It’s not easy to describe why I’m a stay-at-home mom. It’s especially hard to do without sounding like I think it’s the only right decision.

It is the only right decision for MY family. And, frankly, I’d complain just as much about how frustrating being a working mom is. It’s just what I do. (Although I think I’m making some fantastic headway in not complaining as much as I used to, in seeing just how blessed I truly am.)

Sometimes it hurts to hear these remarks and not have a decent way to describe why this was my decision. There was an especially difficult time when she commented that it’s similar to a friend leaving a prestigious and difficult-to-get-into career program to follow a boyfriend across the country. It made me wonder if I was the only one to see these as different things. The comment still haunts me. Can I be friends with someone who looks down on my world view so completely? Because, to me, following a boy instead of finishing a six-month program is giving up on your life, raising your kids isn’t.

I’m proud of my decision to stay home. I just need to own it a bit more. I’m a feminist because I believe that women should be given equal chances to succeed, that we should have the ability to choose between home and career, and that our careers should be limited based on our abilities, not our sex. I am a stay-at-home mom because I believe our children should have stability in their early years (Every Childs Birthright: In Defense of Mothering) and that a parent is the best hope for that. I believe that childcare can be just as good, but that decent childcare is too expensive where we live, especially when you factor in how badly I truly wanted to be home to raise my kids.

Honestly, that’s the crux. I love being home with my kids. I love that each day there is another chance for me to watch my son learn about the world and to snuggle with my daughter. I love to show them new things and celebrate each little victory. I love to take them to the park and watch their interactions with the other children. I would miss so much of that if I worked outside the home. And instead I’d be paying someone else to enjoy these moments and tell me about them. I don’t want a second-hand experience like that. I want to see Reed’s eyes light up when he sees the moon, even if it’s the hundredth time he’s shown me. I want see Thrace pull to a stand and take her first steps. I’ve seen how upset Tom is when he misses these moments. I don’t feel guilty that I don’t bring in money, I feel guilty that one of us needs to.

Which is actually what it comes down to. The feminist in me applauds the men in my life who’ve chosen to stay home to rear their children, why does she berate me for taking the same path? Yes, my career has a hiccup, but what’s the point of a career if you’d really rather spend your life doing other things? We aren’t seriously hurting for money, we can afford the things we need. We’ve just chosen to have me home instead of taking vacations other than seeing family, which is really all we need. We’ve chosen to have a parent home instead of having two cars, new clothes every season, a new home, the latest gadgets. Why should I need to explain this to my feminist side every time my friend sends me a job opening?

I loved my job. There are days I miss it. But most of the time I enjoy this far more. I work harder every day than I ever did behind a desk, and I never need to question at 5 PM whether I should devote another hour to a project or go home to my kids, which, given the nature of my career was what I watched others do.

There it is, I feel like I’m making a judgment on those mothers. I’m not, it’s just not what I want. They were amazing moms. But the decision they made was for THEIR families, their careers. There is no defense of staying home that doesn’t sound like an attack on not staying home. There’s nothing I can say to my friend to convince her that this was the right decision for me without feeling like I’m insulting her decision.

That has totally been my morning. I’m not sure it’s recoverable at this point.

It is such a gorgeous day! I am so excited because we could go to the park without worrying about the air quality or about overheating. High of 87º. Gorgeous.

Only Tom wakes up to tell me he had been up working until 2 AM, which makes me extremely guilty because I’ve GOT to go to the toilet and the kids are SCREAMING, an hour earlier than they normally wake up.

And then the coffee machine hadn’t been cleaned yesterday (which reminds me, I should take care of that now…done). Then the boy’s throwing things. Tom leaves, late, and baby wakes up from her nap almost at the same time, which is about two hours earlier than normal, having gone back to sleep earlier than she should. The boy isn’t turning around when I say his name and counting to three (my last-resort method) isn’t working AT ALL.

He FINALLY sits on the potty and poops. Everything seems right in the world.

But then we get to the sunscreen. Baby and I have it on, but he’s running around the house. I grab him, throw him over my shoulder, and head back to his room with the sunscreen. And step on my Ergo. On the buckle. With my heel. So, yeah, that’s dead. I can’t imagine life without it. I can’t even imagine the rest of the day without it. Chasing the boy over all terrains while pushing a stroller? Ain’t gonna do it.

Also, this is the fourth Special Thing of mine he’s caused to be broken this week (yes, it was my fault, I stepped on it, and I put it in a place where he could throw it on the floor, but y’know how these thoughts go). The first being a really fantastic Art Deco evening bag I bought before I was married.

