Day 45: Stay at home mom

The images this title brings to many is a relatively leisurely lifestyle. Of course, you have to feed the kids and get them dressed, but what do you do with the rest of the day? They're pictured laying around in front of the television and doing a whole lot of nothing. People dream of this job. I dream of having the luxury to have this job, but it is not what most people imagine.

A stay at home wife, might have time to do more things with her day, but honestly, you'd be surprised how fast a day fills up with cleaning house and running errands, paying bills, clipping coupons, laundry, etc. and how much stuff we just don't do when we work. Now once that wife has turned into a mom, all bets are off.

My day starts without an alarm clock, but with a random squeal. The squeal varies in mood, but generally she just uses volume to get my attention and is grinning from her crib when I walk in. I get her up, changed, and head to the kitchen for her breakfast. If I'm lucky, her squeal was not too angry and I took the time to brush my teeth and make the bed and pee before running in to her room. Then I spend twenty-thirty minutes trying to teach her to eat with a spoon. After she is wearing most of her oatmeal, I fry an egg for her to get her some protein. I still haven't eaten. Then I see if I can get her to drink some milk. An hour or so passes before she is changed again and in some clothes (or not, as her recent penchant for nudity dictates).

I could then put her into baby jail for a few minutes and work on dishes, but I have to chose between eating or dishes. Forget about getting showered. Showering while she is awake means I have to keep her occupied for about an hour if I have to get dressed and ready to leave the house. Generally, I wait until she naps if I can help it or I move her from jumperoo to jenny jump up or exersaucer and baby jail (the living room blocked in) to be able to take care of any task that demands my attention. I have tried to have her in the bathroom or bedroom with me, but in a flash, she tends to find the most dangerous things that I haven't put up yet or digs through trash cans, both hazardous and gross.

Basically, that kind of business is my whole day. I don't get much time to myself. I feel like I spend all day preparing food, feeding food, cleaning up after food and then making small inroads on another task only to get five minutes in and the baby is letting me know she is dirty and wants her diaper changed. Then I have to cook and eat for myself too. By the time I do that, it is time to get her a snack and then lunch and then nap time, which was like an hour yesterday and only two today. If I shower during naptime, that is really all I have time for. Then I have to feed her another snack.

By this point in the day, it is about 1-2 and I've changed her diaper at least 4 times since she got up at 8. We've had two meals and two big snacks and one handful of Cheerios that Lil Bit gleefully chomped on until she was full and then smashed the rest and swept them into the carpet. I've had to feed the dog and let her out twice (the new puppy is going to be awesome!). And I still haven't eaten lunch.

If I take a second to get myself some lunch, the baby stands at my elbow and begs for my food. She spent the last three days just walking around crying and whining. I think it is her teeth, but in general, she just is in a mood. She was a little warm earlier and tylenol seemed to help a little, but as soon as it wore off, she was whining and crying again.

I had an hour to myself today (shopping online for dishes, which we need desperately) because she refused to wear a diaper after her nap, so I put her on her potty in front of her potty video. She sat there dancing along to her video and actually pottied! But my search has been frustrating. Nothing I like comes in our colors and I ended up spending most of my free moments searching every site I can think of.

The toddler stage requires constant vigilance. She needs my attention more than she has in the past. She wants me to play with her, attend to her almost constantly. If I dare walk out of the room, she screams. Today she had three screaming jags due to a toy that alternated between amusing and terrifying her. I try to leave her for only a few minutes at a time. By the time I put her to bed, I feel like I've run a marathon, even if I spent most of the day in my pajamas in two rooms of my house. It is amazing how many miles you can run in one room, most of it on my knees.

My idea of a successful day is very different. Now, both of us are fed at least three meals and get to bed within an hour of bedtime and I get to watch her do something new. Today, she signed that she needed to potty. I put her on her potty. She went pee pee! I was so excited. She smiled from ear to ear and didn't fight her diaper. I don't think she's ready to potty train for real, but she is certainly on her way. And that is about all I got done. In fact, as a peruse the house, I'm pretty sure it looks worse than it did when I got up. = ( !

