What do I DO all day?

Today I was watching The Wendy Williams Show, which is my new favorite talk show in the summer since Ellen is on hiatus. I like Wendy because she is a straight shooter and I kinda wanna be her best friend.

Today, however, I was mildly insulted by her description of a day in the life of a stay at home mom. She said most of her friends were SAHMs and they all live the life of Riley. Pretty much all they do is sit around with their other SAHM friends and drink their coffee (or wine) at 10am, watch her show, maybe go to the pool, and do a little shopping at Bloomingdales.

I wanted to be pissed. I wanted to claim that my life is so much harder. I wanted to tell her that I barely have a brain left in my head because I don’t use it anymore. I wanted to scream that I WISH I HAD MONEY TO GO TO BLOOMINGDALES!!!

But truth be told; despite my brainlessness, my sinking confidence as a result of my daily yoga pants wearing, and the pathetic $37 in my checking account, I can’t deny that sometimes being a stay at home mom is exactly as Wendy explained. I do think she’s talking about the SAHMs that probably have school aged children that can actually sit around a pool at noon and be unbothered by a crawling infant, or a toddler that’s wetting their panties because mama is too busy drinking her afternoon Chardonnay to run her to the potty.

But let me be clear; I don’t think I live the life of Riley. I suffer from a massive case of Groundhog’s Day. Every day is pretty much the same, with some variation if I make a game day decision to take the kids to a fun activity like the zoo, or the children’s museum. Many days I’m bored… Many days I yearn for more.

Every morning starts out the same. Baby cries, I come running to feed him. Everyone eats breakfast, cartoons play in the background, and I start to straighten up the kitchen, put away toys, make the beds, and get everyone dressed.

Fast forward 30 minutes, and the toys get messed up again, beds get jumped on by a toddler and a dog, and sometimes my potty trainer has an accident in her pants or my baby has a blow out and we have to change outfits a second time before 11am.

The entire trajectory of our day is based on my little man’s morning nap. In fact, most of my day has to work around 3-4 naps between the two kids. How freaking annoying is that? That being said; I live for their nap time.

If I do make it to the gym I get about an hour and a half to myself to zone out before it’s back to mommy duty. The gym has become my sanctuary. On the days I don’t make it to the gym I find myself barely clinging to my sanity as I become super yelly with the kids. Today I was floating over my own body watching myself yell and plead for Annabelle to go pee pee on the potty and I wanted to smack myself. SHUT THE F*%$ UP, I silently yelled at the lady that looked like me with flared nostrils and steam coming out of her ears. Stop yelling, geez. It’s so exhausting anyway. So ya, I NEED that alone time.

With a crawling baby on my hands, I have virtually no free time where I can just sit and watch TV or surf the Internet. I have to be on his butt constantly. The little dude is the fastest crawler in the history of baby crawlers. One minute he’s sitting in his play area so I decide to go to the bathroom. I come out and he’s clear across the room with a sticker and a penny in his mouth. I’m not kidding, yesterday I was sitting in our screened in patio and Leo was crawling around while I took a minute to read a piece of mail. Jeff walked in and found Leo playing with an old dog bowl covered in cobwebs and he says; “Holy shit, Leo has a spider in his mouth!” A freaking SPIDER!

I literally cannot take my eyes off the kid for a hot second. It’s hard to not be able to take your eyes off a kid at this stage. I still have a toddler to deal with. I have to drag her butt kicking and screaming to the potty 10 times a day. I’ve been potty training her since April. A-P-R-I-L.

I have to make difficult decisions every day, particularly when heaven makes a short visit to earth and my kids are both sleeping at the same time. In this small window of time, do I a) shower; b) fold/put away laundry; c) water and dead head outdoor flowers; d) blog; e) window shop on the Internet for clothes and such that I can’t afford. Usually I opt to shower and water plants, hence why my blog is on life support.

The moral of the story is that being a stay at home mom is the best worst job on the planet. It has its perks for sure, but I fantasize about wearing sparkly jewelry and cardigans and flat ironing my hair on a regular basis like I would if I worked. I picture my mouth opening and people actually looking up and L-I-S-T-E-N-I-N-G. At 5:30 today I told Jeff about how I took the kids the park for an hour and a half. At 6:30 when I referenced the park Jeff says; “You went to the park today!?”

But most of all; I just wanna get paid to raise my kids. I want to literally earn a paycheck for wiping butts all day, breastfeeding 5x a day, POTTY TRAINING, dog walking, laundry folding, plant watering, and fun making. That’s all I want in the world – money to actually go to Bloomingdales. If only……………….