ON FUN ~ I Pass On Grass...

Image courtesy Dominus Vobiscum via Flickr

These days, I spend a good chunk of my time as a stay-at-home mom. I work in my office two days a week and am home with Sammy the other three. Somewhere in that mix I also put in another eight hours from home for my boss. The best of both worlds. Especially on an absolute gem of a day like today. A week ago, we were struggling without power after a Nor'Easter over Halloween weekend. Today, it hit 70 degrees and was nothing but blue sky. So Sammy and I took advantage of it with a nice little walk around the neighborhood.

We met Vinny, a large but harmless dog who enjoys joining folks for walks in his neck of the woods. We watched the leaves turning all shades of pretty. And we saw a bunch of other stay-at-home moms mowing their lawns.

Am I now expected to mow the lawn?! Is this what moms do when the rest of us are at work? I thought the guys were supposed to handle all the yard stuff. Garbage emptying, leaf raking, grass mowing, snow shoveling. My mom always handles the gardening - unless she needs a new bed dug out. That gets added to dad's outdoor duties.

Andy spends lots of time tinkering around outside in his shed. That's where he keeps all of his important machinery. Something always needs to be maintained, repaired or used. Other men in the neighborhood are always stopping by to borrow this tool or drop off another to be lent to us for some time consuming project of great importance. Mowing the lawn is a production. There are methods for best accomplishing the task - which direction to go, how low to cut, whether to bag or to mulch. Sticks need to be picked up so as not to damage the blade. Lawn furniture and random toys need to be cleared. Edging needs to be trimmed with a weed whacker. The cat needs to be sent out of harms way. This takes all day. Or so I was led to believe.

And then today I see these super women out mowing their lawns with great precision and simplicity. Drag the machine out, push or drive it quickly across the lawn, then put it back in time to handle the kids returning home from school. Not a project. Just another expeditiously handled chore managed in the time it took me to walk through their part of the neighborhood.

On the one hand, I could use this information to expose Andy's dilly dallying for what it is - an escape from less interesting and more annoying things I have been waiting for him to do. But on the other hand, this could backfire on me. I could end up inheriting the lawn mowing chore.

And lets face it. I don't want to mow the lawn. I want to use that imaginary free time I would have to mow the lawn blogging with you instead. Or reading that book I've been trying to get to since Sammy was born. No. I think I will keep this mom-mowing business to myself. Let Andy continue to spend an entire day with it even though I know it could be done in a quarter of the time. And pray that he doesn't decide to pop home for lunch one day and drive by one of those moms working their mowers.