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SAHM

I saw this today and had to share, some days I feel like I have to explain my day to Eli just so he doesn't feel like I do nothing day in and day out. He of course has never accused me of doing nothing, if anything he is so great and points out how great of a job I'm doing as a Stay At Home Mom. But none the less I sometimes write out the things I've done that day on our white board and cross them off just so he can see that I've done something productive. Hope you love this story as much as I did......

I saw red when I read a letter to an advice column from a childless woman who suspects her friend is lying about being busy all day. “I’m feeling like the kid is an excuse to relax and enjoy,” she says, so “why won’t my friend tell me the truth?” She wonders what are stay-at-home-moms doing all day that they can't call or email? 

I know I’m preaching to the choir here, and the advice columnist seems to physically restrain herself from reaching out to wring the letter-writer’s neck. Still, I thought I might detail a typical day alone with the kids. That way, when your friend whines at you for not answering her email about her roommate eating her potato chips (yes, that’s real), you won’t have to find the time and childcare to write her a reasoned response. You can just forward this to her.

Dear Person Who Wonders What SAHMs Do All Day:

I love my kids, and I am so happy. Also, I am very busy. Here’s what I do.

5 a.m.: Baby wakes up in crib and wants to nurse. I nurse her and she goes back to sleep, but doesn’t want to be put down. I bring her into my bed, where my sweaty toddler is already sleeping because she woke two hours earlier. Lying between them, I get only fitful sleep, because when I’m not getting a 2-year-old’s foot to my head, I am worried about rolling over on the 10-month-old, or poking my husband to make him roll over so he’ll stop snoring.

Both kids wake up for real at 6:30. This is actually nice and late for them. I change two diapers and try to get them both dressed, but the toddler wants to be naked for a while and rather than risk atantrum I let her run off. I get the baby changed and dressed as she performs the can-can, jamming my body against the changing table as I wrestle the top of the Baby Genie open because it’s stuck again. Which means I have to change the bag. The fresh bags are in the kitchen. I take the full bag out and drag it to the front door.

I try to get food into both girls while making coffee. This involves pouring cheerios and blueberries onto the high-chair tray, making toast with cream cheese, and scrambling eggs. While I try to get the grounds out of the coffee maker, the baby climbs over to the oven and hangs off its handle. I use my foot to hold it closed. The toddler yells, “NO!” and knocks her down. The baby wails. I pick her up. This means I can’t finish the coffee grounds. I put her in the high chair. The toddler pees. I help her clean up the pee. We go back into the bedroom, because now she wants to put a diaper on and I’m not about to let that opportunity pass me by.

The baby begins wailing because she’s lonesome; I’m still trying to either convince or wrestle with the toddler, who has decided she does not like the pants she picked out. Finally we return to the kitchen, and I realize that the baby is wailing because she’s pooped in her nice clean diaper (the girl likes a clean canvas). I plop the toast onto the booster-seat tray, strap in the toddler, and proceed back to the bedroom to change the baby. The poop is a blowout; we need a total outfit change. I realize I haven’t replaced the bag in the pail. I fold the diaper into itself and bring it to the kitchen garbage. The toddler has flung her toast because she is done.

I still have not been able to make the coffee.

I turn on the TV and make the coffee and gulp it as the girls are momentarily quiet. I straighten up the kitchen, put away the clean dishes, put up a load of wash. Then I sit down with them and watch the end of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. When it’s over, the toddler asks for another one and I say no, so she shrieks at the top of her lungs for a half an hour. I bring the baby into the bathroom with me and hop in the shower, poking my head out to play peek-a-boo the whole time. Afterwards, both girls “help” me get dressed by placing items of clothes against parts of my body. This is very cute, but does not get me dressed.

The door buzzes: it’s the UPS guy with the diapers from Amazon. I run down the hall wearing one sock and a bra and pray he really is who he says he is, because I am not about to open the door to check.

