Prior to having a child and starting my new career as a domestic administrator, I worked for several years cleaning houses while getting a post-graduate certification in photography, as well as spending at least 3 (often 5) nights a week involved in church events. So whenever my employer sent me to clean the home of a stay-at-home mom, I would quite literally scoff. (Except, mind you, in cases where health problems were a factor.) How in the world could a woman whose sole purpose was to stay at home not take responsibility for her one duty, namely that of taking care of her home?! This, to me, was ludicrous and just downright pathetic. I, working 5 days a week, attending classes 3 days a week, doing projects both at home and in the photo lab, hosting church functions in my home as well as attending other church events, plus being a wife to my husband and a mom to a 100 lb. beast of a dog, did not give myself the freedom to hire a house cleaner, nor did I have room in the budget for such a thing. So why should this woman who sits at home all day indulge in such a luxury? (You may now start throwing virtual tomatoes at me and begin cyber-stalking me to figure out where I live and how you can dispose of my body, all you infuriated mothers out there...)
What I now, finally, understand about motherhood has humbled me to the core and made me realize that being a mother is the one job in my life at which I spend endless hours with virtually nothing to show for it. I have worked as a babysitter, a dishwasher, a server, a prep cook, a cashier for food services and grocery stores, a third-shift pricer at a grocery store, an HR assistant, an administrative assistant for both non-profit and government, a third-shift call center representative, a third-shift call coordinator, a landscaper, a janitor, a housecleaner, and a photographer. All of these positions have yielded some sort of end-product by which I could judge my success and rate my work. Mother, however, is the one job I have done which seems an endless abyss of unaccomplished tasks, checklists unchecked, and yet an unending lethargy that is so pervasive I sometimes wonder whether or not if they sampled my blood they would find anything but caffeine and aspartame from the endless IV drip of coffee and diet sodas I've been using the last 8 months since my son was born.
So for all you doubters out there who have asked yourself over and over, like I myself once did (and STILL DO), here is what a typical day in Mommy Land can look like.
2:00am - Awakened from a dead sleep to the wailing of a teething child in the midst of a growth spurt who is ravenously hungry and is convinced that your sole intent in life in this moment is to starve him before he reaches morning. Thankfully, he immediately becomes the happiest baby alive when the bottle touches his lips. You change his wet diaper in the dark while he downs his bottle and falls immediately back to sleep. You go back to bed.
6:30am - Re-awakened by a child who is again ravenously hungry, but this time he is wide awake. You give him the bottle and dump a great assortment of toys and books into his crib for him to play with while you go back to bed for an hour. You don't really sleep, but you close your eyes and are vaguely aware of your child's giggles and burblings as he plays.
7:30am - You child becomes bored and starts screeching because he has now fully digested his bottle and is badly in need of a diaper change. You change him, then take him to the living room and set him on the floor amongst various toys while you go for the coffee that your husband has oh-so-kindly brewed. You have almost finished fixing your coffee when the dog propels down the stairs and starts yelping in your face that she needs to go out. You take the dog out, then head back to the kitchen for your coffee. As you pass by your child in the living room, he realizes that you've been ignoring him for a full five minutes, so he begins to wail out his wounded heart. You pick up your child and comfort him, reassuring him that he is loved and important. You carry him into the kitchen and grab your coffee with the other hand. You come back out to the living room and turn on the television, because your child thinks the magical light box in the corner of the room is the most wondrous thing in his universe. You give him the remote, because he likes to play with the buttons and will be thoroughly amused for the next 45 seconds, allowing you to take exactly three sips of your coffee.
8:30am - You have finally drunk half your cup of coffee and have only had to re-program the television eight times since handing your son the remote. Right about now, he starts crying because he wants real food. You down the rest of your coffee - which is now easily drinkable at room temperature, and carry both baby and coffee cup back to the kitchen. You strap your child into the high chair, refill your coffee, and drink it and eat a bowl of cereal while feeding your child his baby mush.
