“What do you do all day? Like, what’s your day like,” a friend of mine recently inquired.
Oh, staying home. It’s a mystery, isn’t it? Because when I worked full-time before I had kids, I can recall wondering why on earth it was so difficult for mothers who stayed home to make it to a committee meeting every once in awhile. I mean, can’t they just get a sitter. And why stay at home moms would say things like, I never get a break. Ummm… isn’t your whole life a break when you don’t have to work. And I even thought they just met for coffee at Starbucks and went to the gym all day and wore really expensive coordinated workout clothes even when they weren’t working out. When you stay home it’s because your spouse rakes in the cash money like it’s fallin’ from the money tree.
With children who nap for hours on end. Affording you the opportunity for volunteering, and appointments, and reality tv watching.
You spend your days making baked goods from scratch and preparing seven course dinners for your family because you have all the time in the world. And you are a homemaker, after all.
And your house, of course, is so clean you could eat off the floor. Again, with the superb home making skills and the excessive time on your hands.
All in all, staying home is basically the same as being a lady of leisure.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! WHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! BLOHAHAHAHAHAHA! HEEHEEHEEHEEHEE!
Sorry… let me catch my breath…
Okay. Now. I’m not saying parts of staying home aren’t absolutely fabulous. And I’m not saying that there aren’t major bonuses to the never-having-to-go-to-an-office gig. Because there are many parts to this life that I rejoice in. But just like every other single thing in existence, except maybe Taye Diggs’ teeth or Trudy’s Suiza sauce, staying home has its imperfections. Its negatives. Its downfalls.
So for me, every once in awhile… Okay… Sixty-Four Three times a week at least, I have to do a little sanity check. I gotta go through my savers again. My personal sanity savers for my life as a stay-at-home-momma. My “momtras”, if you will…
1. Figure out what matters to you.
This is the biggie. The one I always start with. The one I forever end with. Because I am the mother staying home with my kids. Not the mom next door. Or the mom at drop-off. It’s me. I am the one who who feels okay about Eggos for breakfast. I am the one who can’t handle dishes in the sink but is okay with their Lego creations being left out in the open. I am the one who’s a nut about fruit with every meal but has very little success with veggies. I am the one who wants them to finish their milk. And above all, to mind their stinking manners. And I get to manage that. All of it. Adam and I get to decide what’s important to us for our kids. So at times, when I feel overwhelmed staying home, it almost always has to do with the comparison game. The whole feeling inadequate thing. She can make her own birthday cake. Her house doesn’t look like a daycare is happening there. She has her kids in all sorts of activities. The comparisons could go on and on and on and on… So I have to check myself. And say, I don’t do those things because they are not huge priorities to me for right now. Or because I feel happy just to be showering on the regular again. And that’s okay. And some other day, they might become priorities. Or possibilities. And that’s okay, too.
2. Make your own goals.
So, I like to blog. Didja know? Yeah. It’s something new I’m trying out… ha! Sometimes people wonder how I’ve stuck with the whole blogging for mere personal satisfaction for so many years. And the reality is, it matters to me. When I’ve worked, my boss or my company gave me goals, tasks, and objectives. For me… for my personality… in order to feel like a functional human rather than a mom machine, I’ve got to make my own goals. My own things that matter. Because there is no one putting the hammer down on the homefront. So whether it’s cleaning out the closets, posting a blog post every day, or revamping a room, I make my own project list. I make my own timelines. And my own goals. And they are honestly things that most other people who are gainfully employed and earning a paycheck, likely find nonsensical. But no one is here to give me an atta girl or a bonus so I get to figure my goals. And ways to incent myself. And in reaching those goals, I feel productive as a woman, rather than only as a mom.
I was talking with a friend recently about how I “chunk” my day. Not to be confused with chuck. I don’t throw it away. But I chunk it. Right, wrong, or otherwise, I break my days up into manageable chunks. Meals, dropoffs, naps, and play/wakefulness. This practice helps me refocus if there is a huge tantrum, or a moment that makes me wanna pull my hair out. I think of my day in logistics and naps. This helps me be productive. And it helps me make it through the challenging moments.
4. Ask for help.
I don’t have the opportunity for a lot of help. And that’s not a complaint. It’s a reality. No one else chose for me to stay home with our children. I chose that. But the idea of getting a sitter in the middle of the day or for an hour after school, well, that’s basically impossible. But sometimes, you have to, have to, have to, ask for help. There is a fellow mom who is currently
I’m not always good about this one but when I regroup, and refresh, I am reminded that there are some women who have told me on many occasions that they believe that staying home is a huge luxury. And that they would absolutely love to stay home but it just doesn’t feel feasible for their situation. I get this. It’s been a struggle for us, at times, to be on one income. And it’s been a challenge for my sanity {thus having steps to regain said sanity} and my personality, at times, to be home full-time. But overall, I find times where I remind myself that I am fortunate to have this opportunity to spend time differently with my children than I might be able to if I were doing a 9-5 gig. And I also need to remind myself that if I should ever want to explore working outside the home again, it doesn’t mean I’m choosing work over my kids. It means I’m choosing something for me. Just like I do when I stay home with them every day.
6. Enjoy the kids.
Sometimes I get so caught up in the hard moments that I don’t realllly enjoy the craziness or appreciate the fantasticness of these little boys. Sometimes I’m busy harping on them about jacking around at the breakfast table, or leaving their shoes God knows where, or dilly dallying when we are supposed to be loading into the car for school. Just like any j-o-b, you can get swept up in the monotony. And in going through the motions. And in the bigger picture. That we forget to enjoy the little moments. All of those little moments that happen, all day long. Some weeks, I’m really vigilant about capturing all of this in my memory. And others, meh. But as I say often, I think when I look back on it all, on these days that are our days, it’s those little moments that I’ll be most thankful for. And that I’ll love having saved my sanity for.
So those are some of my sanity savers. My Momtras. And when I worked part-time, I had a few others, and some overlap as well. Because stay-home, working, or otherwise, it seems that all women, at one time or another, lose their heads over certain things. And actually losing my head would make it very difficult to function as a mom. Or a human, for that matter.
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