...unless you've been at home, unrelieved until the Husband arrives home from work and maybe not relieved even then, depending on what kind of a day he's had, you have no concept of what caring for little children for seventeen hours straight is like. (And then going to bed still on call, and probably waking up twice or more in the night.)
For instance, yesterday. We:
-Did four loads of laundry and hung it on the clothesline.
-Picked strawberries.
-Correction. I picked strawberries. The little 'uns discovered the pile of grass clippings and stuffed them into each other's hair and diapers.
-Picked grass clippings off of each other's persons.
-Did our German homework (watched a Muzzy video).
-Cleaned up an accident that required stripping and washing a slipcover.
-Ate crayons.
-Ate chalk.
-Washed out the mouth of the kid who ate crayons and chalk.
-Applied ointment to a mysterious chin rash and a still more mysterious infected fingernail on the kid who likes to chew off bandaids. (Three guesses whether he's the same one who eats chalk.)
-Got so hot we took off all our clothes. (Well, not me. I have some civilization left in me.)
-Nagged the naked people to put on their clothes before we went outside.
-Made dinner.
-Gave two baths, during which we.
-Broke the toilet seat.
-Nursed a sweating, teething baby to sleep.
-Collapsed into bed.
You can understand why, although I know I am blessed to be home with my chicks, and although I love my children so much I'd gladly wrestle a morlock for them, and although I wouldn't go to work even if the opportunity presented itself, some days I want to lock myself into a closet with a pillow and a blanket and not come out for a very long time.
Really, all jobs have that, don't they? I just finished the Stay-At-Home Mom's Survival Guide, in which I found the following comparison useful:
"Dads, imagine that you are not allowed to leave your workplace. At all. Or if you do leave, your boss, coworkers, and employees all come with you everywhere you go. Horrifying, isn't it?"
Today was better. We got out and about (to buy the toilet seat!) but I figured I must have still looked frazzled because no fewer than five Home Depot employees came up to me with concerned looks and asked if they could help me find anything, reach me something, or move something so I could get by. I'm not terribly visibly pregnant yet, though getting there, so I hope this was due to the fact I was pushing a huge ungangly kiddie cart (the kind with the Nascar number on it) and not to my girth.
Granted, I had two frenzied drivers frantically twisting their steering wheels, and I was shopping for items as diverse as a toilet seat, a doorknob, and a toolbox, but after a while all the concern started to get to me. You start thinking things like, do my shoes match? I am wearing my shirt right-side-out, aren't I?
The toolbox was to corral the kiddie art supplies. In a wild fit of optimism I bought Miss Boo some glitter pens.
Mistake.
But the box was a good idea.
Sigh.
Breanna
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