Mommy Show.  Only now...I come home from Ballet or Ice Skating to a cooked meal and a clean house.  In the 14 months I have lived in Hong Kong, aside from our Helperless days, (and that's a whole other post) I have never had to deal with the Five O'clock Witching Hour (that perfect storm where overtired kids combine with preparing and serving dinner, overseeing homework, juggling half-done laundry, breaking up bickering about who has to sit on the faucet-side during the bath, the resulting dual shower, and then, finally, wrestling the monkeys into pajamas, and ultimately trying to sooth them into bedtime....where Broccoli Mom is so exhausted and beyond the end of the very frayed rope that she barely pulls up the kidlet's covers before she tumbles, near-tears, into the kitchen to do dishes and drink a bottle of wine).  And I lived with the Daily 5-Oh for five years....I Rocked It.  So, this is my idea of heaven.  You can see, I stay busy.  With things that I like to do and want to do.  My time with the girls is not rushed and full of frustration because I have 10,000 other things I am freaking out about.   Because of this amazing thing called Help...I can take a night Oil Painting class, or meet my girlfriends for a glass of wine on Tuesday night, or go out to dinner with my husband without paying a ransom (Switzerland) or begging a favor off a family member (USA).

Now, Circus Dad would have you believe that I have it TOO easy.  One morning when I asked if he could walk Trouble to school so I could get to tennis, he asked what I was doing after.  I said I was hiking with a friend...and then having a coffee before grocery shopping.  He looked at me wistfully and said, "I want YOUR life".   I countered with, "I want our KIDS' lives".  'Cause seriously.  I do.  And is there any better feeling than the realization that your kids have amazing lives??  I think not.

Listen, I recognize that Trouble and Drama will need some therapy and be completely jacked up from something that we've done.  My Dad told me last summer (lovingly, I'm sure??) that our kids would grow up to either be absolutely fascinating and worldly....or unbearably entitled and spoiled.  I'm sure he's right.  And I also recognize that the next place Circus Dad moves us to will likely NOT include the amazing bonus of Help.  In fact, I will once again BE the Help.  So, for the moment....excuse me while I bask in this moment.  And don't waste a lot of time hating me.  Because, you already know, I don't get any sleep....and Barbie Girl won't let me have any cookies.