Whining from a stay at home mom

As I sit her on a Saturday afternoon while Meadow sleeps, I am feeling quite sorry for myself and figured I should just write about it and move on instead of sulking all day! I think it goes without mentioning that I absolutely LOVE being a 'stay at home' mom and would have it no other way. I use the term in quotes because while I do stay at home, I also run my own business and work a part time marketing job. These two combined are what make it possible for me to be at home, but are also what cause me the most conflict with my role as a stay at home mom.

I started feeling sorry for myself when I walked out to the never ending mound of laundry in the garage, and saw Mike, happy as a clam playing with his newest toy- a table saw. He is building all types of gadgets for the garage, storage bins etc. he has his music up loud, sports on the TV, and a delicious cocktail in his had(don't worry, it's after 10am!). He looks forward to the weekend to work on projects, root for his favorite teams, and just relax. I look forward to catching up on laundry, hoping to get to clean the office that I can barely work in, maybe getting to mop the kitchen floor, and finally clean our bathroom! Not to mention new research for my marketing job and catching up on paperwork for my business, planning events and workouts, oh and wait a minute...what about Meadow?

I wanted to stay at home to spend as much time with Meadow as possible, but that is happening less and less. She gets up close to 6 every morning, and I am not one to get up at 5 to get in an hour of work! After she goes to bed at 8, now that I am entering my third trimester I am so exhausted that I'm lucky to get the dishes done. I usually do all my work related calls etc. during Meadow's nap so that I can speak to adults on the phone without having to hush Meadow. So I find myself putting on the TV for Meadow so I can try to get caught up. PS- has anyone ever been to that magical place of caught up? I am beginning to wonder if it even exists!

Mike assures me that our moms went through the same thing, and Meadow is in no way being deprived and that she has an ideal childhood. And he tells me I need to learn to delegate responsibilities to him. He did say he might roll his eyes and complain a little bit but that's OK. And so we come to the final conflict of the stay at home mom: asking my working husband for help. In theory I would love it if my husband did the dishes every night, or better yet cleaned the bathroom, heck I would even settle for making the bed. Yet if I do walk in on him having to pick something up, I immediately feel guilty, obviously it has been there too long and is starting to get on his nerves, and isn't it my job to take care of the house?

Well, I am deciding today to get over them all. Meadow is a very bright little girl with more social skills than she knows what to do with, so clearly all the TV isn't rotting her brain yet! I am not going to believe that anyone lives the perfect life of having everything clean all the time, and if I just vow to get certain things done everyday, I can keep things manageable. And I will let Mike help me, and even tell him what he can do to make my life easier. He knows how hard I work and how much pressure I put on myself so he wants to help relieve that so I can be the happy wife and mother all the time! As long as I promise that some of the things I ask him to do need to be outside, and possibly involve the table saw!

As I preach to my moms in Stroller Strides all the time, the best thing you can do for your children is to take care of their mother. So for my first real New Year's Resolution I am going to give Meadow's mommy a break.