A Day in the Life of a Stay-at-home Mom

At 6:00 a.m. I hear C whimper. By 6:15 it is a full-fledged cry. I stumble into his room, pick him up, and carry him back to my bed, where I attempt nursing while sleeping. I drift off and worry about dropping him, so I give up on trying to get 10 more minutes of sleep. T gets up and turns off the alarm, why we actually set the alarm, I'm not quite sure. He trudges down the stairs and within minutes my sleepy little girl wanders into our room, her blonde hair ruffled from sleep and her hands full of books, blankets, and teddy bears. "I want pancakes, mommy, after I watch George."

"Okay, sweetie," is my reply. I grab a few of her books with one hand and walk downstairs holding C with the other. I turn on Curious George and put C in his exersaucer, so I can prepare breakfast. My son looks up at me like I have placed him in prison instead of a wonderland of toys. Dell, our retriever, looks longingly through the sliding glass door. Perhaps she and C can communicate somehow about how mean mommy is for trying to eat breakfast. T comes downstairs, says his good-byes, and leaves for work. After A eats, I sit down beside her as she watches Sid the Science Kid and eat my oatmeal. After breakfast, we get dressed, load the car with snacks, juice, books, and head off for our morning jog.

At least today, I will be jogging with a stroller that has both tires inflated. I discovered just how difficult it is to run with a flat tire last week, not one day, but two. A and C both try to out-whine each other for the first 2 1/2 miles and then both settle in for the second-half of our run with C even drifting off to sleep. I even get a few comments about how cute A looks reading her book.

After our run, it is back home to prepare lunch to take to T at work. We drive to the office, where I prepare lunch then sneak away for a few seconds to check my email at T's desk. T has to get some work done, so A, C, and I go home. I put C down for his nap and A and I play a game for about five minutes, when Connnor begins to cry. I attempt to get him back to sleep but to no avail, so I give up and A, C, and I read books in A's room until they begin to fight over the one must have book out of about five hundred. "Do you want to go to the park or the library?" I ask A. "Where is the park library?" she asks. Trying not to laugh, I explain that I meant we can either go to the park OR the library.

She chooses the park, so we go to the playground, then to the grocery store, where again, A and C enter into a whining contest. C wins, so I unbuckle him from the stroller and carry him. My cell phone rings as I am checking cartons for a dozen eggs that are all intact. My boss is calling to see if I can be on stand-by to tutor in two hours. I call T who still has to mow our lawn and the office lawn, but he says to tell my boss okay. I call him back and go home to unload groceries and prepare dinner. Fortunately, I don't have to tutor, so I feed C, give A and him baths, and start dinner. A plays happily with Thomas the Train, while C tries to scale the barstools or pull all of my cookbooks off the shelf. I distract him about 30 times when T finally comes in the door about 6. He tells me he needs to go to Lowe's after dinner to get something to fix a leaky toilet. I try not to scream. We eat, T leaves, and C finally falls asleep in my lap.

I put C in his crib, and A and I find the Country Music Festival on television. Sugarland is singing and A says, "Let's dance, mommy." I want to say, but I just sat down for the first time today. Instead, I get up and twirl and jump and dance with my little girl. Travis walks in the door and goes upstairs to fix the toilet. A and I continue to sing and dance until we realize we've waken up C. I rock him back to sleep, brush A' teeth, and let T take over the bedtime routine. It is after 8 p.m. I clean up the kitchen and try to catch five minutes of alone time before bed, where I will spend fifteen minutes studying the bible and fall asleep while saying my prayers.

Despite the chaos, the exhaustion, the feeling of never getting anything accomplished (things like basic hygiene), I have never regretted my decision to leave my teaching job to stay home with my children. Because I know that while my daughter's face lights up when we race at the park or play Chutes and Ladders for the 1,000 time today, that in about a week, she'll be too cool to hang out with mom. And while I grow weary from keeping C away from the stairs, from chewing on flip-flops, and from pulling his sister's hair, I know that my little crawler will soon walk, then run, then in a few months may possibly be suiting up for the Auburn Tigers.

Like what I think the Proverbs 31 woman shows us, life is a series of seasons, and right now, I am in the season of mommying two precious little babies, and too soon, I will be in a different season, the season of parenting school-age children, then middle schoolers, then high schoolers, and then I'll be letting go. Already, my infant boy is an eight-month-old crawler on a mission to explore every corner of his world. I love watching him examine an object, spot something else, crawl eagerly to that object, and before he even reaches it, he's already eyeing the next adventure. And A is learning so much, so quickly, I can barely follow her excited chatter as she talks about school, friends, and her new Sunday school class. I'm crying just thinking about how quickly the seasons pass, so with that perspective, I cherish the twirling, the building of pillow caves to be crashed in by little brother, the races at the park, and reading the same book one million times because so soon, they won't ask anymore. They'll be too big. So even though I sit here exhausted, I thank God for blessing me with this parenting season and look forward to each one and what joy it will bring.