I Love My Job

It's been a shitty week. No, really. Not in my typically-dramatic "what a horrible week! None of my shows are new!" fashion. A bona-fide, craptastic week.

While at Gramma and Grandpa's over the weekend, poor Blair spiked a fever that hovered around 102-103 for the weekend. A trip to the pediatrician Monday morning told us that she had strep throat. Strep throat!! In the middle of July!!!

A couple of doses of antibiotics didn't seem to be helping - in fact, it seemed to be making her grouchier (if possible). A quick-spreading rash earned us a second trip to the doctor, which confirmed poor Blair is allergic to penicillin. New medicine. New day. Rash is getting worse, ANOTHER trip to Target for another new medicine (only my second, actually, thanks to a kind-hearted mommy friend who picked up her new antibiotic!!!! God bless girlfriends). This time a steroid for poor Blair (who now has red bumps even in her ears and all over her scalp).

Blair hasn't slept through the night since Friday (it's now Wednesday). I haven't slept in a bed/easy chair without her since Friday. We are exhausted. We are crabby. Even Paige is getting in on the crap-tion (see how I did that? Action? Craption? Ha!) by acting out and working on my last nerve.

And last night Blair projectile vomited all over the two of us. And a basket of clean laundry.

Oh, and the cat puked on our new carpet (seriously, cats?!?!? I'm on your side! Why choose one of the 20 square feet in our house WITHOUT wood floors???).

And Derrick is out of town. For the week.

FOR THE ENTIRE WEEK. (If my parents' friends weren't reading these posts, I'd have tossed an f-bomb in there.).

Um, duh. You don't even need to ask. Of course I cried the entire way to Target today.

So, I was taking some time to decompress from the week thus far. I finally got everyone to bed and looked through some social media, and saw that 'Parenting' magazine is looking for input on what is the best (or worst) thing about being either a stay-at-home mom or a working mom.

And, here's the thing. I may be a tad sarcastic and occasionally my kids are toe the line on good versus who-the-hell-do-these-kids-belong-to? But, I only could come up with one thing. One, little negative thing about being a stay-at-home mom (or, 'homemaker.' Thanks again, IRS.).

I get a little claustrophobic. Not even necessarily like earlier today when I was using the bathroom and had a child on each knee and our (80 pound) dog sat down on my feet, while our cat stared at us all in disgust from the bathroom door (don't judge us, hallway puker!). It's just that sometimes I need a little space. Sometimes I need a little 'me' time, and I don't really get it all that often.

That's it. That's my main complaint (granted, lots of little complaints stem from this, but they all point back to lack of personal time).

The pros of my job are too numerous to list - though here are a few:

1. I LOVE my 'co-workers.' My friends I've had forever who are now moms? It's only made us closer. The new friends I've added to my bunch of girlfriends came into my life because we had one thing in common: we had kids and we stayed home. Now? I'm not sure what I would do without them, even though I only see most of them a fraction of the amount of time I'd like to. They are women I wouldn't have known otherwise, and each of them has added innumerable laughs, bitch-sessions, advice, etc. to my life. Also, if I don't like said "co-workers," I don't need to go to HR. I just need to stop seeing them!

2. I HEART my girls. Duh. They are my kids, so of course I love them. But even when they are stinkers, which is a lot of the time for one of them in particular (whose name may or may not rhyme with "Sch-mage"), even when I lock myself in the laundry room for half a minute for alone time - I am pretty sure I'd pick these kids out of all the kids in the world. They are wicked funny, even Blair who can't talk makes me laugh hourly with her antics. Paige is so freaking clever that I can't wait to hear what comes out of her mouth next (the other day, she walked up to me and said "speaking of walruses, Mommy, I have a great idea! Let's go to the park!" And walked out of the room again. I laughed out loud and looked around, half expecting a live studio-audience to join me).

3. Shock and awe. That is what most of my days are filled with. The other day Blair just decided to pick up her spoon, put it in the yogurt and take a bite. Seriously?!?!? Homegirl is 14 months old!!!! She picked up my phone the other day, held it to her ear and yelled "EH???? Dada!! Baba!!!" She finds Ramsey multiple times a day just to give him a kiss on the head and a hug around the neck.

Paige asked me to "hold your applause" during a rousing performance of 'The Three Bears' earlier this week. In our downtime today during Blair's nap, we worked on rhyming words and she counted backwards from 10. This is in our downtime, people!!! Listen to that - in our downtime today, we worked on fine-tuning and developing a part of another human's brain, preparing her for success in the world!!! Especially in careers where it's necessary to rhyme and count backwards! A rapping rocket launcher! Fame and fortune, here she comes!!

Holy shit! I made these little miracles! They are amazing, and they are all mine, all day long! Yes, they drive me crazy and there are many times a day I feel like I might be on the list of world's worst moms. But in all reality, the world's worst moms don't even care if a list like that exists, much less if they are on it.

Don't worry, the sarcastic posts will keep coming. I'm not a moron - I don't expect every day to be great, or probably to even realize most days how lucky I am. But now I have it in writing, and I can remind myself how lucky I am to be a "homemaker."

I wouldn't change it for the world - or even for a paycheck.