On Daydreams and Chasing Onions

31 January 2013

Some days I daydream about being a stay-at-home mom. (I never wanted to before, and I always secretly thought that stay-at-home moms were boring people. There, I said it. I’m sorry, but I get it now. Ever since we brought Meatball home … I get it now.)

Some days I daydream about being a stay-at-home mom, but those are usually the days that I lock myself and my infant son out of the house in sub-freezing temperatures. And the days I lock us out of the house in sub-freezing temperatures … again. Yes I did. Twice in one week. It was a shining moment. I really need to get the spare key back to the neighbors.

Some days I fantasize about reading kids’ books and making dinner, but those are often the days that I sleep through his doctor’s appointment and then, later, sleep through get-dinner-in-the-slow-cooker hour. I become the woman calling the doctor’s office to explain we’re going to be late, and I know, and it doesn’t matter that no one else knows, that I can’t even really blame it on the baby. And then, later, I become the woman texting her neighbor to borrow a cup of … soy sauce, because now dinner isn’t going to be ready until 8 PM and that’s if I don’t have to go back to the grocery store for soy sauce.

Some days I think about homeschooling (and un-schooling), but those are almost always the days that I have to pull over in a fast food parking lot because I didn’t get the side door on the van closed all the way and now the vehicle is screaming at me like we’re all about to die, threatening to wake up the finally sleeping baby, and then – already angry – chasing the Houdini onion that dropped out of said side door to roll under the van and across said parking lot, much to the amusement of the pimply drive-thru team member.

There are days that I imagine I’d make a great stay-at-home mom, and those are inevitably the days that I forget to wash Husband’s pants for work, that the minivan actually runs out of gas in the driveway, or that I almost choke the kid by trying to give him an eye-dropper of vitamin D while he’s fussing. Those are the days I wake up next to a soggy baby because his diaper just couldn’t absorb any more pee, the day I have to wash pee off the wall, or the day I actually laugh at him because I forget to cover him up and he pees directly on his own face mid-diaper change.

Some days I glow as he smiles back at me and I decide that this is what my life is all about now … and it’s usually only about an hour later I realize that if that’s true, we’re both in a lot of trouble.