Things Babies Hate

This is not me and Raleigh when Joe gets home from work. (Partly because we aren't creepy spider aliens.)

It was supposed to be. Because how do stay-at-home moms have sweatpants and messy houses at all? They stay at home, where there's nothing to do but clean, exercise, or watch TV. There is 0 excuse for any stay-at-home mom to ever do anything but have sparkling carpets, chiseled abs, dinner ready, and to be all dressed up when their man comes home. Especially if they have only one vehicle and the man takes it during the day. But yet I kept reading about these women who can't find time for a shower and who eat the leftovers of their kids' lunches for breakfast around 4 PM, who live with dirt on the floor and dishes in the sink. "Wow," my pregnant self thought, "What is wrong with them?"

Everything was going to be so nice and perfect. Clean house, healthy meals, painless budget, so much time to write. The first day of Joe being back at work after his paternity leave would be the first day of my long and rewarding career as a flawless homemaker.

So, on that first day, the door closed behind Joe and I waved at him as he drove away. Then I looked at my baby. We had been left alone together; the world was pretty sure I could keep him alive! How exhilarating.

I changed the baby's diaper and fed him, then carefully put him down when he fell asleep. I spent the next half hour trying to put together a workout outfit from the 3 things in my closet that actually still fit. Then I popped in an exercise DVD. I was most of the way through the warmup when I heard the baby wake up. I left the video going while I ran to get the baby and put him on his mat where I could watch him and work out at the same time, then I tried to coordinate myself with the video people. So far, so good. I was stretching and watching Raleigh out of the corner of my eye. He was flailing his arms and legs around. He started to suck on his hand because he was already hungry again. His face turned in my direction, even though he couldn't see very far yet, and he had this worried expression on, so I started talking to him. "HI RALEIGH!" I said, punching at the air in time to the music. "Hi baby boy! You are so sweet!" But yelling happy things at him only worked for so long. The hand-sucking intensified. He'd start crying soon. So I sighed and paused the video and fed him. He fell asleep and I finished exercising and got a quick shower. That 30 minute video took more than twice as long as it should have, but at least I'd gotten through it.

By the end of that day, I had run the washer and dryer. I think I'd also collected most of the dirty clothes from around the living room. I hadn't: vacuumed, cleaned the kitchen, written, found a work-at-home career, prepared dinner, folded Laundry Mountain, caught up with any of my overdue correspondence, or paid bills. Raleigh had somehow soaked up the entire day.

And so I learned what was wrong with those stay-at-home moms who never get anything done. It's that "mom" part. You see, babies don't grow on milk. They grow on the time they slyly steal from you while you have all these great plans about what you're going to do all day. That is why my baby is enormous.

That's the important thing, though. That Raleigh is enormous. I mean, I figured out that my main thing right now is to make him happy. I think that every smile I put on his face right now will make his little growing brain different and better forever.

As long as his naps are unpredictable, I'll uselessly hold him while he sleeps instead of wasting my time by trying to escape - he'll just wake up two minutes after I start doing something useful, anyway. When he lets me put him down for a few minutes, I'll clean. When he goes to sleep for the night, I'll stay up til 3 AM so I can do things I used to do before I had a baby. See? I'm figuring it out!

My new job isn't to keep this place spotless, or cook a lot, or even change out of my spit-uppy clothes before Joe gets home (the spitup is also encrusted in my hair, so really there's not much of a point.) My new job is to make Raleigh smile. Yeah, I can do other things, and I will keep learning how to be efficient and fit everything in. Mostly, though, I'm going to get nothing done, love my baby, and be stupidly happy.