What My Mommy Does

A while back I was sitting at my spot at the kitchen table with my laptop and phone.  Which is pretty much my normal work routine. I had never stopped to think about how my kids perceive my work until this particular day.

My youngest was dashing through the kitchen with a friend she had over to play. She stops. Turns to her friend and points at me and says "That's my mom working- all she does everyday is type on her computer and talk on the phone." I look up from my computer to see her friend look me up and down with a puzzled face, shrug her shoulders and run off.

It got me to thinking- what is my job title? When people ask me what I do it is hard to explain. I often give people a long stare and an even longer explanation of the current project I'm working on to somehow justify that I'm a skilled production person. So, how can I expect my kids to know my job if I don't even know how to explain my job.
I'm a:
Mom
Wife
Housekeeper (that we should fire)
Social media freelancer
Entrepreneur
Volunteer
Board Member
Quilt Shop Partner -( check out www.quilterscornersd.com)
Economic Development Coordinator
Skilled Farm Assistant  (that is highly undervalued)

So, how do I wrap that all into one cool job title? I've thought and thought and just can't come up with anything. Freelancer just doesn't have the cool ring to it that encompasses my career.

My kids understand what their dad does- he's a farmer. He has the cool title that explains it all. He puts on his suit everyday- which is his winter coveralls this time of year and leaves the house at 8:00 am every morning.  He comes home from his job every night about the same time and he can tell them what he did that day and they understand it.  When people ask them they can say my dad is a farmer with pride!

So, it certainly has become evident to me that I probably won't be asked to come and speak at school career day.  But hopefully someday my children will look back and see that I made the career choices I did to spend time with them and make the moments matter to them count. Maybe that's all the job title I need.

When I Grow Up...

Last week Miss R graduated from Kindergarden.

It's a big event in a young person's life and marking it with a party is very appropriate.

Something weird with my computer- but you get the picture

In our small community there is only one class of Kindergarden but Miss R's is a healthy size of 22 busy little people.  Miss Hammond & Miss Ogle have done an amazing job of keeping everyone moving in the same direction and everyone is moving onto 1st grade!

Let me just start off by saying Miss R wore an amazing outfit- I personally think it made it in the TOP 5 on her Kindergarden fashionista list. It had sparkles, flounce and matching flip flops. Plus it was a good hair day.

What really caught my attention at the event was this simple display of each child in Miss R's class holding a sign to complete this sentence:

7 out of the 10 boys in her class want to be farmers.  Wow, I'd say that is a pretty good percentage of future farmers in our community! I was a little surprised at that many kids who see their future in farming but on the other hand -- Proud that so many of our kids see themselves walking in their mom and dad's footsteps to carry on the tradition of raising food.  It would have been fun to dream about being a baseball player,  race car driver, police man, hunter-- all popular boy jobs.  But no, instead they want to be FARMERS! 

I can't wait to see how these kids grow and become their dream. 

Now for Miss R- the sign she is holding-  Ballerina. 

I was surprised by this, since for over a year now she has talked about being a Doctor. She goes into complete detail every time she talks about it; explaining that she wants to help people and make them better. When I questioned her about her profession change she said that she'll "make her final decision when she's 18"

...stay tuned, it could get interesting.