What do you DO all day?

I was an adult before I realized what exactly it was my mom did all day when I was at school. She worked, of course, but only part time, so there were days when she was home all day. As a kid, it never occurred to me even once to consider what it is she would be doing.

Turns out she was very busy.

The issue came full circle for me this morning. My kids didn't have school because they are on Easter break (and yes, they are on Easter break not spring break - they go to parochial school). Because they like to torture their mother, they don't sleep in at all, so my son was sitting there in his robe as I was getting ready for work wide eyed and confused.

"Where are you going?" he asked me, concerned.

"To work, honey. Daddy is staying home with you today."

He threw himself toward me, wrapped his arms around my waist and wailed, "You work during the day too?!"

This question left me a little dumbfounded. He knows I cover meetings and other events in the evenings, but apparently it never occurred to him that I might do something during the day also.

My schedule is flexible, so flexible it allows me to drop them off at school in the morning, pick them up in the afternoon, and, as the school reporter, I often end up covering events at the school during the day, which probably looks to him like I just had nothing better to do that come to his school.

His distress made me smile. Even as he gets taller everyday and is starting to shun being read to at night, he is still my little boy, the one who can't fathom that his mom would do anything other than wait for him to come home.