I don't mop my floors.

There, I've said it--I don't mop them.  Unless my parents are coming for a visit and then I must because nothing escapes my mom's attention and she raised me to mop my floors.

I think mopping floors is a "mom thing".  Yesterday, I heard and read two references to mopping floors.  One, from my mom (of course).  She's sitting shiva for my Aunt Beverly and some of her dear friends came to my parents' house to not only prepare dinner, but also to mop her floors.  I thought this surely a generational thing until I started Rachel Sarah's wonderful Single Mom Seeking and read about her struggle to juggle single motherhood and dating and she mentions mopping floors!  And Sarah is slightly younger than I so obviously mopping floors is not relegated to my mom's generation.

Don't get me wrong, my house is neat and if something spills, I will certainly mop it up, but my mom mops her floor every night after dinner.  I'm exhausted thinking about it.  And I'd bet anything that many of you reading this now also mop your floors every night after dinner and think it very strange and un-mom like of me not to.

So, I'm not perfect.

2007 is a big year for me.  I'm turning 40 (gasp!) but so is Julia Roberts so it doesn't seem like such a big deal.  And my book is coming out next month and I expect that my life that has been on such a surreal course these past two years will continue to take me down a weird, wonderful and completely unplanned path (which for someone who has planned every single stage of her life is not as off putting as I would have guessed it would be to give myself up to the currents of life, rather than struggle to steer.) 

I want to be careful about my resolutions this year. 

The other day, I told the kids that as soon as the school bus took off, I would be leaving for Baltimore to go to WYPR-fm to record an article I had written for the Baltimore Jewish Times that NPR wanted to play during Hanukkah.  I was excited to be reading my piece on the radio.  My son said, "Mom, you're changing.  Ever since the book thing, you're changing...you're on TV, you're on radio, blah, blah, blah."  And I said to him, "What?  I'm still here making your breakfast and packing your lunch.  I'm still going to be here when you get off the bus to give you a snack and help you with your homework.  The only difference is while you're in school, instead of my being home cleaning or running errands or meeting friends for lunch, I'm going to be on the radio!"

But he has a point.  My life is changing.  And I don't want it to careen so far afield that I forget what got me here in the first place--being a mom. 

So, I think I need to start mopping my floors (mom will be happy to hear).  It's a big, grown-up mom thing and it's time for me to start doing it.  Call it grounding, call it prioritizing, call it focusing on my home...whatever.  But 2007 will find me with clean floors. 

(Now, about ironing....)  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

< back to top