My days remind me of an hourglass. It always seems like I’m running out of time, energy, and my mind. This very morning, my plans to wake up early to go running were thwarted by a long whine of, “Mom-eee! My pull-up didn’t work and my bed is all wet!”  (Mind you, I’ve been trying to get up early to exercise for about 4 years now.)  After my wake-up call from an irritated and soggy 4-year old, the baby came next, squealing and shaking the crib rails like a baby gorilla. And, being a masochist, I looked at the clock.

5:39. “Mooooommmm—eeeee!” (You know what I was thinking.)

Kids, Insanity and Everything In-Between

After my ‘wake-up call’, the day spiraled downward into stay-at-home-insanity. There were temper tantrums and whining and crying…and the kids were worse. Think of wild Pumas with Sippy cups and the Wiggles. On the way to the store, my baby puked in the car and managed to get particles (ew factor coming) inside the belt buckles. After I got him semi-cleaned up, the gas light blinked on. My son, who swore on Buzz Lightyear he didn’t have to pee, made me pull over on the highway so he could do just that. (I considered leaving him there.)  Back in the jungles we sometimes refer to as “home”, the internet crashed, we ran out of wet wipes and formula and-surprise!-a bill collector called. As I wiped splattered grape juice from the dining room walls (seriously, that stuff should be banned) I thought, It’s pure lunacy that I chose this over an air-conditioned office with a leather chair and cappuccino machine at my beck and call.

When I finally got them (the Pumas) settled down for their afternoon naps, I dug through the piles of coloring books and markers on the table and found an application I was supposed to have finished last week. I had left off at the place that asked me “What do you do for a living?”

What do You DO?

What do I do? I surveyed the house. It looked like we had been robbed. I clean, I thought, endlessly. I thought of schlepping from appointments to soccer games to play dates; cooking, kissing boo-boos and shooing away bad dreams. I thought of singing my baby to sleep, chasing after the cats, and playing pirates with my 4 year-old. I thought of trying to look good for my husband after a day covered in biological matter. Then there’s the social calendar, volunteering, and family events and reading the same Little Critter book three times a day. I looked above me at the light bulb I had just changed and grinned.

And in very bold letters, I wrote: “SAHE (Stay At Home Everything).”