Job title

I'm 100% happy with my decision to stay home full-time with Anna.  I don't feel that I personally could do a good job at balancing parenting with a full-time job (kudos to those who can!), not to mention all the other home stuff that I need/want to get done.  I'm thankful that this arrangement is possible for us.

I do have to admit, that every time I have to fill out a form with "occupation" it gets me.  I have a love-hate relationship with my title, I suppose.  I mean, I have a whole blog devoted to making our home, so I'm obviously excited about being a "homemaker."  There's just something, though, about being reduced to that single word that can be a bit grating, and in a bureaucratic form-filling way, makes me feel like I'm not worth a whole lot.  [Side note: now that I think about it, even when I was a "consultant," which sounds much fancier & more important than "homemaker" I didn't like being just that.  Perhaps the problem is more with being reduced to just one title.  Anyway.]  When I'm not filling out government forms, I like to refer to myself as COO (Chief Operating Officer) of our family, a role which includes all of the responsibilities of the homemaker, plus the power suits (loosely interpreted here to mean sweat pants).

All of that was a lot of rambling as an introduction to my point for the day.  I was writing an email to a friend, and elaborating on Anna's recent mobility.  After I typed the paragraph, I realized I liked the way I told it (you may disagree), and I also thought this was a snapshot of our lives I'd most likely want to remember.  

Anna is in fact rolling, and only a few days (we suspect) from crawling.  This mobility has added an important job duty to my daily life: furniture licking police.  Apparently Anna is developmentally primed to discover the world with her tongue.  Including the legs of all furniture she can roll towards (and man, is she fast).  We're trying to baby-proof the house as best we can, but there's only so much we can do (and she still likes to lick the baseboards).  Sometimes I just have to stop and laugh at myself for the number of times in the day I say, "we don't lick ____" and "_____ isn't for eating!" and move her back to the center of the room.

The practicality of this house with a rolling/licking/soon-to-be-crawling baby is the one of the only consolations to the fact that we'll most likely be moving next year when Justin finishes his degree.  I have a lot to say (and a lot of tears to cry) about leaving Ithaca and this house, but I can save that for another day.  For now, I try to be content in knowing that we'll be able to make another home somewhere.  After all, making homes is what I do.  That, and policing the furniture licking.