In Search of a Hobby
Monday, September 22, 2008 at 10:43AM 
“Mommy, you are a mess,” my six year old told me last Saturday. My husband laughed while my seven year old looked worried. I decided to laugh, too. Not nearly as messy as crying, don’t you think?
The past week had been a tough and it obviously showed. Coming home from a three-week trip, getting the kids back into school and starting a new job had taken its toll and forced me to create a new operating system for our household.
For example, ‘grab it from the pile’ is my new laundry folding strategy. An obvious pedagogical exercise, it helps strengthens shape and color identification. As for food service, I don’t see anything wrong with frozen waffles for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I just remind my kids that waffles are the only food that Alvin likes in Alvin and the Chipmunks. As for exercising, who has needs it? It’s completely overrated, especially in the wintertime when the pressure to squeeze into the latest Land’s End tummy tuck swimsuit is at least six months away.
Successful parenting phrases such as “Go ask your father,” “Let’s play Sleeping Beauty and sleep,” and “Why don’t you go to your room and read your largest chapter book” have proven to be successful. If only we had that large yard, I would send them to the tire swing clubhouse to work on solving children’s hunger or at least the cancellation of ICarly, a Disney show where kids talk sassy to their parents.
Despite these changes, I still feel mommy-burn-out looming right outside my door. Not a good way to start the new school year and those extra 10 minutes of homework a night.
“What you need is a hobby,” my girlfriend Lisa told me.
I looked at her strangely, not sure what foreign language she was speaking. “Hobby? Isn’t that a word used in old English texts before they had child-centered parenting and guilt-tripping media machines?”
She laughed. I laughed. And then we both looked at each other.
“And your hobby is?” I asked.
“Scrap booking.” Of course, how could I forget? She was my freaky abnormal friend who could turn a paper bag and an old greeting card into a fabulous book commemorating your whole life.
“But I’m not like you.” I said. “You have so much energy.” She proceeded to give me the do-something-for-yourself-get-energy talk which basically rendered me comatose and in desperate need of a large bag of bittersweet chocolate chips.
I decided to poll my friends to find out if they were hobby-less or hobby-full. Of course, I loved every blank stare or burst of laughter from moms who had my same reaction. My favorite response was from a bus stop mom, “My hobby is daydreaming—because it feels good.” I hear that one.
Seriously though, there are moms who actually have hobbies. Reading was the no#1 hobby, which isn’t too surprising since it can be done in the horizontal position.
Surfing, gardening and photography came in second with jewelry-making, sewing and cross-stitching following close behind.
I found that the older one’s children are, the more hobbies one has. For example, my friends who have teenagers have an average of two to three hobbies. Those with tweens ranged from one to two. The rest of us live in the land of one hobby or at least hoping for one. As one of my friends asked, “Do kids count as a hobby?”
After much contemplation, I decided to take a Tap Dance class once a week. Even though I am registered, I have yet to buy shoes. I can tell this is going to be a slow process requiring minimal thought, maximum caffeine and a freezer filled with frozen waffles.
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