Today in Brisbane it was the Show Holiday (no, we didn't go either!) so our day involved staying home and pottering around the house. Now, working mothers reading this (and busy dads too, of course!) may be able to relate when I say that, for me, it became a bonus day to catch up on the washing, folding, ironing etc, especially as Dear Husband volunteered us to wash all 24 of the football team's jerseys this week.
Now, I admit that due to being busy, working and having moments of 'just not feeling like it', my folding/sorting pile of washing has, over the last week or so, grown from a small acceptable basket to three overgrown piles of embarrassment. So today, for over an hour I folded and sorted and basically took over the dining table with the wash build-up. Usually, when I have moments like these, I just pack it all up and put it away, but today as I stood back and admired my achievement in housework, I felt irritated that my day off involved work while Dear Husband was watching a dvd and the children were playing. So I did what any self-respecting woman would do....I demanded that they all come and join in my folding admiration! Hey, wouldn't you??!!
But something was amiss! My beloved family did not share in my sense of achievement nor did they drown me in the compliments that I thought I deserved, considering that most of the clothes belonged to them and considering that if they don't have folded undies/shirts/shorts/etc, they always yell to me to ask me where they are. So in my glum mood, I stomped off declaring that nobody appreciated the work I did, blah, blah, blah!
The 11 year old, upon hearing all of this, calmly responded with, 'Well mummy, you don't have to be Einstein around here to figure out that you do most of the work!'
Well, knock me over with a feather....that one sentence shut me up and, for the first time in a long time, made me feel appreciated! Sometimes it doesn't take anything but a simple line of observation from someone you would least expect it to come from, to make a mum feel special!
