People often ask me if I work. Well, how do you define work? If you are asking if I hold down a 9-5 in an office or setting outside my home, then the answer would be no. If, however, you are asking if I work in some capacity at least 18 hours each day, my answer is yes, I work. When people find out I am a Stay At Home Mom (SAHM), the next comment is usually something slightly envious yet snarky like: Wow! You must have a lot of free time! In response to that comment, I must issue a resounding no! Freetime is not in my agenda, unless I create it (more on that later).
My days are filled with managing a household of 2 adults and 2 children. My husband is off to work by 6am each morning, while the kids and I start our day sometimes closer to 10:30. We are trying to implement a better bedtime schedule and routine to help with that! Although we don't officially get out of bed and get moving until midmorning, my day began much earlier - 5:15am to be precise.
You see, most mornings it is my responsibility to make sure my husband actually gets out of bed when the alarm goes off. Not only does he have a clock-radio alarm set for 5:15, but I also have two watch alarms and the coffee maker set for that time as well. We have a combined 4 alarms within an approximate 5 minute span, and I still have to nudge him out of bed. Once I am reasonably sure he is awake enough not to sit (or lay) down and fall asleep again, I doze. He wakes us all up with kisses and "I love you" before leaving around 6am. Again, I doze until he calls to let me know he safely made it to work - it has been fewer than 45 minutes. Some of you may question why I would want a perfectly capable adult to disturb my sleep and let me know they safely made port. You wouldn't if you could see the road he drives or knew of the many lives it has claimed. At this point, I typically have an hour of good sleep left.
On a typical morning near 8am, my son begins his ritual of tossing, turning, kicking, and screaming. Both my kids (3 1/2, 1 1/2) are co-sleepers, mind you, in a queen-sized bed, with 2 adults. It isn't easy! My daughter typically sleeps soundly, like her daddy. My son, on the other hand, inherited my light sleeping. He is also a screamer. We have dealt with night terrors as a result of a schedule disruption, so when I say scream, imagine something from a horror movie. Go ahead, it's ok, sometimes I feel like I'm in one when he starts screaming. It usually takes him an hour of wallowing to be fully awake and to wake me enough to actually feel like moving. Remember, I've only been sleeping good for an hour. By this time, he has begun to disturb his sister too.
It isn't for lack of trying that our kids still sleep with us. Our daughter was what the pediatrician called a happy barfer. This basically meant that she threw up constantly as an infant despite being quite healthy. For this reason, we allowed her to co-sleep from the first night home. I must also mention she was Houdini and could escape the best swaddling blanket or wrap. She also had the startling reflex from you know where! It woke her up every time, and there was no way to soothe her without cuddling her close. By the time she was 2 weeks old, I was so exhausted from first-time motherhood, breastfeeding, and her sleeping issues that I gave up trying to get her to sleep independently. The dog was promptly kicked out of the bedroom (and later out of the house), and our daughter has been a permanent fixture in his stead. She sleeps like a log, so most of the time it is not an issue, except now she has her own bedroom fit for a princess. Now that we have two kids in the bed - though my son always starts the night in his own - sound sleep is a rare thing.
Once my son has woken both my daughter and me, we drag ourselves out of bed for the typical morning rituals - bathroom, coffee (for me), and breakfast. After breakfast, our routine differs slightly from your average morning. My daughter has a learning center in our dining room. This center has a pocket calendar, American flag, weather frog, ABC cards, and laminated map of the USA. We sing the months of the year, days of the week, count up to the day of the month, say the whole date, sing a song about the flag, say the Pledge of Allegiance, then we dress the frog. The first time we did this, my daughter was shocked. I told her we were going outside (we were still in PJs and barefoot). She told me we couldn't go outside without shoes. I proved otherwise! So, each morning we stand on our porch barefoot and assess the weather - is the sun shining or are there clouds? is it hot/cold/cool/warm? is the wind blowing? is it raining/snowing? We then run back inside (it is January after all) and dress the frog accordingly and put weather terms on a placard. After that we sing the ABCs very slowly focusing on correct enunciation of the letter names. The final part of our after-breakfast routine is pointing out our state on the map.