On a work day, I would be getting to bed about thirty minutes ago, and probably have accomplished more. Being a stay at home mom may not be a "job," but don't let anyone fool you, it is work! Watching a one year old is the hardest, most patience trying jobs I've ever had. Now, I'm trying to summon up five minutes of energy to do a quick clean so I can go to bed feeling less like a failure.

Day 311: Pressure and tolerance

For those of you who've been reading my blog since the beginning know how conflicted I've been about having to work while my daughter is little. Last night I was confronted with someone who is making an amateur movie about how going back to work after your children are born is evil. While he said it was purposely over the top because it is a propaganda film class, it was obviously how he feels.

It took me a few minutes to realize he was serious. In this day and age to be so blatantly against working mothers is ridiculous. This economy makes two income families almost an absolute necessity not just a luxury. But having a strong opinion is one thing, it is another to be so intolerant of other people who might feel differently. I don't even know why he brought up his movie, but it seemed like he was trying to make a statement to us. Both my friend Liz and I were very offended. Liz just completely shut down. I think she was biting her tongue!  She didn't really say much the rest of the night and left pretty much as soon as she could. I guess I felt like I wanted to justify my decision. We both love our daughters very much. We both are making every decision we can to do what is best for our babies and our babies' futures.

I didn't think about it, but considering how much pressure I am already feeling for going back to work, I wanted to strangle him. When I think about all the moments I miss every day, it breaks my heart.  I thought he might realize he put his foot in it when I said how much we spent to adopt her and that we needed to replenish our savings as much as possible. But instead of letting it drop, he slyly just almost to me said, "I was making eight dollars an hour and my wife stayed home."

I wanted to cry. I want nothing more than to stay home with her. Today, she was a little stuffy and not feeling so great, so I got to hold her and snuggle her in a big fluffy blanket for hours. She would wake up and look at my face and smile brighter than the sun. I read to her, played little games with her and we had a great day.

We spent almost $40,000 to adopt our Lil Bit. It took all of our savings and more. I have almost no retirement because of moving around with my husband, and we have two vehicles that we need to have paid off if I want to have a chance to stay home even if it is for a year or two when Chad gets a new duty assignment. With Chad deployed, my working makes the most sense financially and emotionally. If I were home all day, every day, the missing him would be so much worse.

I posted a brief comment on Facebook and spent all day hearing from all the lovely ladies in my life about how out of touch he is. But I am still pretty upset about it, maybe because I agree that my staying home would be best for her and I want to do that and his opinion didn't leave any room for anyone to else's ideas or opinions or life or struggles. Then he talked about letting his kids eat Captain Crunch and watch Saturday morning cartoons. I think Captain Crunch is the equivalent of spooning sugar and preservatives straight down their throats. But he thought he needed to critique my parenting.

I see kids everyday whose parents are complete disasters. They shouldn't have ever had kids. They don't even love and care for the ones they have and keep making more. I think there are a million things you can do wrong as a parent. If you tried to do everything perfectly, you would probably end up in an asylum or divorced or both. But I think if you do the big ones right: loving them, teaching them values, helping them love to learn, and guiding them to being good, happy, healthy people as much as possible - well, then you've done the best you can.

Maybe you could teach your child two more lessons: tolerance and not to judge someone unless you've walked in her shoes. This man, who probably didn't take any time off when his children were born, didn't give a second thought to the pressure mothers are under to be perfect today, to work full-time jobs; to feed her children all organic, fresh food; have creative lessons and learning throughout the day; to keep her house spotless at all times and supremely organized in the face of any crisis; to be supremely organized so that no one is ever late or under dressed or unprepared. I only hope he is as perfect as he expects everyone else to be.

Jesus said, "Judge not lest ye be judged." Unless someone is putting their children at risk or in harm's way, live and let live. "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." Mmm, maybe his stay at home mother should've gone back to work because he would have learned those lessons in preschool.