People tend to think that being a
stay at home mum is like a long boring vacation where the stay at home mum has
lot of time. I know this is something that we talk about a lot on so many
platforms. Fact is as a stay at home mum, I have to fight myself from
aggressive job hunting and remember why I chose to do this. Yes this is a
choice a woman has to consciously make and reinforce every so often. This is
because from where I sit, the pressures of a regular office job and the demands
look like holiday. See, I’m that girl who started cooking real meals for the
first time in her life while in 3rd year. Not out of necessity but
rather out of embarrassment. All the boys in my crew could cook and so much
better than me. I could easily have lived off take-aways and strategic visits.
My mother tried but I was more interested in my bike and the everything else
far from the kitchen so do not ask what kind of mother I have… she really
tried.
Any hoo the point is, I am not particularly good at this keeping house
thing. I am trying to figure it out a husband and 2 kids later. At least now I
know my cooking won’t poison anyone but sometimes I just wish to be back in that
high pressure newsroom. It’s so much easier than overseeing everything in the
house. That’s everything from construction to gardening to house-keeping and of
course the kids.
Today little man didn’t want to
go to school. First he woke up late, then He didn’t want to wear his clothes.
Had to bribe the guy candy by candy to get him across the road to school. Then start
him off at the playground so that he can remember how much fun playschool is.
Come
back home to find baby is awake and his agenda is to play with mummy. He loves
to watch mummy sing and dance for him, so she does as she changes his diapers
and nurses him. He sleeps, the construction guys are here, with a long list of
needs. Then the mother moment! Baby is awake, nursing construction guys need
this that and some of that too, the water guy is here, he needs he wants, house-help
is also demanding attention… these moment will occur at least 3 times in a day. The
people may be different. The trash guy, the landscaping guy, the watchies, the
groceries guy… name it. Before I sit to relax its time for little man to come
home… if you have an active 2 year old you know the next break you have is when
he’s asleep. But Baby is now fully awake… somewhere there hubz needs his time,
supper needs to be made, served and fed, baby wants to coo and s mile with no
one but you. Its 10pm the living room looks like 10 storms passed through it. I
think baby might be ready for his bed now, might is the key word. I put baby
down, everyone is asleep. I lie down in bed. I didn’t call… I didn’t visit my
recuperating family, I didn’t get around to finishing this and that document,
that other proposal is 2 lines long now, yey. Argh tomorrow I’ll try again to
do everything and see how far we go.
The luxuries of a
decent meal, a decent bathroom break and a relatively streamlined day will have
to wait until I’m sure my babies can handle themselves for about 8 hours a day
without me and can tell me all about it at the end of the day.