Check your jealousy at the door

"Opting to stay home when Charlotte was born was the best decision I ever made."

That's what I tell everyone who asks me about staying home with my kids.

It's a partial truth. I can't call it a lie because then I would be openly admitting I don't think it was the right choice, and that's not the truth. Simply put, some days are a lot harder than others. Before the working parents get all in an uproar, you have to understand stay-at-home parents are jealous of you because you get some much needed time apart from your babies.



Likewise, many of you are jealous of us because we get to soak up all those moments missed out on by working moms and dads.

Let's agree to disagree that we won the parenting/working lottery.

Today has had an amazing amount of suckage. As a stay-at-homer, the kids and I generally get up, drink a pot of coffee, eat something, play a while, do laundry, eat more, nap and so on and so forth. Well, they do the eating and napping. I focus on the caffeine, laundry and pulling my hair out, particularly today.

Seriously, I'm shocked I am not bald yet.

Here's how today has gone so far:

• Got up and chugged some water because I read drinking two glasses first thing in the morning is good for me
• Started wishing I had an IV for the coffee
• Fed Charlie
• "Good morning, Josie!" as she crawls down the stairs 30 minutes later
• Talk about going to the gym
• Fight about why the Bean doesn't want to go
• Agree I'll do yoga at home
• Try doing an old lady yoga video from the streaming internet thing hooked to the TV
• Become human jungle gym
• TV gets turned off and the ransom asked for is repeated episodes of Dora the Explorer
• Josie agrees to finally eat something for breakfast
• Succumb to the demands for more Dora once eggs have been eaten and retreat to the bathroom for a shower
• Found my happy place located in the hottest temperature setting and some bubbly face wash
• Open doors on shower to find a 2-year-old covering her face in baby lotion and a 15-month-old attempting to pry the cap off some baby shampoo
• Panic about lotion getting in their eyes
• Drag the monsters upstairs so we all can get dressed
• Sort through laundry that hasn't been put away
• Run half naked down the hall because there was a thud that sounded an awful lot like a body hitting the floor
• Run back down the hall to finish putting clothes on
• Down the hall again, diaper in hand, to get the girls dressed
• Fight with Charlotte about aforementioned clean diaper
• Win the diaper fight, though the baby is left miserable and in tears because she wanted to be naked
• Josie falls down while playing with crap she wasn't supposed to be messing with
• Throw crap into the hallway because I'm tired of it being in the way anyway
• Kiss boo-boos on back, belly, legs
• Argue with Josie about what pants to wear; force her to wear her Santa sweatshirt my mom made
• Try dressing Charlotte only to find shirt #1 is too tight and shirt #2 is too short in the sleeves
• Leave mess in hallway, retreat to the downstairs

Mind you, this was only like the first hour and a half of my day and I skipped a lot to save your sanity.

After all that, I finally got shoes and jackets on everyone and left to take cakes over to the church for a fundraiser dinner Thursday night. Then, we still had to go grocery shopping. I haven't decided how we survived the grocery store without me leaving the cart in an aisle and running away.

When I saw our minister while dropping off cakes, and the first thing he said to me was, "You look tired," I wanted to hand him my children and tell him I'd be back in two hours. I apparently was in great need of a nap if someone could tell in poor lighting that I was practically dead on my feet.


This is a typical day when we have a busy week, and, with a toddler and almost-toddler, every week seems like it's a busy one. Please, working parents, find something else to be jealous of — like how awesome my hair is even though I put little effort into making it awesome — because while you have your lunch breaks and business meetings or gossip fests with coworkers and the stress of being away from your babies, some of us wish we could have five minutes to eat and 30 seconds to pee alone. I want a conversation where I don't talk about what a bowel movement looked like or that my kid has been teething since birth. Sometimes, just sometimes, I want to have a conversation that doesn't at some point have me asking if someone needs a new diaper.

Whatever you do, don't take offense to this — I was a working parent. I spent all day wanting to be with my baby. I was jealous of our daycare provider and would sit in a locked office pumping breastmilk for my daughter, crying. Holding a conversation with my coworkers about anything was torture because I wanted to talk about how awesome my kid was, not hear about the sports story lineup for the week or what village board was voting on whoknowswhat. So, before you jump at me with any sort of claim that I don't know what it's like to be away from my kids, take a step back and realize I've been there and it's hard.

But this is hard, too. So hard some days that I want to lock myself in an office and cry.

I am jealous of the life I used to have; I am jealous of the life I have.

And the only way this post has been possible all in one sitting is because one child put herself down for a nap without lunch and the other didn't fight me on sleeping in her crib. This rarely happens. And I know when they wake up, I will regret not getting more things done around the house. I'll regret not being more patient with them this morning. And, I'll pray I get to have a few extra minutes to breathe deeply, calm the heck down and appreciate them and the energy they have.