Guest Blog
By Pamela J. Schultz
I
silently groan as I stare at the laundry pile that has now escaped the
boundaries of the baskets and is spilling over onto the laundry room
floor. “It’s actually able to creep
under the door all by itself,” I mutter.
Yes, this is what my life has become.
Now, I actually talk to laundry!
I marvel at the abrupt changes my life has undergone since becoming a
full time “stay at home mom” six years ago.
For
one thing, I wouldn't have been caught dead in the sweat shirt and torn jeans I
was wearing today. Although I’d only
been dressed about two hours, my sweatshirt already had juice stains, toast
crumbs, and a nice blob of dried oatmeal on it from my 15 month old's breakfast,
and, as for the jeans, well, they were comfortable. As recently as baby number
two, I would have changed the stained sweat shirt, but, hey, after three kids I
know it’s a wasted effort—the clean shirt will be dirty within the next hour,
and besides, the sweat shirt thrown into the dirty basket would tip the
delicate balance on the mountain of clothes already there, and they really
would begin to move into my kitchen. I
give myself a little pep talk by remembering that I still put on makeup AND
exercise. Oh, and I wear earrings every
day. For some reason, this small bit of
“accessorizing” makes me feel in tune with my former, super organized self.
I
have to admit that sometimes I wistfully think about all the designer suits and
dresses that used to hang in my closet.
I used to be a working professional.
As a broker for one of the largest brokerage and mutual fund companies
in the nation, I was knowledgeable about stocks, bonds, options, and mutual
funds. My conversation used to be
littered with phrases such as, “The P.E. ratio on that particular stock is…”, “We’ll
set your net credit and debit on your option spread order at…” I now spend my day saying such things as, (to
my son who just turned five while he’s in the bathroom) “Please aim it in the
water!”, and to my 15 month old daughter, “Hello, pretty princess, mommy loves
you so much. Tell mommy what the dogie says,” as I proceed to loudly make every animal sound imaginable for her.
When
my husband, who still is a working professional, and whom I sometimes secretly
envy because he gets to spend his entire day with adults who don’t scream,
argue, or throw things, comes home and says, “Boy, what a day!” I stare at him skeptically
with raised eyebrows because there is no way that his day filled with intelligent,
reasonable adults comes close to anything I have experienced with three kids
under the age of seven. He, being a wise
man who has been married to me for many years knows that he should go no
further when he sees the gleam of battle in my eyes. He has not endured the “exploding diapers”
nor suffered the indignity of being hemmed in by cars at the drive-thru bank
teller when both our baby and our four year old son projectile vomited all over
the back of my head…with my seven year old daughter wailing, “Gross Mom! They’re throwing up all over me, this is a
total barf-o-rama!”, with nowhere to go but forward, and with my son’s warm
vomit dripping down the back of my shirt, I gamely smile at the teller and say,
“Please deposit this into checking.”
In
my most harried, “these kids are driving me nuts” moments, I often ask myself
questions such as “What has become of MY life?” and, “have I accomplished
anything today?” Well, of course I
have. What I do is demonstrated in a
hundred different ways. It’s my baby
laughing gleefully as she plays peek-a-boo with me around the corner of the
family room wall. It’s my son, muddy and
sweaty from soccer practice hurling him-self into my arms declaring loudly,
“Mom, I love you!” (I secretly dread the soon to arrive day when he is “too
big” for these displays of affection).
It’s sitting by my oldest daughter’s side as she happily tells me
everything that has happened during her eventful day of 1st
grade. It’s being able to rock my sick
baby during the middle of the day and feel her warm breath on my neck as I gently
rub her back. These small moments are
exactly the reason why I’m home with my kids, and I’m thankful that I can be.
It’s
true that my 4-wheel drive is no longer the sleek, shiny, urban assault vehicle
it used to be---it’s now eight years old with sticky fingerprints on the
windows and enough cracker crumbs in the back seat to feed a family of
four. My husband and I no longer eat out
at all the trendy, “nice” restaurants. A
meal out is often the local pizza place, McDonald’s, or the buffet line at the
nearest family style restaurant. And, yes,
my wallet is a lot thinner than it used to be.
But for all the mayhem and madness each day brings, I've come to realize
that I’m exactly where I want to be.
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