Mom Life

(Sometimes you have those days where everything comes together and the house is clean, productivity happens and the family is happy. Some days you feel like nothing was done. Most days is a mix somewhere in between.)

• Lil’Mister wakes up at 5am crying. It had been a hassle to get him to bed the night before. We are one day into Daylight Savings time and it is kicking our trash. I suggested to the husband that we wait five minutes to see if he will go back to sleep. He doesn’t. Husband gets up to change LM’s diaper while I get a bottle. I tell the husband to go back to sleep while I sit in rocker trying to sooth the boy. He eventually quiets down so I put him back in the crib. He sleeps in later than usual. I tell myself I should get up and exercise and get ready, but I’m just too tired and sleep in too.
• Get up with the boy to realize his clothing options are limited to shorts and T-shirts on a rainy, cold day. Do a load of laundry and let him run around in his pajamas.
• Put on an episode of “Daniel the Tiger” so I can make the bed and clean up my bedroom. The boy’s new favorite activity is jumping into a pile of pillows. So instead of making the bed, I toss pillows at him, which he finds hilarious. The chore that usually takes 5 minutes, turns into 20 minutes.
• Have the song from “Daniel the Tiger” about what to do when one is angry embedded into my brain for the rest of the day. I think to myself how Donald Trump could benefit from watching “Daniel the Tiger” because it seems he missed a few key lessons in his younger years. I try to stay politically aware, though I’m at home all day.
• Tackle the pile of clothes leftover from the day before when I couldn’t decide what to wear. After I hang up the pile of shirts and skirts, I turn around to see that Lil’Mister has emptied half of my dresser. His second favorite activity is to pull out all of my clothes, waving them around like victory flags and then distributing them all over the floor.
• Take another 10 minutes to clean up clothes all over the floor and usher the child downstairs for breakfast.
• Look at clock and realize it is past 10am. (Darn Daylight Savings!) Pour some cheerios in a bowl and try to teach LM a new word: “Brunch.” I applaud each time he achieves getting the spoon from the bowl to his mouth; a new feat of his.
• Start planning what to make for dinner. I’m sure we have chicken. I first look in the freezer to defrost it. Nowhere to be found. I then look in the fridge. Not there either. I try to think back when I last saw the chicken. Then I remember, I made orange chicken a few nights ago and thought I would save time by cooking the other chicken breast at the same time. Go over to the George Foreman Grill and open to find the missing chicken…fully cooked…from 4 nights ago. Apparently, I also forgot to clean the grill after dinner that night.
• Text the husband and ask him to pick up some chicken for dinner on his way home.
• Go upstairs to play with the boy in his room. After reading books together, he slips down from my lap to busy himself with building towers with his blocks. I check my phone to see what is going on in the outside world. The boy’s sixth sense goes off and he runs over to see what I’m doing with my phone. We end up watching videos of himself being adorable instead. (This favorite activity ties for 1st with jumping into pillows.)
• Throw in another load of laundry, because I realize I’m lacking things to wear.
• Lil’Mister is getting cranky, so we go downstairs for lunch. Tell myself I will eat something healthy, but end up eating a half of grilled cheese sandwich that LM didn’t want.
• Put the boy down for the nap. He cries a little, but falls asleep pretty quickly. (Should I praise Daylight Savings now?)
• Sit down to write in my journal, because moments of reflection are good for my sanity. Take 5 minutes to find a pen. Sit down again. Pick up journal and find that the boy had no problem finding a pen and created his own work of art on the cover of my journal. Sigh. Jot down a few thoughts.
• Change from one old t-shirt I wore to bed the night before to another grubby t-shirt to do some exercise. Instead send a few emails and remember I need to pay a couple of bills. Take care of these items of business. Starving again. This time I find leftover mac and cheese and eat some while I’m working on my computer. (At least it is the organic mac and cheese I bought on sale a couple of days ago.) Feel guilt about eating mac and cheese and find some leftover steamed vegetables to consume as well.
• Start playing “Just Dance” on the Wii as my exercise regime. It’s cheaper than the gym, entertaining and I tell myself it keeps me up-to-date with popular music, since I don’t listen to the radio that much. Skip to the familiar tunes from my high school and college days and dance away, laughing at myself. Halfway through the second song, I hear LM waking up. I turn off the TV and run upstairs to take the quickest shower.
