Zoo Days and Blender Days

It’s been 3 ½ years since I said good-bye to an office, coworkers, and the guarantee of daily adult conversation to stay home and raise one, now 2, boys. On a good day, it feels like I’m getting away with something. Like playing hooky, there’s this exhilarating sense of freedom when you’re still in your PJs at 9 a.m., or at the mall or the park in the middle of the day, and everyone else you know is at work.

A couple of weeks ago, my mom came to visit for a couple days. On Monday, we got up with no plans, no agenda, and decided on a whim to take the kids to the zoo. It was an overcast October day, just chilly enough to keep the crowds away, but warm enough if you bundled up with jackets and scarves.

Miles has only been to the zoo a few times, so he skipped around taking in everything with wide-eyed excitement. We rode on a tram to the African Journey part of the zoo. I think the ride was as thrilling to him, if not more, as seeing a giraffe up close. We saw gazelles and a cheetah, ostriches and rhinos, okapis and zebras, even a baby elephant. (Sometimes I think that kids who grow up watching Diego and Animal Planet and reading “My Big Backyard” aren’t suitably impressed by all this real-life exotic wildlife in the middle of a city. To them it must seem normal. Like, “Oh, there’s a camel. And look, a squirrel!”)

Even Riley -- usually fussy, clingy baby Riley -- had a great time out in the fresh air in his stroller. My mom, who hadn’t been to a zoo in years, gamely hoisted up Miles so he could see over the railings, chased him down the pathways, and even accompanied him on a couple turns on the merry-go-round. It was as close to a perfect day as you can get.

So there are those days, and then there are the other days. The days when there are no visitors or playdates, the baby’s been up since before dawn and the toddler’s already complaining about being bored and it’s not even 10 a.m. The days when this one’s cranky, that one’s whiny, and Mom’s exhausted from getting up 3 times during the night.

The days when even going to the grocery store seems like a monumental task, and you can’t face one more trip to the library to pass the time, where you’ll inevitably have to break up squabbles and force your child to share and be quiet and maneuver everybody in and out of the germy bathroom. The days when the clock barely seems to move, and you find yourself pushing the stroller aimlessly around the neighborhood, peering into houses wondering what the hell THEY do to get through the day.

Days when you can feel yourself grinding your teeth and your back clenching up, when you say mean things to your children and think bad thoughts about your husband. Days when the freaking blender lid comes flying off, spraying pureed sweet potato and broccoli all over the kitchen, even the DOG. (People who get more than 5 hrs. sleep a night may find this funny, but trust me, to the rest of us it’s not. Not yet, anyway.)

The thing is, you never know what kind of a day it’s going to be. It could start out dreary, and then you could find yourself picnicking by a sunny pond on an unexpectedly warm fall day while your children amuse themselves for ages feeding the ducks. I guess that’s what keeps it interesting. That, and exciting challenges like figuring out how to scrub sweet potato off the ceiling.

LINKS O’ THE WEEK: Anchormommy often blogs about the adjustment to life as a SAHM. And, she makes yummy food. And Kelli from “Writing the Waves of Motherhood” seems to have such a positive attitude all the time. She is always doing fun & spontaneous things with her kids. Just read this post.