To be perfectly honest, I want to be a stay at home mom to my sweet boy Owen and his new little brother who will be arriving sooner than later. Also, to be perfectly honest, staying at home makes me crazy! I think it's a grass is always greener situation, but in case you didn't know, parenting a one year old is hard. Very hard!
For approximately 11 hours, I am the sole caregiver to a very active, very loud, one year old boy. Now don't get me wrong, I love this guy more than I ever thought possible. He makes me smile and laugh and cry all at the same time. Mostly though, he makes me want to be a good mom because I know that he deserves my love and attention and teaching during the day. But again, to be perfectly honest, it's exhausting. We can only run so many errands and plan so many play dates. In the end there are times that we just have to be home and with each other. Sometimes that's a good thing and sometimes it's a very difficult thing.
So here's my honesty that might not seem too pretty or something that a lot of moms want to admit. I crave adult interaction and at times, take walks with Owen just to see who might be outside and might want to stop and talk for a few minutes. I plan things for us to do to take up chunks of time during the day. I can't wait until nap time when I get 1 hour (yes, that's all he naps) to sit in peace and quiet. Unfortunately, that's also the one hour that I try to squeeze in a day's worth of chores. I love when he can settle on a toy or an activity and I get a few minutes where he is not demanding my attention. Those are the ugly truths of parenthood.
So how then can I say I would prefer to be at home with him? That's easy. There are tough time and times that I literally have to close my eyes for just a second to regain some patience (like when he touches the same glass door on the bookcase for the 5th time in a row after having a time out 5 times for doing it); but, when I open my eyes and he is leaning against me kissing my shoulder with his big open mouth, my heart melts. When he walks around the house with his hand to his ear pretending it's a phone having a very loud conversation with who knows who, I laugh. When he feeds me his lunch, I am proud. He is a sweet, lovable, funny, wild little boy who I would prefer to spend my time with over anyone else.
To be honest, I love being a mom. It's the single hardest job I have ever had and it's the single most rewarding job I ever will have.
1 comment:
That was a beautiful post, and thank you for being honest about your experience. I think more people should be honest and I'm glad to find someone that I can relate to in my own experiences (and some help in what to look forward to), my son will be 5 months old next week, and I'm a working mom, and his dad is having a hard time for the same reasons, no adult interaction, constantly demanding attention, and he can't interact with our son the way he wants to (the playground stage, I call it). I want to be a stay at home mom even knowing those challenges but I simply make more money, so it wasn't really a choice if we wanted to survive. Thank you so much for sharing!
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