I am very excited to have Colleen of The Family Pants sharing her View here today!
Colleen has written some excellent posts that just grab you and make you feel like cheering. From reading her blog, I can tell that she cares about what's right, even if it's not the most popular opinion. So I knew her perspective was one I had to have here as part of this series.
If you are a stay-at-home parent, your head will be bobbing up and down as you read. If you're not, you will surely come away with a very good sense of what it's really like.
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The Days
When the opportunity arose for me to stay home full-time, I started dreaming of all the ways I was going to be the best stay at home mom ever. The house would smell like lemon cake and I’d shower every day and wear nice clothes and take my kids on Maria Von Trapp-like outings. There would be singing and I’d learn to sew and shit.
This is what happened though.
There are days when I'm ON. I'm in sync with these people and they are in sync with me and we glide through the day on a cloud singing and dancing or something. It's awesome. It feels easy. Those days bring with them the validation that I am not messing up my kids. Good days involve seeing my kids actually share (#tear) or hearing them sing a song together and help each other out. Good are the days that I run back to the bathroom when I hear the words “I’ll wipe your butt, ok?” and am at once proud of them for helping each other and terrified that they have taken it this far.
These are the days when my house smells like lemon cake and a bluebird chirps on my shoulder.
But there are some days that are downright awful, humbling, mind numbing and completely insane. Those are the days when I find myself staring blankly at the wall waiting for rainbow unicorns to appear to break up these two as they fight. Sometimes I find myself frantically making even more play-doh with that frenzied giant smile that I get when I am over-acting the happy. You know the smile I am talking about, right? The one where your face hurts because you are really reaching? That one.
There are the middle days that have both highs and lows. There are rainy days and cabin fever days, funny days and sad days. There are days when you want to run for the hills and days when there is no place else you would rather be. There are days when I just can’t make another craft without wanting to pull my hair out. There are days when I just want to be alone. There are days when I never want to be away from them even for a second. There are giggle days and “NO I DON’T WANT TO!” days.
There are days when I dream of what they will be when they grow up. And days when I cannot bear for them to get even one day older than they are right now. There are days when my house is clean and days when every single dish is dirty. There are days when dinner is slow-cooking all day long and there are days when I dump applesauce into a bowl and toss out a few nuggets at 7 pm.
There are days when I wake up and cannot drag myself out of bed without an act of Congress and days when I fly up out of bed giggling with my kids.
Some days start awesome and end bad. Some days start bad and end with a mercifully soft pillow-like landing. Some days are as boring as watching paint dry and other days are exciting and full of harmony. Some days require too much T.V. while others are spent riding bikes and playing in dirt.
There are good days. There are bad days. There are all the days in between.
Most importantly though, there are days. Days that will slip by and be gone before I am ready. So I love this day anyway. Even if it sucks the high hard one. Because nobody’s perfect. Not even Maria Von Trapp. Least of all me.
But then again, I’m not aiming for perfection anymore.
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This right here is EXACTLY it.
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