In The Beginning

It was just two high school sweethearts making plans for the rest of their lives and beginning the blueprints for their 5,000 square foot home on a golf course in the middle of a spiraling horse ranch. The boy will grow up to be a professional golfer with a booming accounting career on the side while the girl will be a Lexus-driving PhD with her own counseling practice. Even though she has a full client load, her house will always be clean, her hamper will always be empty, and a piping hot nutritious organic dinner will be just out of the oven when her hubby gets home from the golf course (or his own accounting firm, depending on the day). Having ample savings, the girl will make a seamless transition to stay at home mom when her first baby is born, and she will continue to keep her house clean, her Lexus running, and she will puree her own baby food. She will never resort to yelling, spanking, microwaving chicken nuggets, or saying I told you so. Her husband will arrive home at 5:00 P.M. each day and continue to provide a sizable paycheck. The high school sweet hearts are very confident in their life plan as they try to secure a non parental ride to prom.

Fast forward fifteen years, two kids, and a double mortgage. My husband and I met in high school (no awwws, please). We went our separate ways for a while in college while he studied accounting in Florida and I stayed in Illinois freezing my ass off, collecting cats, and working on my clinical psychology degree. I figured I would have my career well-established and have adequate savings by the time I had children at the ripe old age of twenty five. My now-husband and I reconnected in our last year of college and my first year of graduate school. We got married just six months after I lost my dad to cancer and put my degree on hold, just until we got settled. It turns out a half of a masters degree is not very useful.

Today I am a stay at home mom with two boys. Aiden is three and a half and Elliott is four months. No, he does not sleep through the night but thanks for asking. I started my blogs: The Crib and Mom At Home: My Boss Wears Diapers when Aiden was a baby and I found that blogging (which is just a trendy, modern-professional sounding way to say "journaling") was a great way for me to capture memories, commiserate with other moms in the trenches, and keep a sense of humor about the daily grind of motherhood. As you have probably guessed by now, I never launched my counseling career. Spit up is my main fusion accessory, I no longer shower on a daily basis and I haven't slept in three and a half years. More often than not I need a ladder to access the top of my dirty laundry tower, I have yelled, "stop yelling" more times than I care to admit and getting out of the house requires a minor miracle and involves a lot of coffee and  tears. Sometimes the kids are fussy too. Oh, and my SUV was not made by Lexus. 

So this is stay at home motherhood. It is not a glamorous job, my performance reviews are given by a three year old who has called me "a good mommy" and “the meanest mom ever" within the same half hour. I don't get sick days, promotions, or hot coffee but I do get a lot of love, joy, challenges and a daily run for my money (or lack thereof). This blog will give you a glimpse into my pretty ordinary, fairly disorganized, and often humorous life as a stay at home mom. Maybe you will see yourself in some of my posts. After all, we are all figuring it out as we go along, right? Just smile and nod at that poor, disorganized mother rocking in the corner with a cup of cold coffee and a screaming baby. Hey, if you can't relate to my posts you are still welcome to have a laugh at my expense.

Here I am pushing thirty with no earning power and a drawer full of yoga pants that have nothing to do with yoga or any form of exercise unless you count desperately swaying and bouncing a screaming baby while chasing an obstinate preschooler, cooking dinner, and skimming an electronic copy of The Strong Willed Child (which I am reading for a friend, of course). I am a stay at home mom with two kids, two cats, and a traveling husband. I don't even have most of it together but hey, it is on the job training. I may have traded paychecks for pacifiers but I wouldn't have it any other way. I still have dreams of my own, like using the bathroom with less than two people accompanying me, being able to lease a minivan, and telling my husband's boss exactly where he can put the travel schedule. But more about that later. At this point I would come up with a clever ending to my first post, but I have to throw out my cold coffee, try to keep the baby asleep, and pick up Aiden from preschool.