I put the boy in his room and tell him I need a time out. Not for him, he can play, I just need to calm down. Baby and I investigate the damage. It’s not going to work. Okay. I’ll make do. We’ll figure it out as we walk. Usually the boy listens and won’t run off too far (as long as he’s on the sidewalk and in sight he’s allowed to walk ahead or down the paths in the parks we walk by, LARGE sidewalks, I just don’t like being outside the running distance of him stepping into traffic, which he CERTAINLY seems to understand). So we’ll be fine.

But then, there’s that Noise. I can’t describe the Noise. It’s something he does with his tongue or his lips or something. It’s almost silent. But it’s there. And it means he’s pooping. No problem, potty is easy to clean out. Only…he’s NOT…on the potty.

“I pooped Mommy.”

“In the potty, sweatheart?”

“Nope.”

“Where?”

“In me pants.” He gives me a sheepish grin, where did he learn that?

I’m gripped.

Back into the living room. It’s been awhile since I’ve needed to clean underpants, and it’s a LOT worse than cloth diapers. Regrouping. I’ve been operating with a low patience supply this week. A combination of lack of sleep, missing my family, being frustrated with The Man for forgetting both Mother’s Day and my birthday. I hold a grudge. I know that’s bad. Admitting these things to myself as I try to let go of my anger at the boy for not using the potty. I mean, it was RIGHT THERE!

Okay, back in. Only, well, let’s just say this isn’t going to be easy to clean up. So. Shower.

And I feel awful about this, because the boy hates the shower. I’m hugging him tight and trying to pull off the underwear. He’s doing really well. Water temperature is great, we’re clean, excellent. Put him down. And he runs off.

This is when I realize we’re not going to the park. But, even being as gorgeous as it is, this is more calming than anything else I could think of.

We settle down, and all play with the Little People. We’re having fun. Then he punches me full on in the face.

“Lunchtime,” I declare.

“Naptime,” I decide, immediately following quite a few too many minutes of heated debate concerning the slicing of sandwiches which may or may not have had too much peanut butter and too little jelly depending on who you choose to believe.

And here the peak is in view. I know it. I’m trying to get out of here. There’s been too much yelling and whining from the boy; he’s been running out the apartment door when I’m not looking, into the hall; he’s been opening the patio door when I’m feeding Evie in the other room, which scares the shit out of me because I’m afraid he’ll get hurt. I can’t take this much today. These are rules he doesn’t normally break.

But here’s the baby. Sweet, little, quiet baby. Suddenly she’s screaming with a bad diaper rash from a poop I HEARD come out as we walked into the room, brand new poop. She’s in SO much pain, and I can’t get her to stop crying, even after I give up cleaning her up. Even after I try to feed her. Even after I give her my iPod with Sesame Street playing, which was so novel I thought for sure it would work. The faint buzzing in my ear as I try to help her is the boy, who finally comes over and steals the iPod, just as baby is beginning to calm. He’s STILL telling me he wants it.

“SHUT UP!” I screamed at him. And I know I was able to perfectly channel my father by the look of absolute terror in his eyes, which mirrored the emotions I feel whenever anyone is mad at me. He sat himself down on the couch and waited for me to come over.

I have never been that loud. I have told myself I would never tell my kids to shut up. I have listened to him prattle on and ask the same question over and over again for weeks and not said it. I have told myself I wouldn’t scare my kids into submission. I know we tell ourselves these things we will not do (let our kids watch too much TV, eat candy, etc.), but this isn’t the same. This isn’t “bad parenting” that you should avoid. To me this is Terrible Parenting.

Please tell me it isn’t just me. Tell me you sometimes yell at your kids things you regret. Tell me that it isn’t my upbringing coming out and that I can learn to control my first impulse, which is to scream at the things making me angry. Tell me we can come back down from this.

There’s an Au Bon Pain and a convenience store at one of the intersections before you get to the McDonalds. My plan was to buy us lunch at McDs (we eat pretty good, so I think once in a little while isn’t so bad), treat us to a cookie at Au Bon Pain, pick up our veggies and then hoof it back home.

But Reed ran into the convenience store, with me chasing him, telling him not to touch anything. He grabbed a Nutrigrain bar and ran out into the Au Bon Pain, laughing the entire way as I chased him.

(It makes it so much worse when they’re laughing as if it’s a game, doesn’t it. As though they’re really just here to toy with your emotions.)

Caught him, brought him back to the cashier, gave her the bar, which seemed fine to me when I handed it over. She called out to me and told me that it was destroyed and I’d need to pay for it. Fine. My kid, who I should have had a better hand on, destroyed something and I OF COURSE I’d pay for it.

But he’s still flipping out and screaming because I’m not buying it for him. She tells me it’s a buck. I hand over my debit card, and she tells me that it’s 1.25 if I pay by card. Which is ridiculous, and at which point I really would have expected her to say, “nevermind,” but whatever it’s a business they need to make money and it was MY fault, I know that. I’ll eat another quarter for a bar that I would normally never touch.