• Good thing it is a cold day, because that means no shave day. (I praise the rain.) Finish shower with the cries of the boy in the background.
• Hurry out and pull on some clothes. I realize my favorite pair of jeans are dirty. Think about doing another load of laundry, but decide to leave some fun for tomorrow. Pull on some old jeans that feel tight as I zip them up. Make a mental note that I need to work out more. Go and get the saddest baby in the world from his crib.
• Give LM a bottle and cuddle with him on the couch. I bury my face into his soft tuft of hair that sticks straight up and listen to his little jabbering as he points at different objects in the room. I think to myself, “I wouldn’t mind having another baby.” I then think to myself how long you should allow your child to drink from a bottle until it is psychologically damaging.
• Once the bottle is emptied, LM tosses it aside and climbs down from my lap. He grabs his shoes and heads straight to the front door and pounds on it to go outside. I tell him it is too cold and he is still in his pajamas. A full blown tantrum ensues. (I curse the rain.) The crying continues as I take him upstairs, change his diaper and put him into normal clothes.
• Distract LM from his sorrows by asking if he wants to brush his teeth, another favorite activity of his. We head to the bathroom and brush his teeth until he is happy again.
• Take a few minutes to pull my hair up into a ponytail and put on some mascara. Lil’Mister empties my make-up bag on the floor as I do so.
• Fold and put away clean laundry. LM helps by throwing all of his clean laundry into his hamper. That’s right, my boy, out of sight out of mind. Just kidding. Fish the clean laundry out, refold and put away.
• FaceTime with my younger sister who is due any day now with Baby #2. We discuss medicated labor vs going natural and the pros and cons. LM isn’t happy that I’m not giving him attention. I give him some goldfish crackers to appease him. End conversation with my sister and clean up half-eaten goldfish crackers that have been spit out onto the couch.
• The weather is clearing up, so we decide to go outside for a walk. As I’m putting on LM’s shoes, he bends down and kisses my hand. An expression of gratitude or perhaps he saw a goldfish crumb. I like to think it is out of love. I smile and think, “I would give you the world, my boy.” The wet weather reminds me of the 1.5 years I lived in England. I wonder if they will let move back considering how things are going politically in the US. It’s colder than I expected, but Lil’Mister doesn’t care. We walk up and down the street until I spot a few snowflakes. Spring has not sprung. I pick up my kicking toddler and we head back to the house, much to his dismay. It is the end of the world-giving moment.
• Get a phone call from the husband saying he left work late and there was traffic, but he was on his way to get the requested chicken. Think I should have gone to the store instead, but too late now.
• LM is hungry. I put him in his highchair and give him a small bowl of Cheerios while I get started on dinner.
• The husband makes it home, cranky. The boy is still hungry and cranky. We are a cranky family.
• The husband starts working on the dishes from the night before while I continue to work on dinner. LM cries until we let him down and he pulls out all the plates and silverware from the dishwasher and scatters them all over the floor. (Favorite activity #5!) I think to myself how do people have more than one child?
• We sit down for dinner and the crankiness evaporates as we attend to our hunger. That is until LM decides he must have the salad bowl to practice his spoon scoping skills. I give him a smaller bowl of his own, but that will not do. It MUST be the salad bowl! I empty the contents of the salad bowl onto our plates and give him the bowl and spoon, so I can eat. Within 5 minutes, the salad bowl is on his head along with the sticky remnants of bananas and mangoes. I shrug and continue eating. I then take LM up for a bath while the husband finishes cleaning up the kitchen.
• Bath, Pajamas, Brush Teeth, Stories, Prayers, Songs, Cuddles and then time for bed for the boy. He knows it is coming and clings to me in protest. After a dozen kisses, I Love You’s and hugs, I finally shut the door and feel mom guilt as I walk away from the whimpers I hear on the other side of the door.
• I scan through social media and freelance writing emails in hopes to keep myself relevant (whatever that means.) There isn’t much of interest.
• Another night of Netflix and some leftover pie with the husband. Make mental goals to be more productive tomorrow, because I didn’t get to half of the goals on my list today. I yawn. Why am I always so tired?