What does a SAHM do all day?
Wednesday, February 22, 2012 at 02:28PM Someone I know recently asked me how I fill my days. I know that there is a lot of wonder and awe over what it means to be a stay-at-home-mom. Which I'd argue is a bad name for what I do. I take my kids all over from lobbying at the House of Delegates in Annapolis to litttle outings to parks and museums or playgrounds and play dates. We do stay home sometimes too and try to do art projects or science experiments or practice our counting (in english and spanish) or work on the alphabet.
We started off the day playing crash boom with Noah's cars on our minitrampoline. I bounced the baby while we did this then put her down to let her play some and then breastfed her while playing the game. All in the span of maybe 10 minutes. Then we colored in the kitchen. Coloring in the kitchen led to experimenting with colors on surfaces other than paper like plastic and cardboad to see how the colors stayed the same or changed on surfaces.
I fed the toddler a second breakfast because he's going through a growth spurt so he's willing to eat which means I shove as much food as I can down his throat. We ran out of soy and cow's milk so today he had 5 pancakes and half of a piece of french toast which never happens. Then I changed both kids diapers and then we headed to the grocery store. There I wore the baby in the Ergobaby carrier and I bribed the toddler with oreos to get him to ride in the cart. He darted into the store before I could get him in the cart so I ran with the baby attached to me, caught him and forced him in the cart. It took a lot of cookies to get through the store.
On the way home the toddler fell asleep because he hadn't napped for a few days and still woke up at 5 am today. So I carried the baby in the car seat and the sleeping toddler into the house at the same time. Then I put the toddler in his bed, and tried to set the baby up so I could go get all the groceries.
Then I rushed to put chicken in the crockpot, to cut up vegetables and lettuce for a fresh salad, and to cut up sweet potatoes for the toddler to add to his lunch and I rotated between cuddling the baby, patting her belly and dancing for her. I don't like to baby wear her while cooking because I often hit my pregnant belly on the stove when cookin Pre-Maya so I don't want to risk it when I cook now. I took breaks to breastfeed the baby and to change her diaper again.
I made the salad and mashed sweet potatoes and just as I was finishing them up the toddler came down. He asked for a banana which I gave him then he licked it and told me he needed a better banana. I changed his diaper. Then I reheated shepherd's pie and got a bowl of mashed sweet potatoes to feed him.
We headed downstairs for the thirty minutes of tv the kids are allowed so I could coerce the toddler to eat lunch. The baby pooped, so I changed her. We came back in the room and the toddler pooped. So I changed him and realized his blueberry consupmption this week meant he'd need a bath. The baby pooped again so I changed her and then we set up a bath for the toddler. The baby was hungry so I breastfed her while bathing the toddler. Then we got him dressed and fed him the shepherd's pie and the sweet potatoes. More diapers and now we're getting ready for the park. We've taken so many breaks for eating, diaper changing and on and on that we started tv time at 12:15 and it's now 2:50 and we've seen 10 minutes of the dvd.
Some days we paint or do science experiments or go on outings. Yesterday we went to toddler gymnastics. Tomorrow we're going to try to head to the MLK memorial for a black history month excursion, weather permitting.
So there you have it. And yes, we head to the store often because we can't take long enough to get all the things we need in one trip, and I'd rather have my husband home earlier from work then to send him to the store after work. Mama needs some help sometimes.
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Reader Comments (4)
Whoa, I'm exhausted just reading it! Nice job!
:) Thanks! It's a lot of fun most days.
When I tell people I am a SAHM/WAHM they always respond, "must be nice..." I don't know if they realized how much I am actually DOing. It is hard work.
I think people have a hard time understanding things they haven't done. When people say that to me I usually say, "I love it, but it is a lot of work." ;)