Baby Blog

I am reading the cutest little book. It’s called “Mother Shock” by Andrea Buchanan. The lady in the story has an 18-month-old like myself, is a writer like myself and works from home like myself. I just read her chapter entitled ‘I’m an idiot’ and I must agree with every single word in the chapter. You see Buchanan writes that the stay-at-home worker and the stay-at-home mother are two mutually exclusive roles that we try to fill simultaneously to our own detriment. Here is a typical day for a stay at home work at home mommy.

Baby Nik usually stirs in his apple green pit around 7:15 AM. I, on the other hand have only gone to sleep about four hours prior to this so always have to balance between getting Nik out of bed, changing his diaper and getting him dressed with running into the kitchen to make the day’s first pot of coffee. After a breakfast of oatmeal and milk as I complete kitchen chores, its off to the living room to consume copious amounts of coffee and watch Nik begin his day.

As I suck down hot coffee and check e-mails with my right hand I am playing trucks with baby Nik with my left hand. As I start to draft the day’s blogs and copywriting articles, Nik begins to whine. He wants my full attention so unplugs my headset, pulls out the power cord and tries to close the lid of my laptop. This is fifteen minutes after I get started. He spends the rest of the morning trying to get my attention while I spend the time trying to balance being a stay-at-home mom role playing with my baby boy and doing the job that allows me to be a stay-at-home mom.

As soon as Nik goes down for a nap I start writing hard-core. There’s only so much time during the day that I get to work. As soon as Nik is up from his power nap it’s lunchtime followed by tantrum time (because Nik didn’t get to eat just cookies for lunch) followed by afternoon playtime. After exploring a few toys Nik begins to cry “Swings! Swings!” over and over again until we pack everything up and head to the park.

After far too long playing in the park its home for dinner, story time, bath time, cuddle time and bedtime. Around nine o’clock the house seems to settle. The cat crawls up beside me on the couch and I begin to type furiously. I try to squeeze in a full eight hours of work in approximately four hours. And that’s only because I like to sleep. In reality, I usually complete all of my day’s tasks by around 2 AM and I’m just beginning to hit that deep sleep stage when I am awakened by “mama! Mama I’m stuck!”

Yes believing I can hold down a “normal” working life and be a full time mom makes me a bit of an idiot.

I highly recommend Buchanan’s book; it’s not new or on the New York Times bestseller list at the moment but it’s an awesome little read the makes you remember you’re not alone and you can get through all the things related to being a mom.

No seriously you can. You may even meet your deadlines.