An ode to the stay-at-home mom

Like most mothers, I love my children with a fierce devotion that borders on psychosis.  I can imagine myself into crying spells over possible some day tragedies like my daughter being cut from the dance team or my son being teased for his love of shoes.  I actually have panic attacks when my son cries when I put him down for bed.  I kiss my daughter a thousand times a day and tell her I love her...

I, however, freely admit that I could never be a stay-at-home mom.  I think I'm able to adore my children so much because my time with them is limited.  I work full-time and there's nothing better than coming home to squeals of glee from my littlest loves, but those squeals quickly sound like screams when you're stuck inside with two under three all day.  So, when I learned that both my daytime care givers were going to be out of town the same week, I did what every loving mom would do.  I freaking panicked.  I don't "do" crafts.  I have limited patience with Dora, and while I am a master fort-builder, my 18 month old doesn't get not to pull the blankets down.

I have some ideas.  We're going to bake Christmas cookies one day, and I have resigned myself to cleaning during the two hour nap time to follow.  We're going to go for a freezing winter hike one day.  I'm sure that will waste all of 30 minutes.  It's too cold to spend hours at the zoo and Kaia has decided that she's deathly afraid of the museum.  She reminds me every day.  Today we did some shopping, just to get out of the house.

And this is why I could never be a stay-at-home mom.  We stopped at three stores.  The grocery store let them each take a balloon home.  Sure glad we stopped there first because you can imagine two children in car seats with helium balloons in and out of the car five times.  Oy.  I avoided all but three aisles at Target because I wasn't willing to have the "Santa's coming in a few weeks, so we're not getting anything" conversation today.  We got our groceries at the store, but I forgot two things I really wanted.  We enjoyed the pet store (and the cats are enjoying their catnip), but Kaia did not enjoy when we left twenty minutes after picking up said catnip.

So we got home, I threw some lunch on the stove and I sneaked off to the bathroom while the kids watched some Dora.  It was then that I realized that I was wearing a shirt with a hole in it, my underwear inside out and I had managed to leave my zipper undone.  Classy.  Thank goodness they're too little to be embarrassed by me.