I'm considering going back to work. Actually, I've been considering it for years because I think I worked less when I was getting paychecks and insurance than I do now staying home. Back then I had weekends off, got a lunch HOUR, and was out the door by 5:00. Since leaving the workforce to raise my brood, I either work straight through the weekends or spend all of Monday muttering unrepeatables under my breath about the sloppy monkeys in my house and work double time, ignoring my kids in favor of cleaning. It's not pretty. I also eat on the run or inhale my food while I check my email in the 15 minutes between me putting the children down for naps and the first one getting out of bed whining that he's not tired. As far as punching out at the end of the work day, well, let's just say I'm averaging 13 hour shifts on a good day when no one gets up in the night or throws up after hours. I might even have extra time to get bored at work if I had a "JOB."

I will have to update my resume though. Since leaving my last company, I have been running my own laundry service. It's a small operation, but with minimal staff (only me!), we are able to offer full service 24 hour custom care for an elite clientele. I have also worked as a home health aid offering round the clock care during fevers, stomach bugs, and have on several occasions wrestled preschoolers to the ground to administer eye drops. Wait, would that fall under "rodeo cowgirl" since it's something like calf roping and steer wrestling combined (except one handed of course b/c I have to protect that tiny bottle of eye drops)?

Working away from home does present the obstacle of hiring other people (notice I didn't say person) to replace me here. We will need a housekeeper, childcare provider, pool guy, and a full-time laundry staffer. By then, will my piddly researcher's salary be enough to make up the difference? No time to weigh it out now, the dryer just stopped, and I have to get back to work. Current time: 10 pm on Saturday night

Jack Johnson is a wizard!

My kids have an immense love for Curious George, so after we watched the Will Ferrell movie about 30 times, I bought the sound track thinking it would be a nice diversion from the two Veggie Tales CDs we listen to continuously in the car. There's only so many times you can listen to a gourd sing "I don't got a belly button" in one day before you start to lose your mind. I do kind of enjoy the worship CD where the Veggies are singing something about seeking God's beauty. I don't remember the real words though because from the back seat mine are singing, "...I would seek to shake your booty." Clearing up the confusion as to why the song was about God's booty didn't stop them from singing it wrong. Funny once, annoying twice, and stuck in your head forever like a it's been pounded in with a nail gun on the third time!

Enter Jack Johnson. The soundtrack to Curious George is all him, and I discovered a very valuable secret the first time we played it-when he sings, my kids shush! I think the tone of his voice is so soothing that it just lulls them into a calmed stupor. Sometimes when the three of them are really driving me crazy in the car, I switch on some Jack Johnson (any of his CDs seem to do the trick), and it gets quiet. I have to say, there needs to be a way to bottle that kind of magic into a pill form! Airlines should pipe it through the planes! My hope is that the hypnotic effect will never wear off so that when they're teens and I hear, "Mom! You don't know anything! You're ruining my..."I can just crank up the volume on Banana Pancakes and "pretend that it's the weekend." Better, it'll get quite enough for me to remember what it was like when I could listen to my own music in the car and it was just me. Until then, Thank you Mr. Johnson for giving me the silence, even if it only lasts to the grocery store.