Real Talk

Real talk. Being a stay at home mom is bizarre. Nothing will make you feel like a crazy person quite like locking yourself in your house with only a non-verbal baby and a misbehaved labrador to communicate with. I talk to myself, I talk to the dog, I talk to the refrigerator (why no food?!!). I talk to my baby too, but she doesn't much care for what I have to say, apparently. (Dada. Dada. Baba, Etc...).

On good days we go to Target, or to the park to meet other Mamas who tell me their babies are 47.5 months old and isn't it great to still be breastfeeding?? (ps I don't. Judge me.), or to the McDonalds drive-thru (fancy!) for my crack iced hazelnut coffee because the Starbucks near us doesn't have a drive-thru and just NO. Sometimes we just go nowhere for a really long drive so I can blast T. Swiz while my baby is happily contained, or maybe even to the husband's office to meet him for lunch (on very good days). Or there are very, very good days like today, where Mama has a lunch date with a new friend. Good food, conversation with a literate human, maybe an adult beverage. Maybe. (keep judging) and a high chair, and fifty million puffs, and re-sticking the squigz to the table every five seconds, and did I mention adult interaction? And patios? And weather that feels almost Fall-ish. It's going to be so good, y'all.

There are bad days too, of course. Days when we don't get out and I wear gym clothes for no good reason, days when I turn on Netflix and find something remotely babyish and hop in the shower for 7 minutes of peace and then want to cry from guilt when I get out. Days when I hate our house because we don't have a playroom for baby girl to crawl around freely. So I spend my time removing her from the curtains, Daddy's expensive guitars that are on display in every room of the house practically (I don't need a divorce), the dog food, the bathroom, the beautiful white couch (what was I thinking? I wasn't. No baby, no thinky), the electrical cords... You get the point. Our house isn't a danger zone and, believe it or not, it is (semi) baby proofed, but if she's not supposed to do it she's going to do it. My strong minded girl.

Sometimes we do make it to the gym but I don't know if I should categorize that under a good or bad day BECAUSE Baby Girl always gets sick a day or so after leaving the germy gym daycare, and I have to pay for an entire adult gym membership for her just to have the pleasure of leaving her in that germ fest. AND they don't even offer the child care that I pay for between the hours of noon-4pm which is exactly when I would like to go, thank you very much. What's the point of having child care after 4pm when my husband can do that... and by 4pm I'm just totally over the idea of exercising all together. I kind of sort of wasn't so nice to the 15 year old working at the membership desk when he told me all of this (full price, shitty hours of operation, etc, etc, etc...). Whatever. I still go. Sometimes.

I don't recall the point of this vent-fest but suffice it to say that the stay at home gig is not all snuggles, and netflix marathons while the baby naps like it used to be... when she was a newborn and slept 23 hours a day. But you know this, right? Maybe you're going through it, too? It's isolating at times, and fills my heart to the brim with love at other times. Like when she finally learned to clap and give "kisses". And when we stay in our PJs a little too long and read books and do cozy things in the middle of the day that we couldn't do if I were still working and she were at daycare. Those moments make this so worth it. I know in my heart of hearts that this is what is best for us and it IS getting easier. Little by little she's getting easier to take places. She'll be 1 in three months and probably walking sometime this winter and then JUST THINK of all the places we can go. We'll be unstoppable.

Nap time is dwindling and I need a shower so I don't show up to lunch with crazy hair and wearing my robe. I also have half a pot of coffee to pound before we leave the house. Some of us think 4:15am is an appropriate wake up time. Some of us do not.

SLH.