Never Again

Now that I don’t have to do them on a regular basis, there are chores that I am so glad I don’t have to do anymore.

Making lunches is at the top of that list. So much so that I hardly ever make my own lunch. I buy lunch pretty much every day. I feel I owe it to myself. I made enough lunches for a lifetime. It really burned my butt when I went to make the next day’s lunch and found much of the lunch that I had prepared for my children left in the lunchbox. So as long as it didn’t spoil, I would leave that in the lunchbox for the next day. By the end of the week, it was still there and my kids would say they didn’t eat it because it was old.

Done with lunch.

Don’t be fooled. The struggle has long been real.

Shopping for groceries was a real pain — the waiting in line for lunch meat, buying all of that prepackaged junk that my kids wanted, having Grace beg me for Lunchables and trying to figure out what to buy for dinner that they would all eat. If I had to take them with me to the store it was a nightmare. They put things in the cart I did not want and didn’t see until I went to check out.

Also, Grace always wanted to push the cart and inevitably ended up running up on my heels every time.

Getting my kids up and out the door for school was always filled with drama. Someone always had to go back in the house once we were in the car to get something. We were always running late, and the girls ended up eating their oatmeal in the car. The bowls sat in my car all day with the crusty oatmeal getting crustier every minute it was left in the car.

In truth, I hated these chores because I just didn’t have enough me time. Part of that was my fault for not insisting on it. I have a friend who would close her bedroom door at eight o’clock and tell her kids not to come in unless someone was dying. In other words she was off duty.

I love my children and did find joy in many of those things, but I am glad they are behind me and I don’t have to do them anymore. It’s kind of like when my husband says “We need to go out and rake the leaves.” I tell him don’t include me in the “we,” because as a child I raked enough leaves for a lifetime and vowed that once I moved out of my parents’ house and it’s half an acre, I would never rake leaves again and I haven’t.

Put down the rake. Put away the lunch boxes. Get your me time.

About Lisa Robinson

Lisa Robinson is the mother of two daughters raised in the Baltimore Area. One is still a teen, the other is out on her own, but Lisa knows she will never really retire from motherhood. Lisa is an award-winning journalist, news anchor and investigative reporter at WBAL-TV. She is a member of the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority and an avid reader who likes to cook, write, entertain and get her exercise. On a sunny day you might just see her out and about for a run.

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