My New J-O-B

It's a funny thing, this stay-at-home-mom business. 

While at a friend's house for dinner recently, I was asked the simple question of how my new gig was going. I gave a little laugh but was coming up dry with ways to explain how it was the most ridiculously amazing yet stressful and frustrating pull-my-hair-out job that I've ever yearned to do. Luckily my friend's wife--a veteran stay-at-home-mom--helped me make sense of my hemming and hawing so that I could attempt to explain this anomaly to her husband, who had asked the question. Since then I've had some time while changing diapers and holding toddlers in the time-out corner to reflect on the question, and I think I've come up with the proper answer to how the whole stay-at-home-mom thing is going:

It's going.

Getting ready
to help cook!

The days carry on whether I'm prepared for them or not, and somehow we all survive and keep going as well. Some days I feel like I'm on top of the world, and others I feel like I'm struggling to remember that the rest of the world (that is, the world beyond pull-ups, the park, and Elmo's world) is actually still there. For instance, I quickly congratulated myself for achieving supermom status when getting ready for dinner at the aforementioned friend's house. In the space of an afternoon I had enforced nap time, baked a pie from scratch (and even let the big kids help), neutralized two fights, fed the baby, gotten the three kids appropriately dressed and in the car--without anyone ending up barefoot again in the process--and got to my friends' house almost on time. Success!

And then I got home after dinner to find that I accidentally left the dog in the backyard and the oven on at 450 for the entire four hours I was gone. FAIL. (Miraculously both the dog and the kitchen survived, but I still think my former supermom ego is forever banished into hiding).

In the middle of all the daily chaos I've tried to come to grips with why this transition to my "new" job has been so challenging for me, but also why--even on the worst of the worst of days--I wouldn't think twice about refusing to take my old job back. Even though it was a comparative walk in the park. And even if someone offered me a million dollar check to do so.

I do not make this statement lightly. At my former day job, I could rationally debate and analyze solutions with other adults as we all worked toward a common goal. There were arguments, there were strong opinions, but there was also an understanding that sometimes things just had to get done, and if it had to, the rank structure could come into play to enforce such things.

...and they make
it so hard to resist!

Enter full-time motherhood. No matter how many times I not-so gently remind my toddler and pre-schooler that I am the boss, and answer in logical form the questions of "why?" that succeed every order I give, I oftentimes lose in some fashion the irrational debates that fill my day (and if not the debates, then I certainly lose my cool). To my preschooler, it doesn't matter that I only got four hours of sleep because it is 6:00 am and "the sun is up, Mommy!" and she wants a grownup to help her pick out her clothes that she chooses to pick out on her own every day but today. It doesn't matter that she is only allowed to have one glass of hot chocolate because she wants two.  To my toddler, it doesn't matter that the blue plate is dirty and we haven't started the dishwasher yet and if he eats off of it he will get germs and get sick and then we might have to go to the hospital and Mommy would be sad and cry. In his opinion, Mommy needs to just take it out of the dishwasher already and wash it by hand because he wants it. NOW.

Target on a weekday!
In case you can't
see it, that speed limit sign
actually says 17 1/2.
Am I the only one who's
never seen that before?!

Of course, since I'm my own boss now and have a mere three charges under me to supervise, I have freedom that I didn't have before when I was on someone else's time. I can take my crew to story time and go grocery shopping during the day...no more having to save it for the weekends or late at night.  I have the freedom to manage my own schedule, needing only to consult myself before making a command decision to alter the schedule because my crew just isn't going to be ready in time for story time today, or decide that we should leave Target before they remove every single item of clothing from the racks on the left side of the aisle as well as the right. And I don't even need performance evaluations because I receive immediate and unsolicited feedback from my own brutally honest critics who are always with me.

Right. So why wouldn't I take my own job back again (plus a million dollars) to leave all of that behind?

But markers are no fun on paper!

Because I've realized that even on the worst of days when I am literally shadowed by little irrational beings from sun up until sundown, that even in the midst of the arguments I can't win, I am the one who now knows what color plate they want this week. I am the one who extends my arms to hug them when they fall crying to the floor in despair because the plate is dirty. I am the one who gets to see my baby hit the milestones I missed with the older two when I was working...the first time sitting up, the first "steps" crawling, his first time prying off the new safety bumper on the fireplace to gum it. I am the one there clenching my fists when they decide to remove all of the kids' plates and cups from their cabinet, but I am also the one there when I watch them make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich unaided for the first time. I grit my teeth as I wipe the marker "art" from the wall, then smile and shake my head in amazement when I watch them write their name for the first time. I cover my ears as they decide to bang on the piano when I'm trying to make a phone call, then marvel at the beautiful melodies they can already produce with the simple lessons their father has given them.

I...want...that...airplane!!!

Story time x 3!

And although the average passerby would probably classify me as a crazed lunatic when hearing me scream, "THE. BLUE. PLATE. IS. DIR-TY!!!!" at my 2-year-old for the tenth time, I'm pretty sure they would understand why I choose this job over any other if they could see my toddler smile up at me twenty minutes later and say with all the innocence in the world, "I love you, Mommy!" Or if they could see my preschooler demonstrate her new favorite trick: holding up her hand to everyone in the family to sign "I love you." Or if they could stand as I do in front of the sink to see what I do from my vantage point: three irrationally beautiful and charming kids playing with each other like little angels and seizing my heart because they are growing far too quickly.

So, back to that question: how is life as a stay-at-home-mom going so far?

It's going. And I'm so glad it is.