I am writing this because of the response I get when someone asks, "What do you do?". As soon as I reply, "I'm a Stay-At-Home-Mom.", I get this look from the other person. (We all know the look!) Or I get one of these, "Ohhhhh Ok!" What is THAT supposed to mean!? I'll tell you! It's the undeniable look & sound of judgement. The, "so you don't do anything" response. So I thought I'd run down the schedule of my typical day.
I normally wake up around 8-9am. I walk into the bathroom, contacts blurry because i was too lazy to take them out before I feel asleep the night before. I search like a blind bat for the saline solution. Use the bathroom. Stubble to the kitchen tripping over toys & a clothes basket someone has placed in front of the laundry room door. (obviously a sign from one of my teenagers that their clothes need to be washed.) I start a pot of coffee & start laundry. I pick up all the toys my 2-yr-old left out the night before. By then the coffee is done, so I make myself a cup. AHHHH!
I sit down to give myself a few minutes to catch up on stuff for the ministry & business. (band facebook, band emails) I check my personal facebook & emails. Then I check the sewing business emails, Etsy, & facebook.
By now the baby has awoke. "Millllllkkkkk", he whines. He's still not awake either! I get him a cup of milk. He nestles in on the couch to watch Disney Channel & have his milk. (This is his own waking up ritual.)
Soon, my 20 minutes of quiet is over as he realizes it's time to play. Breakfast time. We spend a good 10 minutes staring into the pantry & the refrigerator as he decides if he wants yogurt, cereal, or fruit!
He decides on tomatoes & cheese! Whatever!
He eats & I try to finish up work on the computer.
I decide to start work on a project. So i begin measuring & cutting out a pattern. Before I get the chance to make one cut, I hear an "uh-oh". He has dumped out his milk on the coffee table & the dog is running off with his cheese! I clean up the mess & chase down the dog only to find the baby has recovered the cheese that the dog had in it's mouth. The baby is eating it...Whatever! (He's got a good immune system right?!) I pull out some toys hoping to keep him occupied for a bit.
Back to the sewing. I manage to get the pattern halfway cut out before I see the 2-yr-old has erected a make-shift staircase of various items & is jumping off the top of it onto ALL the couch cushions he has pulled onto the floor. (Mind you he did all this in a matter of 5 minutes.) Ok, I see I'm going to get NOTHING accomplished. SO I decide to clean. He runs off to his room to play drums. I manage to get the living room clean. And the baby sits quietly on the couch while I vacuum. (the couch is a place of safety where the vacuum won't eat him!) As I'm vacuuming he disappears & I realize as I'm wrapping up, that he is sitting on the kitchen floor surrounded by every single condiment in the refrigerator. He has removed them! SO I take him into the living room for a time-out. I put everything BACK into the refrigerator. By now it is time for lunch!
"Mam-ich!" he says. Sandwich it is! I make his sammy, and some fruit and place it on coffee table, as he refuses to sit in his high chair anymore. I manage to get a pattern completely cut out & he's being very quiet. I thought he was watching Yo Gabba. I was wrong. He found one of his sister's bottles of nail polish & is beautifying my CARPET & WALLS with it! Time-out again! I grab the Bissell, various cleaning products, & paper towels. I try to get the nail polish up. (It's BLACK by the way!)
after 30 minutes, I'm ready to scream.
Time to go outside. We walk down the mountain to Nana & Papa's house where I spend that hour chasing him up & down the stairs or trying to keep him from pulling everything out of THEIR refrigerator. Ok time to go back home. I go home & while I'm deciding what I'm going to make for dinner, I see that the kitchen needs to be cleaned. So I take something out of the freezer for dinner & start cleaning the kitchen. Elijah is playing quietly in the living room. I think he's finally getting tired, thank God! (Mind you the living room & kitchen are only separated by an entertainment center, I can see him.) But I get so involved in cleaning the kitchen that by the time I'm done, I see he has pulled every book off the bookshelf & got into my yarn basket & tangled about $100 worth of yarn! I realize the living room is a mess again & It's only 4 o'clock. I'm gonna cry.
Still left to do in the day... Clean AGAIN!, finish sewing project, make dinner, do a power point presentation for church, change the bed sheets (because Elijah's diaper leaked), pick up teen daughter from work, water plants, eat dinner, bathe the baby, (clean up THAT mess), unload dishwasher, and the list goes on. And all this must be done while making sure the 2 yr old doesn't kill himself in some household accident! I normally crawl into bed somewhere around 2am.
See, when you are a SAHM, the work never ends. There are no vacation or sick days. I am exhausted at all times. (On top of everything, I have fibromyalgia which just amplifies stress, aches, & pains.) But when I collapse into a heap, Elijah senses (even at 2) that mom has had enough. He crawls into my lap, wraps his little arms around me & says "Nuggle mama". (translation, Snuggle mama.) It makes EVERYTHING worth it. That's why we do what we do. We sacrifice having a job & the money that comes along with it, because those little angels are worth it. The stress of trying to work from home is worth it. God gave me this precious gift & I only have a few short years him. I don't want to miss a THING!
So to those who give the look, or the condesending awnswer when we tell you we are SAHM's, just remember. Our hair may not look the best, we may wear yoga pants 6 out of 7 days a week, and we may smell like a mix of markers, play dough, & sweat! But that's because what we do hard & messy! and it IS work!...(but we love it!)
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