back to the real world

For the past year, I have had the pleasure of working only 2.5 days a week.  I have been able to stay home with my kids the remainder of the time.  I'm feeling sentimental today, so I'll say that I loved every second of it. However, if I look really deeply, I'll admit that about 5 months into it, I picked up some extra time with my contract hours, really looked forward to 1:00 for the double nap, and found myself in a ball on the floor on at least one occasion where the Collins kids and I were not making a good team.  So, I guess it is more that I loved most of it.  I loved breakfast in our pajamas, playgrounds in the middle of the day, planning projects, problem solving our house organization and our daily schedule to have happy kids.

Tomorrow I return to the real world.  We are trying to buy another house so that means daddy can  no longer be the "sugar daddy" but there needs to be a second income.  I think that I have the best possible job in that I am expected to work 32 hours (22, 45 minute sessions for those of you in the therapy world) but I set them myself.  I go to people's homes so I don't really have to worry about people standing me up.  And, they are all with in a 15 minute radius of my home.  I keep telling myself that it is only 4 more hours when you think about the amount of time I was driving before, but it is over 4 days instead of 3.  So, I'm a little sad today, and I've been a little sad since I accepted the job.

But, today was a roller coaster; I feel like it was as accurate representation of being a stay at home mom in general.  It's hard work.  For me, working outside of the home is actually easier because when I'm home I'm not only mentally challenged like I am at work but emotionally challenged.  At work, I don't love the people that I'm with and so it is a lot easier to make choices without worry and the emotional backlash.  Here is a timeline of our day.

6:05- A. jolts me awake with, "Where is daddy?" I tell her she just might catch him as he's going out the door if she hurries.  She runs yelling, "Daddy!"  This promptly wakes up her brother.  I roll over and its the start to the day!

By 7:00, we've changed 2 sets of sheets and are ready to head downstairs for breakfast smoothies.

We play for awhile and at 9:00, K. goes down for a nap while A. and I decide to get ready for the tea party that she and her best friend R. are going to have later in the day.  We baked muffins, made paper flowers, and made tissue paper chair covers.

2 hours later and I am crafted out.  Just in time for K to wake up and want to play.  We get out the Easter stuff including 2 of those stupid stuffed animals that sing and dance when you push their feet.  A. turns one on and my little calm even keeled boy screams and visibly shakes.  He practically climbed into my skin and would not leave until A. took them out of the room.  I don't know what he things a donald duck with blue bunny ears is going to do to him, but somewhere in that 12 month old mind, it was scary.  Very scary.  At that point, we had set him off for an unhappy time as he could not get himself together until 45 minutes later when he began to stuff his face with grilled ham and cheese.  A. said, "that was a tumultous time."  (I have NO idea where she got that)

1:00- finally nap time.  They both do to their rooms and I mop before sitting down to watch one of my ridiculous shows that my husband refuses to watch with me.  That's right, I watch Make it or Break it from ABC family.

Between the hours of 1-2:30, A. comes out of her room no less than 15x for one reason or another.  "Did you know it's Baby's birthday."  "Do you know where my carebear mask is?"  "My clock is taking for a long time to turn green."  "I pooped"  In other words, not much of a break

2:30, finally let her come down. For the next hour, she perfected her table and stood by the door just WAITING for the tea party.  She was SOOOO excited.

The scream of glee as R. rang the doorbell was fantastic.  The girls were sooo cute and stayed entertained for about 25 minutes.

However, right before R. left, A. led her in a fun experiment of how messy can we make my room.  Apparently, they decided that pulling every single thing out of every single drawer including the one with insy tinsy tiny hair bands that would be fun.  All the while, they were yelling stupid, stupid, stupid, and jumping up and down.  As I saw the mess, I took a deep breath and wasn't really that mad though it was ridiculous.  However, as everyone was helping to clean up besides A. aka the leader of the the game, I got more and more angry.  Then, as she began screaming, "I want to go to a restaurant for dinner."  I got even more mad.  Where is that coming from and no, we aren't going out to eat.

11 minutes in her room (the time it took me to clean up) and no TV for the rest of the day and we moved on.    

So, both of my kids had extreme highs and extreme lows all in 1 day.  Cram in the birthday party we had for Baby, play doh, basketball, and B. fixing our broken sink and the whole day is one gigantic mess that I will REALLY REALLY miss.