Friday, April 15, 2011

Changing of the Tags

There are so many symbolic moments in life, and today while dropping Olivia off at school, I experienced one such moment. 

Each day before I pick Olivia up from school, I take off my i.d badge from work, and put on the badge that allows me access to her school which is simply labeled "parent."  For some reason, over the past few days, I have thought about how symbolic that switch actually is.

Since having our second child three months ago,  I find myself struggling to be more mindful of leaving the work day behind and being fully present in my role as a parent.  Each moment of our evening is packed with dinner, baths, bottles, and books.  The pace of the evening is like a truck barreling along at full speed and it is not until both girls are resting comfortably in their bed that I am able to take a brief moment to reflect on the day before beginning to prepare to do it all over again.

Today, as I was switching from my name tag from work, to the "parent" tag,  I made a choice that each day forward, as I switched from one tag to the next, I really wanted to leave the work day behind and really commit to being mindful of focusing on only being a "parent" for that is the tag that means the most to me.