Wednesday, July 21, 2010


I recently had a friend forward me an email of an advice column by Carolyn Hax from the Washington Post. It was from a woman with no children who asked why women with children are always so busy, never have time for themselves and specifically wanted to know what stay-at-home-moms do all day? She even went so far as to accuse stay-at-homes moms of lying. Carolyn Hax basically ripped this ding-bat a new one, which gave me great satisfaction. And then I lived the article ( I will attach a copy for full effect).

It started off like most days, except I got up somewhat earlier than usual, 4:30 am instead of 5:30 or 6 am. My husband was getting ready to leave on a business trip. I couldn't get back to sleep after the alarm went off which is on my side of the bed despite the fact he gets up before me 5 of the 7 days of the week. He requested that I go out and buy more white t-shirts for him because his are all yellow and disgusting. (That is a story for another time)

Anyway, I got up and ate breakfast and then did my Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred workout video. 5 minutes before I was done, Madelyn woke up and agreed to watch a show in my room while I finished. Then I made breakfast, took the kids for a 40 minute run, came home and put Colin down for his nap. While he was sleeping I did some cleaning up around the house, threw a load of laundry in, unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher, printed out picture so Disney World and a calendar to make a "Countdown to Disney" for Madelyn. I showered and then it was time for lunch. Lunch was just wrapping up and I was relieved that we could get out of the house at a reasonable time in order to get back home for afternoon naps.

That was until I had to get the kids ready to actually leave. Colin wouldn't let me change his diaper and kept running away. Madelyn was lying all over the place and refused to come over to me so I could put on her shoes and throw her hair in a ponytail. I finally got all of the above accomplished only to have Colin make his way upstairs, not one, not two, but three times before I finally was smart enough to put up the gate. Then came drama #576 of the day. Where's my shiny necklace? Madelyn wanted her silver necklace that she has been carrying around for the last week. It happens to be an old necklace of my grandma or great aunt or someone. The bottom line is, she wanted and had to have it. I ran up and down the stairs another 4 or 5 times and then finally gave up and got the kids in the car. Then I remembered she had slipped it into my purse the day before while we were shopping. Ah. Happiness. Oh wait, gotta lock up the dog so she doesn't pee on the carpet while we are gone. Back up and down the stairs...again. Why do I bother running 5-7 miles a day?

At this point, it was already 12:30 and we were off to Marshalls to find the elusive white t-shirts for Tom. Must be Tommy Hilfiger crew neck XXL. Normally they would cost $30 for a pack of 3. I was looking for a better deal. Found 3 packs at Marshalls for $12 each only to find that two were actually v-neck. Meanwhile, Madelyn is droning in my ear, "Can I get a toy?" and Colin is pulling clothes off of every rack he sees and throws his Elmo phone out of the cart about a dozen times. Madelyn then starts hanging on the cart and Colin starts screaming. Madelyn wants Cinderella socks, never mind, she wants a toy. OK, fine. Check out the clearance rack for some toys. Everything she picks out is crap or we already have or happens to be more than I care to spend on crap. I try explaining that it isn't worth buying something here and we can look at the next store. Temper tantrum ensues.

Somehow I convince her to leave the store without a toy and manage to look at the clearance shoes for myself without buying anything.

On to TJ Maxx, the ghetto version of Marshalls as far as I am concerned. Madelyn picks out pink, silver or beaded flip flops for me while Colin grabs all the shoes off the rack. Forget it. Let's check out the t-shirts get out of here. No luck.

At this point, it is 1:55 pm. I had originally thought I could leave the house by noon and be back by 1:00. No such luck. Time to get home and put them down for naps. We get home, Madelyn has to go potty before naptime and Colin needs his milk, diaper changed etc. Everyone is finally down by about 2:20 pm.

Now it is time for me to do some more picking up and then go to type my mom's resume. Her computer is broken and she is unable to send out resumes. In addition, she has been spending each of her days at the nursing home where my 90 year-old grandma is recovering from pneumonia and congestive heart failure.

Once I battle with the auto format on the resume I can barely keep my eyes open and decide to take a quick nap. When I wake up I see that Tom called me 6 times in 6 minutes. I call him back to have him yell at me for not answering my phone. He had an important question to ask...what size t-shirt does Madelyn wear? He was at the Louisville Slugger plant and was trying to pick out souvenirs. He also informed me he almost bought them each $50 bats that they could never play with. Good thing he used his better judgment on that one!

The rest of the day is blur, but at 8:45 when the kids went down, I poured myself a glass of wine and folded laundry and watched a show about a couple getting a divorce and had to live together because they couldn't sell their $1.2 Million home and realized it could be worse...much worse.

2 comments:

  1. AMEN Michelle!! After years of working hard for a paycheck, this past year has given me the opportunity to be a stay-at-home mom to my dog! Frankly, there’s NO stay-at-home part! My day too starts out early (5 am when my husband gets up for work). Granted, the first 2 hours of my day are dedicated to myself and my new health kick BUT from there, it’s non-stop! Come home from my morning work out to take Gizmo for an hour hike so she doesn’t feel neglected the rest of the day. After that it’s yardwork, housework, keeping finances in order, offering rides and compainionship to family members that need to get to doctor apppointments, caretaker of my parents home until it is sold. It’s like being on 24 hour call AND for NO PAYCHECK … I can’t wait to get a so called “real” job, so I can relax :)

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  2. Very funny Michelle. The t-shirt conversation, I had it with the wife just two weeks ago. keep it up, it a wonderful thing to have for later on in life to reflect upon and at the least, just a way to vent sometimes.

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