I resume trying to get dressed as the toddler begins jumping on the bed. She falls off and bonks her head, and leading to about 45 minutes of soothing and crying. The baby, meanwhile, appears holding a blue crayon and displaying a matching blue tongue and teeth. I attempt to fish pieces of blue out of her mouth while the toddler continues to shriek in my ear at top volume. I put the clothes in the dryer.

It is time for ballet class.

We pile into the car and I drive to my friend’s house, where I put her car-seat into my back seat, then drive all the girls to the studio. I put the baby in a sling and hold both girls’ hands. One toddler likes to run fast, the other ambles slowly. One toddler has to pee before class, the other is still in diapers. Helping the toddler pee involves holding her over the toilet with both hands; the baby is still in the sling; the other toddler is literally running in circles yelling, “bal-LET! Bal-LET!” We go upstairs; the ballet teacher asks me to put the girls’ hair up and I punch her in the face. Sike! I laugh and say I did my best, and she says it’s all right. The big girls go into the studio. The baby crawls directly to the top of the metal stairs. I pick her up and return her to the play area (train table, plastic kitchen, LOTS OF FUN STUFF). I sit down to read my phone. She crawls back to the stairs. I then spend 45 minutes dragging her back to the play area repeatedly, though I do manage to answer some emails.

ARE YOU STILL READING?

A woman gives me the stink-eye for checking my phone when I'm with the baby. "Shouldn't you be paying attention to your child?" she asks. I run through several snappy responses. By the time I have come up with the perfect one, she has moved on.

The ballet class is over all too soon. I drive through McDonald's, hoping nobody sees me, because I am addicted to their smoothies and also starving. We head back to my friend’s house where I unload the big girls, then the car seat, then the baby. The girls run off to play and the baby stares at the other baby dubiously. I "help" my friend make lunch, mostly just eating everything she tries to put on the toddlers’ plates. We feed the toddlers, then the babies. Then we clean up the floor under the high chairs. The toddlers fight over who gets to go in the bouncy swing, then fall apart emotionally. It is nap time.

We head home. My toddler has dropped her nap, so instead, she throws a tantrum because she is disappointed at having to leave her friend’s house. I pull over, open the windows, and sit five feet away on the curb, waiting for her to calm down. If I had a cigarette, I would smoke it. I dream fondly of cigarettes. I come back to the car and ask, “Are you done?” She blinks and says, “Yeah. I done. I sowwy I scweaming and scweaming.” The baby is asleep!

At home, I let the toddler watch two shows while I whisk the baby into bed without waking her. This is when I get a little bit of emailing done, though I do not have the energy to call anyone. I pay several bills and finally, finally make out a form to change something with the kids’ medical coverage. I realize the bank has charged me fees for something and I spend 45 minutes arguing with them on the phone. I start marinating meat for dinner and realize we are out of rice and pasta.

The baby wakes. I nurse her. Then we're off to the grocery store. After returning eight bottles of ponzu sauce to the shelves, I wise up and give the toddler a pack of brightly-colored hair clips and she spends the rest of the trip placing them carefully all over her head.

A woman gives me the stink-eye because I have the toddler in the basket of the shopping cart while the baby rides in the baby seat. “That’s unsafe,” she tells me. “Well, I forgot my leash,” I respond wearily, tucking a pack of toilet paper next to the toddler and taking a plastic bag out of the baby’s mouth.

When we are paying, the toddler asks to “boop this,” and the checkout woman is remarkably patient about letting her push various buttons, then gives us some stickers. “Where are the rest of these hair clips?” she asks, as she rings them up. “Oh, you’re wearing them all!” My toddler is proud.

I put the baby into the car first, and notice people looking with alarm at my toddler, alone in the cart. I hurry back and put her in the car before they call CPS on me. I load the groceries into the car. I roll the cart back to the corral, car-doors open, again worrying that someone will yell at me for leaving the girls alone.