Reed is now COMPLETELY FLIPPING OUT and on the floor. I toss the bar onto the counter and say “I don’t actually want this, can you just toss it?” but, as I’m turning around to calm Reed down, I see it falls on the floor, I just overshot.

As I bend down to pick him up the thing WHIZZES by my ear and the woman SCREAMS something unintelligible at me. I yell back at her that I handed intended to throw it at her, it was a mistake, and run out the door pulling Ben. I then remember I need the receipt because I don’t trust her to charge me the right amount at this point, and go back to ask her for it. AND SHE’S PUTTING THE DAMN BAR BACK ON THE SHELF!!!

I left, dragging Reed by his shoulder, which I hate to do, but he wasn’t moving and I was so furious that I was crying and shaking and completely flipping out. When she threw the bar she knocked a pair of sunglasses off the stand near me, which just seems like it must have been really, really fast and hard. I pulled him past the Au Bon Pain and bent down next to him to explain that we didn’t have enough money to get a cookie any more (a total lie, of course, but how else do I explain without it just being “mommy’s mad”? Natural consequences just seem better in the long run) and told him I was mad that he stole the bar but still loved him and gave him a big hug.

We went and got McD’s, which was still a treat, and seemed reasonable since I’d already basically punished him by saying we couldn’t have a cookie I’d already promised. A woman came up to me and told me she’d seen the end of the flip out and thought I was doing an excellent job and I just lost it and started crying. I feel like an awful mom when I yell at all. And grabbing his arms like that totally freaks me out, because I do it in rage, even if it’s not rage at him. And I do it to scare him into complying with me. I work REALLY hard at not doing these things. But that woman TERRIFIED me in a way I couldn’t explain.

She HUCKED the bar at us. US!!! A woman CARRYING a baby and a three-year old. How is that appropriate? Even if I HAD thrown it at her, which I really don’t think I did, but maybe in trying to calm Reed down I did. EVEN if I did: a three-year old and a BABY!

We got lunch, played in the green area near our CSA pick-up, got our fruit and veg, and made it back home on the Metro in one piece. But I’m still feeling on edge over that woman and how I lost my mind.

So how was YOUR day?

We move too fast and too easily through our lives now. We miss out on the spaces between events. I believe in the importance of pauses. I try to force these breaks: taking the train instead of the plane, walking most places with my kids, cooking dinners and baking from scratch. I want my kids to know that instantaneous does not mean best.

Family members have offered us deals on their older cars, have suggested various pre-made foods when they eat over (is my cooking not good enough?), to pay for airline tickets. They don’t understand that these are choices I’ve made based on something other than the monetary cost. There is a higher cost that I can’t explain without the shorthand of religion and faith.

Reed (2.5 yrs) is beginning to catch on to waiting. I let him watch too much TV—which in my mind right now is ANY—but when I tell him he needs to occupy himself for a little while he’ll generally find a car or crayon. I don’t expect this to last. I’m sure he’ll head off to school and quickly realize not everyone takes a full day to get to Boston. Not everyone takes a few hours to go to pick up groceries. But maybe I can instill in him some small seed that helps him know it isn’t always bad to wait. That you can want things for awhile and not suffer in the meantime. That the journey can be just as important and valuable as the destination.

No, really, I understand that I’m not making a lick of sense. I’m not some deep-thinker, and I’m sure I’m not even scratching the surface of this, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s been on my mind.

Yesterday I heard Elizabeth Gilbert writing about the worst wedding toast she’s ever heard on This American Life. (By the way: The Fears of Your Life segment is most likely the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard.) The toast brings up the best man’s worst day of his life, where he made the decision to send a young man to his death (as part of a jury).

As she says, “The human psyche cannot always tell the difference between good events & bad events; all we can feel is the tremor of the earth.”

Except that even as we were having this conversation it began to devolve into “ka” instead of “kay.” I’ve watched “potato,” said so clearly the first time, become “pata,” and “bicycle” and “basketball” become “buddy.” It sucks. And I wish I could tell you that I’m not jealous of the parents with kids saying “I’m two” or four word sentences to help them explain what they want, but I am. My kid is really smart and I’m really the only one he can communicate with, and even that’s not perfect, he’s been saying SOMETHING all day (“paka!”), and I’ve no idea what he means.

And I know, he constantly has his fingers in his mouth, but if I tell him to remove them he does. But it’s comforting to him. And what else do babies have for comfort at this point? It just seems a little cruel not to let them put their fingers in their mouths.