9:15am - Your child took 45 minutes to eat his meal: 40 minutes to eat his vegetables; 5 minutes to eat his fruit. You hose him down, because the majority of the vegetables ended up in his ears, on his neck and belly, between his toes, all over his high chair, and you. You prepare his bottle and lay him down in the crib; soon after, he falls asleep.
9:30am - You patrol the house, picking up toys, clothes, torn magazines. You re-wash the load of laundry that you forgot to dry the day before. Then you hop on the computer to balance the finances, pay some bills, and most importantly, to see which other mothers out there are having a rough day.
11am - Your child awakes. You feed him again. You put the laundry in the dryer and start a new load. You decide to run errands. It takes an hour to get ready: 10 minutes to ready yourself; 50 minutes to take care of the dog, the baby, and prep the diaper bag. Why? I have no clue. It just does.
12:30pm - You have 3 places you need to go. Walmart. The bank. Another grocery store where diapers and fruit are cheaper. All goes well at Walmart and the bank. Several people even stop you to say how beautiful and well-behaved your child is. You beam and think of what a great day this is turning into.
2:30pm - You are at the 2nd grocery store when your child begins to get hungry and need his nap. But you forgot the diaper bag with his bottle in the car. So you hurriedly race through the aisles, trying to entertain your child, trying to make him laugh. You get to check-out and realize you also left your wallet in the car. You explain to the cashier, unstrap your child from the cart, put the cart off to the side, and walk out to the car to get your wallet. While there, you make up your child's bottle, since he is now at near meltdown. You try not to look at passers-by, not wanting to see the dirty looks from people as they judge you and your poor parenting capabilities. You breathe deeply and say a prayer under your breath, thinking of what an awful day this is turning into. You walk back into the store, grab your cart, wait in line again, pay for your groceries, go back to the car, strap in your wailing child who is fighting against being strapped in, and finally drive home.
3:15pm - You lay your child down for his nap. You realize it's almost 3:30, your husband will be home in a little over an hour, and you still haven't thought about dinner. Plus you still need to exercise to get the last darn 10 lbs. of baby weight off.
3:30pm - You turn on your workout video. You think how much nicer a big bowl of ice cream would be, but you jiggle your baby belly fat as a reminder of why you're going to subject yourself to this suffering. You feel empowered when Jillian Michaels reminds you of how you'll feel when you're out jean shopping or bathing suit shopping; though you'd settle for just wearing your pre-baby Fat Jeans, which currently boast about 2 inches of muffin top all the way around.
4:00pm - The baby wakes up. You get him out of the crib and put him in the Johnny Jump-Up. He giggles and laughs and jumps while you take a shower at world record speeds. You run to the basement to grab some clothes from the dryer, because you completely forgot the laundry. You throw in another load, dry the wet one, and leave the 2 loads of dry laundry in the basket, making a mental note to fold them tomorrow. And clean the bathrooms you meant to clean today. Oh, and also do the dusting and vacuuming. You run back upstairs, get dressed, look in the mirror and realize it's a good thing your husband isn't the superficial type.
4:30pm - You sit down on the couch, put on a Netflix show and drink a glass of water, trying to think of what you should make for dinner. Meanwhile your son jumps around, happy as a clam.
4:45pm - Your husband arrives home. He finds you on the couch, looking like you've been vegging out all day. You swear you haven't been there all day. He laughs, gives you a kiss, and say he knows. He exercises, then takes over baby duty while you make dinner.
6:00pm - You eat dinner with your husband while also feeding your baby.
7:00pm - Your baby starts getting fussy. You prep him for bed, and he is out by 7:30pm.
7:30pm - You and your husband sit down on the couch. He asks you what you did with your day. You can't remember. You spend a few hours picking up the house with your husband, watching a show or two, and then decide it's probably time for bed.
10:30pm - You try to go to sleep, but just as you are drifting off, the baby wakes up for a bottle. You get back in bed, realizing there are wet clothes in the laundry. You decide you can just re-wash the load tomorrow. You finally drift off at about 11:30pm.
2:00am - REPEAT.
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