On Being A Stay At Home Mom

Y’all want the real deal, I’m gonna give it to ya! But here’s your warning, I am a sarcastic person. I love my kids and I love my life (and I know how blessed I am to have healthy kids). However, I love  to complain about things and make jokes which helps me keep my sanity. You’ve been warned…

Staying at Home Versus Working Outside the Home

I have stayed at home with my kids full time and also had a full time career. Here’s the thing, both of these jobs are incredibly hard, but for me I have a harder time staying at home. I seriously have felt like I run a mental institute lately. When I saw this E-Card I thought WOW, this is perfect!!! For me it was easier to clean my house, take Gavin to school, hand Jude over to his wonderful teachers and go off my merry way to work. After a long day we would return to a clean house, because no one had been home. I would put a hot, un-healthy, fast, Chick-fil-A meal on the table. Then, quickly tuck my little ones to bed all before 9pm. However, easy it was, boy, did I miss out on so many things. And they’re not all roses and sunshine.

I was reading My Life and Kids by Anna which is a lifestyle blog that is quite hysterical. She was reflecting on all the beautiful moments she may have missed if she was still a working mom. In this post she took some pictures of her kids doing things like playing in their pool and pretending to be super heros, so adorable. The captions all read something like ,”If I was at work I would have missed this, and this…and so on.”

I hate to say it, we don’t have too many of those moments here. Remember the rock box I built for Jude, yes, that one, he’s used it once. ONCE!!!!!  I think I should take a few pictures and show you what I would miss if I was back at work. But for now I will just give you an idea of a few things that constantly test my sanity,  let’s see who can relate..

Sleep and the Car Seat

Jude is almost three. It’s so crazy how two children can be so different. When Gavin was born, he was calm, quiet and content. Not to mention he slept through the night at 5 weeks old. Jude on the other hand came into this world screaming like a banshee. He screamed for hours after he was born. Then came the ride home which was only five minutes but, he screamed then too and every other time he was put in a car seat from that point on until this moment in time. Yep, for 3 solid years my child has screamed nearly every time he has been put in the car. Lastly, Jude will fall asleep really fast, but never sleeps through the night. Again for 3 years Jude has not slept through the night. It doesn’t matter if he’s had a nap, not had a nap…whatever he just won’t do it. So there you go,Jude never sleeps and cries anytime he’s in the car seat oh and forget ever sleeping in the car seat HA HA HA!

I Sits for No One

Jude does not sit in things, I mean anything. Yep, that means, no sitting in strollers, no sitting in highchairs, no sitting in grocery carts. Torture, sheer torture I tell you!!! We have tried and tried and tried and only now thanks to modern technology he will sit and watch YouTube on my I Phone while I grocery shop. Otherwise forget it. We pretty much gave up completely on eating at restaurants for a long time and have started going back to the really fast ones. However, he has to sit in a booth on a side that is against a wall. We have had two food bombing incidents, thank goodness they were near misses. The food hit the people’s bench and not them. Phew!!! Forget nice leisurely walks around the neighborhood, it’s a scream fest and if you let him out of the stroller, it’s a chase fest. He sits for no one.

Demonic Possession

About 98.2% of the time my sweet precious child has a monster living inside of him. Seriously, I think I am raising Rosemary’s baby. I can’t even do “the voice”. It’s this monster growl voice that he uses constantly when he’s talking and it’s not cute, not in the slightest bit. When he’s not possessed by this demon he is either screaming at the top of his lungs or howling, yes, howling like a werewolf. That’s the latest and greatest    Jude trick. Every time I am on the phone the howling begins. I was on an extremely important professional call and yes he did it the entire time, there was no escaping. Oh, and if that’s not good enough, thanks so much to his 10 year old brother, we now constantly get to hear Jude tell us that everything is “Stupid” or ” a piece of Crap.” Yes and the mother of the year award goes to ….. somebody else. Thank you…..

 5 Fingers to the Face

Jude was a large baby and is now a very tall and strong 2 and a half year old. But no matter his size he has very little impulse control and that’s pretty typical for this age. However, he has less control than most. It’s difficult to take him around other children that I don’t know, because, you just never know if his demonic voice will surface or if he may just give a kid five fingers to the face. He has slapped me a few times which given my work experience I have received my fair share of smacks, bites, kicks, and more. But let me tell you, this last smack I received was like nothing I have ever felt before, he could have held his own with Mohammed Ali or Mike Tyson, with that smack.  Let’s just say he hasn’t tried to smack in a really, really long time. However, his size is still quite challenging, because he looks so much older, yet acts his age which is really 2 and a half. It’s very, very frustrating and I’m almost afraid to send him to preschool now. We’ve decide to wait just a little longer.

 With Great Knowledge Comes Great Responsibility Guilt

I know I’ve told you this before, I’ve spent the majority of my life studying Early childhood development, child psychology, and child guidance. I know a lot about kids, why they do things, how to prevent them from doing things and how to guide them to more appropriate behavior. I was really, really good at this in my career however, I absolutely suck at it as a parent. These little guys have a hold on me like no other. It’s like I have the knowledge to be “SuperMom” but they are my Kryptonite. It’s like everything I know gets thrown out the window and all I know how to do is yell and threaten. It makes me feel very guilty knowing that I could do a lot better as a parent.

So Why Do I Stay At Home

Are you asking by now, well if it’s so hard why do you stay at home? Just like Anna, from My Life and Kids I really felt like I never saw my kids and I did not know them at all. As crazy as I feel sometimes, and as wild as they can be, they are my heart and soul. The good or the bad moments, I’ll take them all. But I’m not going to pretend that my kids are well behaved. I am not “SuperMom” who decorates and DIYS  by night and super parents by day. It’s just not at all how it is. I do the best I can in my crazy little chaotic life and don’t want to miss a single thing. Even if it is 5 fingers  to the face. Better me than someone else.