Anyway, I just had one of these encounters, and I couldn’t help but feel a little offended with her staring at Reed as she complained about kids sucking their thumbs. And I wanted to ask her what the problem is with it? It’s more likely he’ll stop by the time he’s in preschool, the germs he picks up may boost him immune system, I never had to get up in the middle of the night to reinsert a pacifier, and I’m not the one jamming it in to get him to shush. All I see is positives. But I’d love to hear from someone with a different point of view. What are the positives to a pacifier? Why would you be against thumb-sucking? And, if you have older kids, have you ever thought about it one way or the other after the habit stopped? It just seems like one of those things that wouldn’t matter at all in the end.

We are currently (very slowly) reading Harry Potter to Reed. We’ve been reading chapter books to him at bedtime since the day we brought him home from the hospital. We will continue to do so until he tells us he’s sick of it. Maybe longer. We enjoy it and he seems to.

We’ve just met Hermione Granger on the train and the discussion the kids have about the Houses rung true to me. I’ve taken all the silly “tests” about which House I’d be in, and, while I think they’re rubbish, I do think that everyone really knows which House they’d be in. Because it isn’t about what you’d be good at, it’s truly about what you value. If the Gryffindor House were really only for the brave then Cedric Diggory would have been placed there, as well as others. And it would have been far less likely that Ron’s whole family would have been placed in the same house. I believe he was placed there because Ron’s parents did a fantastic job of passing on their values (although why Ron’s mom can’t knit a shirt herself and used sew-on patches for the Christmas sweaters really troubles me, it’s one thing not to knit at all, but to use MAGIC for KNITTING? UGH!).

Gryffindor values duty, or, as it is put elsewhere, chivalry. People find their true duty often contradicts laws and authority, as clearly happens time and again in Harry Potter. Ravenclaw values the attainment of knowledge. Slytherin values power ambition. And Hufflepuff values loyalty. (The difference between duty and loyalty? Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. Or the Tick and Arthur.)

So, in trying to flesh out the values I want to teach Reed (who, poor kid, gets to be my guinea pig) I’m finding it easier to ask myself, “What would get him into Gryffindor?” Valuing friendship, honesty, risk-taking, bravery, standing up for the less fortunate and downtrodden. The truth is that it’s just vague enough to be a good stepping stone. Also, it makes it easier for me to not discount other people’s value systems. Sometimes I’m far too judgmental, and it really isn’t something I want to pass on to Reed.

So what about you? What is your North Star for these evaluations, whether religious, fictional, familial, etc. ? Or am I the only crazy one who thinks about these things as I lay in bed waiting for my son to fall back asleep or start crying so I can decide either go back to sleep or get myself up?

Reed is nine months old. I really can’t believe how fast the time has flown by. Sometimes it’s tough, sometimes it’s, well, I don’t want to say “EASY,” but it’s really is sometimes; it is ALWAYS wonderful. I think it’s time now, however, that I admit that the only thing I can be right now on this blog is a mommy-blogger. I have tried and tried to come up with subjects unrelated to my kid or my new life as a SAHM, only to find that it all comes back to this. So, okay. I concede.

I have thought long and hard about the values I would like to instill in my son. Recently I have started seeing the lessons he has been teaching me.

• Make sure your complaints are heard. For the last few years I’ve worked hard to stop whining, to focus on the positive. However, there is something to be said in making sure that people know you’re not happy. Maybe things can be fixed, maybe they can’t, but making sure that the person with the power to fix things has at least heard you (instead of just complaining to friends and family) can go a long way toward fixing the problem. And if things can’t be fixed, well “grant me the serenity…”
• An opportunity for a new friend is always worth a smile. No matter how miserable Reed may be (and he usually isn’t too miserable) due to a lack of a nap or teething, he always jumps at the chance to see a dog or wave at another baby. It’s a friendly excitement that I love. I’m a bit of an introvert and a little shy around people I don’t know. Whenever we go to the park and are standing around other moms and dads I try to remember this. Talking to other people with a smile on my face always makes me feel amazing.
• When in doubt, laugh. New experiences (running his toes under the tap, standing in the rain on a hot day, being held by a new person) will sometimes freak Reed out a little. He has a little grimace that shows he’s not completely at his ease and looks at us. If we laugh he will laugh and start to enjoy himself. Much like smiling, above, it helps to diffuse the situation a little.
• Take care of food and sleep first. I think this is pretty self-explanatory.
• I can love someone enough to be covered in puke.

I don’t think there are a whole lot of serious essentials in rearing a child, however, I found these things to be incredibly helpful for these first months:

• Moby Wrap (I hate being shackled to a carriage, also, I’ll be getting an Ergo soon for the warmer weather)
• The iMonitor from Graco (at least 75% of the moms I know have this one and agree it is the best out there)–if our apartment didn’t have thick walls that block out almost all noise, however, we probably wouldn’t have gotten it for such a small place
• My Boppy (some people prefer the flat surface of this pillow more)
• Our easy-to-travel-with highchair (we just toss it in the car)
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