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Sunday, July 1, 2012

Being A Stay At Home Mom



I always hear people say that being a stay at home mom is easy. That I get to relax all day. That I'm lazy. I don't do anything. That they wish they could be a stay at home mom. While I DO love being a stay at home mom because I get to raise my kids myself and I'm not missing any milestones or a photo-op, it is still my JOB.

My husband works full-time, Monday - Friday. He brings in the paycheck. That is HIS job. Everyone always sees this type of work as a JOB. My husband's job is acceptable in the "working community". But being a stay at home mom isn't. Because I'm at home, it's not seen as work. 

Our work hours are different. He works 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. I work 16-18 hours a day, 7 days a week. I DO have to sleep...

Since no one seems to think I do anything at my JOB, I've taken the liberty to write down every single thing I did for one day. NOTHING has been added or left out. I hope after this, you'll see that being a stay at home mom is MUCH harder than it seems...

I went to bed at 12 Midnight...
My Day
5:12am - I wake up, I need to pee
5:25am - Husband opens bedroom door loudly, jolting me from my just accumulated sleep.
7:00am - Officially Wake up & get dressed
7:10am - Make breakfast(cereal) for my 5 year old son
7:15am - Make my sons lunch for school
7:19am - Repeatedly tell my son to stop messing with my keys & to eat breakfast
7:25am - Help my son brush his teeth & hair. Get his clothes for him. Brush MY teeth
7:32am - Make coffee
7:44am - Realize my husband forgot quarters for laundry in the car...I had asked him the night before to bring them upstairs.
7:45am - Pour my coffee in my to-go cup
7:46am - Leave to take my son to Kindergarten(I bring the stroller down our flight of stairs, go back upstairs, grab my 18mo. old daughter from sleep, walk down stairs with coffee and baby in arms. Get her in the stroller with some Cheerios and we're off!)
8:00am - Drop him off at school, walk back home
8:34am - Arrive back home(bring daughter upstairs, then go back down to bring up the stroller)
8:35am - Potty #2 for me! (After 2 minutes, my daughter barges in a demands to be breastfed. Lasts about 5 minutes. Then I look up SAHM photos on my phone[like the one u see up top]. I hear baby playing with my phone charger in the next room. I call her name 10 times, she doesn't come. I say "Boob?" and she'll come for that! I get up but as I do, I have to prevent my daughter from dropping the phone in the toilet.
8:50am - Done with my potty time.
8:53am - I finally change her 1st diaper of the day and clothe her. As I do this, I miss a call about my sons dentist appointment.
9:00am - I eat a bowl of cereal & give my daughter her own little bowl
9:15am - Clean cereal mess that she made

9:20am - Breastfeed for 10 minutes
9:35am - Get her strawberries for a snack
9:41am - Abandons strawberries for GoldFish
9:45am - I finish uploading some pix of a birthday party to Facebook on my phone(during this time she climbs all over me, I get her a Go-gurt snack, she takes apart my wallet and my cards and money are everywhere, grabs the phone from me repeatedly, I read her 3 books multiple times)
11:30am - Finally done with uploading photos & I can't seem to keep my eyes open -_-
12:00pm - I go downstairs to get quarters from the car
12:04pm - Organize laundry. Baby bumps her head. She sits on my lap and "helps" me sort clothes.
12:16pm - Go downstairs to put in 2 loads of laundry(we only have 2 washers and 2 dryers in our side of the apartment complex) 

12:20pm - Come upstairs, START cleaning dishes & kitchen
12:25pm - I hear "Uh OH!" She has spilled water on the carpet, all over herself, and up her nose.
12:39pm - Stop dishes. Mailman at the door with package.
12:40pm - Put chicken nuggets in oven for baby girl
12:42pm - Continue dishes.
12:44pm - Stop dishes again, she wants me to open a Go-gurt for her
12:50pm - Finish dishes, give baby girl her nuggets, go downstairs to wash a 3rd load of laundry. Put first 2 loads in dryer.
1:00pm - Leave home to get son from school(repeat stroller down stairs)
1:20pm - Pick up son, let him play for 5-10 minutes at school yard. Had to break up an argument between him and a friend of his.
1:42pm - Get back home from our walk from school (repeat stroller & baby upstairs)
1:45pm - Get 2 loads of laundry from the dryer, put 3rd load into dryer.
1:53pm - Come back upstairs
1:55pm - What's for lunch? Shrimp Stir Fry!
2:05pm - Change baby girl diaper & put down for a nap
2:15pm - Continue cooking lunch, chopping veggies...
2:21pm - Get son to nap...baby girl is still awake
2:22pm - Back to cooking
2:30pm - Husband if off work and on his way home. I decide to finally make the bed and clean the living room so HE can have a clean home.
2:40pm - Go downstairs to get 3rd load of laundry
2:45pm - Back upstairs with 3rd load and I plate my lunch
2:51pm - Sit down for lunch & go through mail
3:10pm - Husband gets home from works. Right away he wants me to call our sons dentist
3:20pm - I watch a talk show called Anderson. A little break :)
3:45pm - Husband gets mad about the day(s) of our sons movie shoot(It's during the weekday and he's mad that he may have to take the day off work to take us)
3:55pm - I reschedule dentist appointment for our son
4:00pm - I shower. (Both kids come in & out of the bathroom to pee, poop, see me, ask me questions...all the things you can think of, while I try to relax for an hour.
4:55pm - Out of shower
5:00pm - Get dressed. Baby girl is with me and wants me to read her another book.
5:05pm - Breastfeed baby girl, Change diaper, do my make-up. Baby girl takes my make-up and makes a mess.
5:50pm - Make sure diaper bag is ready to go
6:00pm - Make a quick trip to the mall with the whole family.
7:50pm - Get back home
7:53pm - Get baby girl a yogurt. 

 After this, I would usually fold all the laundry, but this night the hubby wanted to watch a movie and have some wine together. I DID NOT oppose, but I did consider watching this movie and folding clothes at the same time. That wouldn't have been much fun for either of us. So I waiting until the next day to fold the laundry. FYI, Laundry is my LEAST favorite chore. Ugh....

I should mention though, that during our movie, we had to STOP the movie about 4-5 times because the kids either needed us to get something, open something, needed food... I got the kids to sleep at about 9:30pm. That included me helping BOTH kids brush their teeth, get dressed in PJ's, my husband read our son a story while I sang to our daughter to relax her. After getting them to bed, I was finally able to enjoy the short amount of time I had to spend alone with my husband.

During the writing of this blog, I was taken away multiple times my diaper changes, cleaning, kids bumping heads, bathroom breaks, making dinner, etc... baby girl was on my lap trying to bang on the keyboard for half the time I was typing this all up.


*And now my daughter bumps her lip in the living room, I comfort her, and she is on my lap again as I type this*


I really hope that this has opened some peoples eyes into the life of a stay at home mom (SAHM). This IS only one day in my life. Sometimes we're gone all day visiting family so those days will be different. Sometimes I take walk the kids to the park after their naps...but this is a common enough day for me to write about. 

Remember to appreciate all SAHM that you know. They work their asses off! Treat them with love and respect the WORK they do. Our jobs as mothers never end. We can't quit. We can't apply for another family. We're stuck with the ones we have, and even though it can get REALLY rough at times, we all love being with our kids.