I get a text from another friend -- can the toddler have a post-nap playdate? Sure! I drive to his house, which is stunningly beautiful and remarkably un-childproofed. I spend the next hour assisting the baby in walking up and down, up and down, up and down their wooden staircase as the older kids whip each other into a frenzied crescendo. I worry about the groceries in the car and when it’s time to leave, I have to carry the toddler out because she’s again upset about leaving her friend. More screaming ensues.

We arrive home. I unload the groceries. I set the baby at the foot of the stairs and watch her start up. I get the toddler, who agrees (for once) that she does not need uppies up the stairs. I unload the groceries. My husband texts: he is home and can carry them up. Thank effing god. I arrive at my door and am greeted by the dirty diaper bag. I do not even care.

Do you have friends who think you eat bon-bons and relax all day? Do you even bother trying to make them understand?

Nassau...Day 8

Saturday, August 11, 2012 was our last day on our cruise. It seem to take so long for this trip to come and yet it was over in a blink of an eye. We got in late in Nassau around 12:00pm so we had some time to kill. After breakfast at Rosie's Eli wanted to try the water slide. I don't know where everyone on the ship was because deck 9 was empty. See all the empty chairs, that wasn't the case the entire trip. He wanted me to take a picture of him going down, well we were using our phone to take pictures and it wasn't working so well. Let's just say he went down about 20 times for me to get 2 good shots, but he was having a great time doing it. 

 I swore I would  not get in the pools there, because I wasn't sure how well they were cleaned, but on the last day I did get in the adult pool and I was the only one in it. It surprised me when it was salt water, I was expecting fresh water.

 At 12:00 we got off the ship and got in line for our sail and snorkel excursion. We and 98 other people climbed aboard a sail boat and we went out a ways to some coral reef to snorkel. We were so disappointed with our snorkel experience in Tortola we had to have a redo.

 On our way out and back we passed the famous Atlantis resort, they said the room in the middle of the bridge is $25,000 a night.

 We finally got a good sunset picture on our last night of the cruise. We tried every night to get one but clouds were always to thick to see the sun set.

 We didn't sign up for the drink card so we stuck with water, milk and lemonade the whole trip but twice we treated ourselves to a "fancy drink" With them being $7.00 a cup we decided it was best to share. The alcoholic ones were $10.00 a drink and people were drinking them like they were water. A soda was $2.60 a glass, just not worth it to me. We were being weird with our drink, we were trying to be fancy with our fancy drink. ;)

 Our first night on the ship this guy came up to us and asked if we wanted anything from the bar, we told him we don't drink and he was SHOCKED! He asked if we wanted anything non-alcoholic but we declined because how expensive they are. Well the next night he came up to us and asked us if we wanted anything non-alcoholic, we were shocked that he remember us out of 3,000 others, we assumed we were the few NOT drinking on the ship. So on our last night we flagged  him down and asked to buy a virgin drink just from him because he was so great. We then learned that he was being fired the next day for something he said to someone else on the ship. He told us what happened and as soon as we finished our dinner we went straight to customer service and wrote a letter telling how great of a waiter he was, I hope he wasn't fired in the end.

 So on our snorkeling tour we found lots of fish, big, small, and colorful ones, but the coolest thing we saw was........

 Crush the turtle. Eli was chasing him around and it was so neat to see one up close. Crush of course didn't want anyone around him so we couldn't get to close because he obviously was a better swimmer then us.

 Eli took the camera with him as he dove down to get a better shot of the turtle and the pressure pushed water into our water proof camera...hence the streaks. This was a great way to end our wonderful vacation.

After we got off the sail boat we walked around and shopped and got lots of cool things, but had to rush to be back on the ship by 6:30pm...it was a short day on land. We ended the night with two comedy shows then packed up our crap and went to bed at 1:00am, we tried to go earlier but the movie we were watching in our room was really good (but I can't remember what it was, oops) BEST VACATION EVER!!!!

