I poo pooed moms who whined about how hard it is to be a stay-at-home mom. I mean, how freaking hard is it to stay home and snuggle with a sleeping cherub all day every day? Being a stay-at-home mom was my dream job. I imagined my days as follows:
Wake up, feed baby, cook a delicious and healthy breakfast for me and my husband and then give him a kiss as I hand him his homemade lunch and send him off to work. The afternoon consists of walks in the park, playing and lots of cuddling. Then around 5pm the baby will be playing or sleeping happily while I get dinner ready and on the table just as hubs walks in the door after a long day at the office. Then we put the baby down together and relax with our wine and some tv before heading to bed for a good night's rest. I would be the BEST stay-at-home mom/wife EVER!
That all lasted about three weeks.
Being a stay-at-home mom is hard. Especially when you are taking care of a floppy, demanding little person whose lack of patience rivals your own. Seriously - this kid makes me look like a saint. When she wants something you had better hustle because it's only a matter of time before the volcano erupts.
Baby J is now five months old and every time I think I've got a good routine going, she switches it up on me.
So our days now look something like this:
Wake up, feed baby, scrounge up some breakfast for myself (hubs is a big boy - he can fend for himself), and sneak in a kiss goodbye while we both hope that there's no spit up or baby food getting in the middle of our oh-so-romantic peck that we hope lands on the other's lips and not the cheek or chin. Hopefully Baby is still happily playing on her mat. If so, it becomes a mad dash to get as much done as I can before her good mood expires and it's time to get her down for her morning nap. This morning nap lasts, if I'm lucky, about two full hours. Just enough time to shower, get dressed and put on just enough makeup so that I look like an actual functioning member of society as opposed to some prehistoric cave dweller.
When she wakes up, our afternoons consist mainly of errands and playtime. On Tuesdays we go to Mommy and Me where I get to interact with other adults, and on Fridays we hit up story time at the library. If I have a healthy meal ready - even almost ready - by the time my husband gets home, it was an extraordinarily productive day. While he eats, I bathe Baby J, get her into her jammies, hand her off to Daddy for a bedtime story and then nurse her to sleep before cleaning up from dinner. By the time all is said and done, somehow it's 9:00. And I'm beat. By 9:30 my husband and I are both in bed. By 10:00, we're out cold.
Is it easy? No. Glamorous? Absolutely not. Would I rather put Baby J in daycare and go back to work as a teacher? Nope. Because despite the fact that my days are a whirlwind of....stuff, and my tiny little boss doesn't always allow lunch breaks, I wouldn't trade being home with my daughter for the world. Watching her change, grow, develop and discover is truly worth it.
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