i remember the first few months as a stay at home mom with my new baby. it only took a matter of days to realize that people were right all along. being a stay at home mom isn't a vacation. i found it difficult to be so sleep deprived and i felt like my life was a constant rhythm of feed, burp, diaper, sleep. i felt like i could never leave the house, but at least i had time during baby's nap to keep on top of things like laundry and making dinner.
then i went back to work when bean was one year old and even though our house stayed mostly clean from nobody being at home, it was a small rush to get home and make dinner so i could spend time with him before a 7pm bedtime. then things started to slip. i started to realize that things were even harder as a working mom than as a stay at home mom. i still had to keep on top of laundry, renovations, cutting the grass, cooking meals, and grocery shopping while maintaining my garden, and attending family events and preparing for singing time sundays at church.
wow. being a mom is hard.
i was looking forward to the time when we'd have another kid and i could be home all the time and devote my time to being a stay at home mom again who can keep on top of the laundry and dinner.
then Sebastien was born.
turns out, having a newborn the second time around is NOTHING like having one the first. you still have to entertain a toddler while taking care of a new baby. you can't leave the new baby on the floor while you shower even though he can't roll, because the demon 2 yr old will 100% think stepping on the baby is super funny. or poking him in the eyes. or dumping out a cup of apple juice on his head.
and when that baby learns to crawl those times that you used to be able to shower, or do laundry, or tidy up, or ever wash a stinking floor are gone. a stay at home mom of 2+ children means you work your butt off for very little progress. you may clean the bathroom, but when you come out, there is watermelon all over the floor, and lego peices thrown around the room for fun, and the air intake vent on the wall has been taken off and random crap is being stuffed down it. oh, and by the way, when you go to clean up that mess in the living room, another kid has gone into your clean bathroom and is making a huge water mess brushing his teeth with the toilet water and laughing "its so funny, its so funny!"
your only release is when your poor husband who works a 4am shift and got up with the baby in the middle of the night to give you a break, takes the kids outside on Saturday for hours while you do the bare minimum cleanup around the house. 7 loads of laundry from the past week and a half, quick scrub of the toilets, mow the lawn so your neighbours don't report you to the bylaw officer, a load of dishes, and wash all the floors. every saturday you think about what the other perfect moms you know are doing with their kids. probably going out for a picnic at the park leaving behind their perfect houses and building memories instead of building the supply of towles in a now empty closet.
oh, but it gets better.
after the second kid hits a year, you get to go back to work again! which means you are getting home barely in time to cook a quick dinner, followed by bathtime and bedtime then cleaning up the kitchen which takes you well into 8:00pm. then you have ONE hour until your husband needs to start getting ready for bed. ONE hour to either.... go grocery shopping, put in a load of laundry, clean the living room, or the bathrooms, or work on the renovations that are essentially going nowhere. OR, you can take the hour and watch an episode of TV and pretend that responsibility doesn't exist. ( i choose that option ALL the time. ignore it and it'll go away, right?) Unfortunately nope. Saturday comes and the entire day is spent on laundry and mowing and bathrooms all over again and nobody enjoys the weekend.
being a mom is hard. and it won't be any easier when we are on to our 3rd kid and i become a stay at home mom again. its always hard. its always a never ending list of a million things to do. and its always ignoring those lists to play with your kids, or watch netflix.
i just bloody wish i'd get paid for all this work, because right now i'm doing two full time jobs and only getting paid for the one that takes me away from my kids.
END RANT.
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