So You're a Stay-at Home Mom

"So you just stay home with your kids? that's got to be great!"

"Stay at home mom huh? What do you do all day then?"

"I'd love to stay at home with my kids... all that free time"

There's a flood of articles, blogs, campaigns, and exhausted parents who try to hammer home the idea that staying home with children is the most difficult job out there. Yet, despite all efforts people still have this notion that stay-at-home moms do less demanding work than others who work outside of the home. 

Sure, staying home in your pajamas with little children doesn't seem like a strenuous or stressful job, in theory. Every household is different depending on the temperaments of their children and parents, so in turn every parent will perceive child rearing/full-time parenting differently. But there's one thing that remains constant. There is a unanimous consensus among stay at home parents, and that's making your children your full time job is anything BUT relaxing. 

So I asked myself this question. Why am I so stressed all the time? What exactly about this job I took on as a mother makes it more difficult in my eyes than say, going to work every morning and coming home after a long day's work? After thinking about it a while, I decided to make note of the following day with my kids. I conducted my own little research project and observed my children and my day from the time they woke up to the time they went to sleep. What I discovered shocked and really enlightened me.

*drum roll*

My kids are CRAZY demanding. 

Not shocking actually. All young children are demanding. That's part of being a parent to young ones. They ask for food, play, attention, etc. But I didn't realize how demanding they were until I put it in numbers. I tallied the demands during the span of one day. Between both S and Z, from the time they woke up to the time they slept, they demanded my attention 104 times on Monday. Yes. I kid you not.

I would even go so far as to say that is a conservative number. So someone please tell me, who has a boss that asks you to complete 100 tasks a day? 

Add on the impatient factor, along with simultaneous demands. Often times both S and Z will ask for different things at the same time. I have to quickly prioritize depending on urgency, and almost always I'm also consoling the one that didn't have their needs met immediately, while doing that other task I was asked. 

Not only are my two bosses impatient, but they're emotionally volatile. They also compete for my time and attention. So when S sees me playing with Z, she'll come running to me crying because I'm not playing with her. Then Z will be upset I'm not playing with him. When I try to engage them in play together, S will take Z's toy and a fight erupts. It's a struggle to keep both little people happy when there's only one of me. 

Finally, I'd say the biggest stressing factor in all of it is, they're my kids. I worry about all of it, from the amount of play time they get, to the type of toys or activities they're in; the food they eat (or don't eat); if they're under or over stimulated; if they're under or over protected, you get the picture. Every decision I make regarding them becomes something more than just a simple decision. There are always consequences, whether immediate or delayed. I'm stressed because they're not a project I can save on my desktop at work and worry about tomorrow. Or a report I can hand over to the other team once my job is done. I can't say "Oh look at the time, almost 4! We'll discuss this tomorrow AM, I have to catch that train." 

As any mother will say, they're a part of me that I want to see be better than me. So the next time you look at one of us moms strolling along with our kids during day light hours where most people work, please don't think to yourself, look at her prancing along with her kids while the rest of the world is working for money, looks fun. 

My final thoughts (or rant if you want to call it that) on this issue: Monetary income should not be an indicator of how hard a person works. We live in a society where earning money define's a person's worth. By societal standards, pay-less jobs like mine and volunteer work don't hold much weight. I hope one day there will be a paradigm shift where this money-centric ideology is put aside and people are valued for their dedication to their job, regardless of what it is and how much it pays. Only then will stay at home parents finally put their insecurities to rest and stop trying to justify their choice to full-time parent. (Because let's face it guys, that's exactly what I'm doing right now, aren't I?)//end rant. 

They Did What!?

Hello. It's been a while since I blogged. I have a perfectly reasonable explanation though. As a mother, I am afforded one leisure activity a night. That's only if my eyes are not glued shut from fatigue. Lately I've used my allotted time to watch Better Call Saul. Now that's over and done with, here I am again.

So S and Z have recently decided to team up in an effort to extinguish the little sanity I have left. Both are finding too much joy in my efforts to claim it back. They'll laugh and feed off of each other. The terrible twos and the freaking fours.

Cringe worthy or just plain cute, here's what S and Z have been up to lately...

• I heard them both giggling in the other room, which brought a smile to my face. I thought, they're getting along, how nice. But of course reality set in and S started crying. I got up to see why she was upset when I found the entire room splattered with milk. Z was spraying a cup of milk all over the room and she found it funny, which explained the laughter. She didn't find it so funny when he spilled the remainder of it all on her head. The moral of this story: Children laughing together alone in a room isn't necessarily a good thing.

• Z pumped all the soap out of a soap dispenser and said he was making a soap waterfall.

• S's shoes were missing and I flipped the entire place up side down to look for them. I finally gave up and went to the kitchen to start thinking about dinner. Opened the freezer door and ta-da! All of S's shoes were in there. Thanks, Z.

• This:

Z said they were tired and needed a nap. 

• I found S sitting in a dark room on the floor against the wall by herself. I asked her what she's doing and she said "time out" with a grin on her face. To little S, time outs are glorified because her brother and role model Z is always in time out. She doesn't get that it's a discipline method, which makes it completely ineffective. Yet I still use them. Time to rethink discipline. 

• Z is practicing is plumbing skills. So he'll flush something he knows doesn't belong in the toilet, and then he'll try to retrieve it with a snake. He saw it done once, so he assumed everything can now be retrieved.

• S unrolled the roll of toilet paper. She would take a bite of a piece, and the other piece she would throw in the toilet. 

• While visiting a friend's house for a play date, Z lured us downstairs to play. Once downstairs, he quietly went upstairs and was oddly quiet for a good amount of time. My mother's intuition started questioning his whereabouts, but I was too engrossed in an adult conversation with a dear friend, so I brushed it off. Z came downstairs with that look on his face. The look of glee and guilt at the same time. When I asked him what he was doing upstairs, he casually said he was playing with water. So we thought he must've been in the washroom playing in the sink. We went upstairs to investigate the washroom and there was nothing. I breathed a huge sigh of relief. We were at someone else's home after all. The last thing I wanted was for him to ruin someone else's belongings. We walked into the kitchen and there it was. The flood he created. Not only was there water covering the entire kitchen floor, there was also water on the counter. He was quiet for so long was because he methodically filled a cup with water and spilled it onto the counter. Over and over again. Until he flooded the kitchen. (Sorry Riham). When I asked him why he did that on our way home, he said he was making "Niagara falls". (Again, very sorry!)