Going with the Flow...Finally!

Yesterday was one of those summer days where the temperature and humidity hovered above 90 and the news reports issued dire warnings about heat indexes and weather advisories and basically indicated that if you set foot outside of your air-conditioned abode, you would be instantly incinerated like a bug under a magnifying glass.

So the boys and I stayed home. Miles and I did puzzles on the floor and played "construction zone" while Riley rolled around grabbing anything in sight and shoving it in his mouth. Also, he learned how to open the DVD player by kicking the buttons. Clever baby! We were still in our PJs at lunchtime.

This is significant, because it wasn’t always this way. When I had my first baby, I had a difficult time transitioning from Working Childless Person (WCP) to Stay at Home Mom (SAHM). As a WCP, I was used to grooming myself daily and going out into the world to accomplish things like mailing birthday cards, getting the oil changed, and returning phone calls.

As a new SAHM, not only did I sometimes go days without seeing another adult besides my husband, I couldn’t even find time to lick a stamp. Even now, I can’t recall the last time I sent a birthday card. The “check engine” light in the car has been on for weeks. And returning phone calls? I can’t even FIND the phone most days.

As a WCP, I lived and died by my to-do list. I’d go about my day, confidently checking things off. Send invoice: check! Schedule dental appointment: check! Make dinner reservations for Sat. night: check! But as a SAHM, I never seemed to check anything off my to-do list. It just kept going, and it was the same every day: feed baby, change baby, put baby down for a nap, repeat.

As most of you know, I eventually started working from home as a way to preserve my sanity more than anything else. And it’s been well-documented here that this was only a partially successful solution, at best. Because life with kids has a way of continually testing your sanity, people. Not least because it requires you to spend extraordinary amounts of time ALONE WITH YOUR KIDS. AT HOME!

If you think that sounds like a cushy gig, you either haven’t spent 36+ mos. playing construction zone and becoming intimately familiar with your living room rug, or your home has been featured on MTV Cribs. In which case, stop reading this and go polish the silver in your east wing.

Yesterday was a revelation for me because I realized I could enjoy doing nothing more than staying home and playing with my kids. For 5+ consecutive hours, no less! I did not feel the need to pack everyone up and shuttle them to several educational activities and errands. I did not feel the urge to check e-mail and voicemail 10 times. I did not wonder what my former colleagues were doing, or whether other moms would think I was a lazy slob for lying around accomplishing nothing.

Now granted, this was one morning out of about 1,277. (That’s 3.5 years worth of mornings. I did the math.) But still, I’ve come a long way since my early days as an angsty ex-WCP and antsy new SAHM, don’t you think? Maybe tomorrow we’ll stay in our PJs till dinnertime.

LINK O’ THE WEEK: Check out my guest blog on Momversation.com on one of my favorite topics: “Me Time in the Real World”!