But, all that being said, guess what I'm here to complain about today? That's right, the stay at home mom stuff!
The thing is, I read a lot of blog posts and articles about how hard it is to be a SAHM, how awesome it is to be a SAHM, etc, etc. Heck, that's pretty much all I write about anymore. It's my whole life! And most days, I really, really love it. Every day, I am grateful for it. But some days...
Some days are like today.
Some days you wake up way earlier than your body was planning on (and as punishment, it spends the next 45 minutes refusing to work properly, making you spill your son's juice on the rug and run into walls and stuff) and pretty much from the second you crawl out of bed, you want to get back in.
Because your child is extra-crabby and starving, but suddenly none of the food you're offering is good enough. So you make him a PB&J because, let's face it, he was going to eat that for one meal today, so why not breakfast? If that bread was toasted, it would be a totally acceptable breakfast food. It's fine.
And then when you get back from your walk, your sex-crazed dog who you thought "Oh, he'll be just fine if we breed him. It won't change is personality or behavior!" pees on the carpet right in front of you. And when you yell at him to stop, he gives you a dirty look, wanders into the kitchen, and pees on the stove.
And under the stove.
And he's a giant husky, so it's probably at least a quart of liquid on your clean kitchen floors.
And under the stove. Don't forget that it's under the stove,
And why couldn't you stop him? Because you, like a normal human, need to use the bathroom once in awhile. And when you had a child you signed away all rights to your privacy, so he's trying to crawl on your lap the entire time, and it's not nearly as cute or funny as it sounds when it's happening several times a day.
And when you yelled at the dog you scared your cute kid, who is now wailing and saying, "Mom! Mom!" as if you've betrayed him. It only makes it worse when you go put him in his crib while you clean up the swimming pool of dog pee, because if you don't, he will most definitely, absolutely, without a doubt play in it.
And then you lock the dog up for half the morning and give him dirty looks every time you pass his kennel and wonder if dogs are smart enough to know what a dirty look means, or if he just keeps thinking, "Whatever. You're not the alpha."
Most days when you change your sons diaper, you fully understand the risks involved, and it doesn't matter because your gag reflex is practically made of steel by now, and nothing can phase you. Other days, it's just all been too much and when a little poop gets on your hand (cause it WILL, I PROMISE YOU IT WILL) you just have to fight back tears and the urge to cry, "Someone else's poop is on my hand!"
So some days, by noon you are completely at your wits end, your entire house smells like bleach which always give you a headache, so you decide to hit the reset button. Go for a drive. Get out of the bleach-smelling house that is run by some wild animal who you currently can't stand, even if you secretly still love him.
Some days, like today, you can't even put on shoes before you go out to the car, because if you don't get out right now you're just going to lose it, and there will be more yelling, and we already know where that goes. Some days you accidentally drive to McDonalds and get a Dr. Pepper, even though you're trying not to drink soda because marriage and all this stress and all this soda are making you fat. But the bleach headache has combined powers with the yelling headache and the guilt headache and they are taking over your mind.
So, you drive and play music as loud as you dare with little ears in the backseat, and pretend you're 16 again and your car is spotless because you clean it all the time, and no one is depending on you to keep them alive, and you resist the urge to call your mom and whine that you are done being an adult.
The weird thing is, I've had a lot of jobs before, and a lot of bad jobs. If this was any other job, I'd find another one and quit. I'd hate my job, because who wants a job where you have to clean up some animal urine from under your stove, or someone else's poop off your hands? If I read that job description, I would go running for the hills. No one wants that.
And yet, it's exactly what I wanted. It's the weirdest thing ever how rewarding it can be, even when you feel like a total failure, even when you wouldn't repeat some days for all the money in the world. Because yes, some days are what feel like bad days. But most days are wonderful days. And even the bad days aren't all bad. Like today, Dayen started saying, "Tan I has tiss?" because I always ask him, "Can I have a kiss?" That's what I'm really going to remember about today.
So I'm going to forgive myself for drinking soda today, cause dang it, I deserved it. I'm going to admire how spectacularly clean my floors are after today's fiasco. I'm going to kiss that cute kid of mine and forgive him for refusing to take a nap.
And I'm going to go change the laundry, because literally all of my rags were used before 10:00 am.
Some days are just like that.
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