Day 7...Day at sea

Friday, August 10 was a day at sea. We slept in late since we didn't have anything to get up for. After a late breakfast we went to play super trivia in the Eagles lounge with Theresa's family (family we played the gender game with).  At 1:30 we went to the gym, well Eli sort of dragged me to the gym, I had no desire to go, but I went. After they gym we went to have lunch at Rosie's and watched ice carving. It was really stupid and we later heard that someone asked what they did with the sculpture after it melted...really?? 

Dinner time was at the Scarlet Steakhouse and it was sooo good.

 There were very few people in the steakhouse when we went so our waiter was very attentive, a little to attentive for my taste. He wouldn't leave our table the whole time. It was really hard to carry on conversation with him lingering, until I asked him to take a picture with me then he got really shy and tried to leave...not so fast buster, if you're gonna make me uncomfortable then I'm gonna make you uncomfortable. ;) The food was really good, we each got a chef's special which I don't remember what it was, but I remember them being very tiny. For appetizers I got tuna tar tar and Eli had escargot, both were delicious. For our entries I had the surf and turf which was lobster tail and filet minion, Eli had New York steak with veggies. When it came for dessert the chef came out to see how we liked everything and to tell us about the desserts. He said that the cheesecake was 14oz. and we didn't believe him, so I ordered the cheesecake and Eli ordered an apple crisp thing. I wish sooo bad that we took a picture of the cheesecake, it was HUGE! He was not lying, but it also lacked all flavor and we ended up throwing most of it away because it was gross not that we couldn't finish it :)

                                                        This was our towel monkey

  At 8:30 we went to the Far from over show in the theater. At 11:00 we went to check out a magic show in the capitol room. It was a small room and it was packed, people lining the walls and floor. About 10 minutes into the show people started walking out and talking, being really rude. "Sukesh" had really poor delivery but his tricks very soo cool. Luckily most people walked out so we got seats and Eli even got put up on stage for one one the acts.

 At 9:30 we went to watch these guys break dance in the main lobby. They were in the "Far from over" show and after they came out and did some tricks which were incredible. It was a fun day at sea.

Tortola...Day 6

We got to Tortola early in the morning and quickly got off the ship to board another boat to go snorkeling and kayaking. A short boat ride to a different island and then we had to wait around for everyone to go to the bathroom because we all had to go together. Kayaking was so much fun but I soon realized that I don't have very much upper body strength. Once we got to the opposite side we got out and most of us started jumping in the ocean but we were quickly pulled out by our guide so he could take us down a path to see rich people homes....(ps I don't freaking care about rich people's homes, I payed to go snorkeling and kayaking). 

                                Eli was a great paddler, I was not, although I did try to keep up.

 After our tour was done which ended way to soon. And by to soon I mean they cut our excursion short by an hour. We were ticked because we really wanted to snorkel, but because there were jelly fish in the water they wouldn't let us. But before we even got in the water, the guide and captain of the boat told us there were jelly fish in the water and that they were not dangerous. So far Tortola has not been my most favorite island.

So once we get back to the ship we grabbed a taxi and headed to the beach to actually swim and lay in the sand. We started collecting sand from every island to show the kids. The water was warm but not as warm as St. Thomas's was. Eli took off to swim way out in the ocean while I stayed where my feet could touch the ground. There's just a creepy feeling not knowing what's under your feet...ugh :/ After he got back he was extremely tired so he pushed me on my back like this all the way done the beach and back. It was so relaxing and people were even asking for "rides" from him.

After we got back on board the ship we ate dinner then at 8:30pm we went to the Ivanhoe theater to watch a ventriloquist act. At 9:30 we stayed in the theater for the Gender showdown where we played with a really great family and ended up making friends with them for the rest of the cruise. I have some really great video of this, with Eli dressed as a woman on stage and kissing a man on his head with lipstick, probably the best part of the whole day. At 10:00pm we went to an adult comedy act in the Eagles lounge and ended up staying for the 11:00pm show as well.