Now that we have this process complete, we head to the kitchen and wash the few breakfast dishes. Since this only takes 5 minutes, I don't feel too bad about keeping my son in his high chair. My daughter is usually 2 rooms away in the living room reading to herself from her favorite books. Once I am done with the dishes I take my son to the living room and we all read, dance, sing, and play until nap time. Nap time is one of those things my kids seem to think is optional, and most days they choose to forgo the whole thing. I do not like those days! After nap time it isn't long til "dahyee" is calling to say he is heading home and to see if we need anything while he is out. It is now 3:30pm.
I do have a part-time job. I work for an online tutoring company helping students from kindergarten to college with both English and Math. While this job allows me the opportunity to earn a meager income to help with the extras while being a SAHM as well as keep my teaching skills sharp (yes, I have 2 college degrees to that effect), it is not as easy as it seems. If I had not completed most of my graduate work online, because that is the only way a LIB SCI degree is offered, I would not have attempted such an undertaking. It is very difficult to have a computer between you and not be able to use body language to help convey an idea. Many times the students leave bad comments, and that can make my whole day seem horrible. I would like to be able to work more, but that seems an impossible undertaking until my kids are a year or two older and will sleep more soundly (and hopefully in their own rooms). I currently only manage 2-3 hours four nights a week.
Once my hours for the night are complete, it is time for dinner. If I haven't had the chance to put something in the crock pot to cook away all day, we put forth a family effort to get dinner on the table in a reasonable amount of time. My son has suddenly decided he is going to be a pickier eater, whereas a few months ago he would eat quite literally any food item you put in front of him...including meat baby food! My daughter has always been a pickier eater because of a strong gag reflex and aversion to certain textures. After dinner we head home - I forgot to mention we eat with my parents and brother most every night because we all cook together. We are trying to do much better in this arena and get home at a decent hour. This week is a trial run. Previously we dragged home around 10pm and still had to get the kids settled down and in bed. This meant the kids weren't going to sleep until close to midnight some nights, nevermind what time I finally got to come to bed.
If you haven't noticed, housework is conspicuously absent from my description of the daily goings-on at my house. That is because most days I prefer to wait until everyone else is otherwise occupied (typically sleeping) before I attempt to get anything more than dishes or a load of laundry done. It is after the kids and husband are asleep that I finally have some time by myself, to clean, or to take a shower. This is the time when I prepare coffee for the next day, read my Bible (using E-Word Today's Chronological reading plan for KJV), read a novel for my book/movie club Read 'em and WEEP (We Enjoy Every Page), or crochet (see my other blog
http://www.anadventurouslifeathome.blogspot.com/). This means that if I get carried away, I might not make it to bed until 3am...and it all starts over at 5:15.
We are trying to get everything on a schedule that ends much earlier, and so far it is working! We have been making a point to be home from wherever we are by 8pm, which means the kids are usually asleep by 9:30. Of course, I tell a story, read a story, and then sing several songs, but this allows the husband and I to have a little time to sit and talk to each other before he goes to bed, and I can get in bed much earlier than 3am. When I say I tell a story, I tell my daughter a story about her: "Once upon a time there was a little girl named (full name) who lived with her mommy (name), her daddy (name), and her little brother (name) in a gray house at (full address including zip code). Her telephone number was (10 digit number), and she was born on (month, day, year). One of (girl's) favorite stories of all time was..." and then I tell her an abbreviated version of one of her favorite stories. This helped her to learn her address and phone number in about a week! Most nights we also read a story from a fairy tale treasury. Then I have to sing her "summer songs" or "Rudolph songs." Her summer songs are: Hush Little Baby, Rock A Bye Baby, Brahm's Lullaby, and the Riddle. Her Rudolph songs are Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Holly Jolly Christmas, First Noel, It Came Upon a Midnight Clear, Silent Night, The Christmas Song, and I'll Be Home for Christmas. Sometimes we add in Jesus Loves Me, Oh How I Love Jesus, and Jesus Loves the Little Children. On particulary rough nights I also look up the lyrics to and sing Scarborough Fair (thank you Wikipedia and smart phones, you are lifesavers).
So that, in a rather large nutshell, is what I do all in a day's work.
