Hum Drum Days

I’m struggling lately. I know it has to do with being in a place that still doesn’t feel like home. It has to do with trying to meet other moms and having the opportunity to see how other moms parent their children. It has to do with loads of laundry. It has to do with planning the meals. It has to do with questioning my choices, spending maybe too much time on myself, doing the dishes, vacuuming the floor, worrying about Sam’s development, worrying about Sam’s education, worrying about Sam getting sunburned, wondering if I should go to another playgroup, if we should spend more money to buy more organic food or if we really don’t have that money, if I do enough during the day to keep Sam intellectually stimulated, if we are doing the right thing for his sleep problems, if we are dealing with his new screaming fits the right way, if he will scream on the plane ride on Thursday when it is just the two of us, if I am too late on so many things we already made decisions about in Sam’s first year, and if I will always wish I had made another choice, a better choice, a more informed choice, a more proactive choice…wondering already, if it is too late. It has to do with being a mom.

I never, ever saw myself as a stay at home mom. Frankly, for all of my life up until about one year before getting pregnant with Sam I never saw myself as any type of mom. But once I got the mommy bug, I wanted that baby immediately. I remember holding my friend’s one year old daughter thinking to myself as I rubbed her back, “I want this baby IN me…now!” I probably squeezed her too hard at that point. And now, here I am, a mom. And doing what I never could have predicted: staying at home. All day, every day, we are staying at home. And all day, every day, I wonder if Sam is getting everything he deserves. Lately I am immersed in the frenzy of trying to read parenting books, education books, baby food books, all books that will make me feel that I am doing a good job, doing the right things, making the right choices. And just as often I am immersed in the pool of tepid, stand still nothingness called Boredom. The routine. Dear God, The Day In, Day Out Routine! The dishes, the cooking while a child screams at you only to be screamed at once the food is prepared, the picking said food up off the floor, the laundry, the nap preparation, the diapers, the trash, the cat litter, the grocery shopping…the routine. How do we do this?

How do we deal with these challenges? How do we spice it up, make it interesting, keep ourselves motivated? I know that Sam is my motivation in the bigger sense, but I mean practically speaking. How do we keep on keepin’ on and how do we do it effectively, happily, in a way that sets an example, that makes us feel proud of what we do, every day?

And on the flip side, how do we not go crazy with trying to do what’s best at all times, forcing us to constantly try to figure out what best is? I sit in the living room with Sam playing by my side. He’s got a puzzle and a car that he’s banging around that I’ve just been driving around all over his back and his head. Now, do I keep playing with him? Do I try and read a chapter in any one of the 5 parenting books recently borrowed from the library which will potentially make me much more useful the next time I play with him? Which one? The one about emotional intelligence, the one about developmental stages, the one about age appropriate games, or the one about how to make “Super Porridge,” the most important of the Super Baby Foods? Or do I go and try to make the stupid brown porridge so that he has no time to start flailing around at lunchtime, resulting in me getting more food down his little gullet. Do I read a few blog posts and perk myself up mentally and emotionally because a happy mommy is a better mommy? Do I pack us up and get us out of the house for yet another trip to an empty park so that Sam’s world is as big as possible? Run an errand? Do I fold the clothes? Eat some breakfast? Close my eyes for 2 minutes? Too many choices, the same choices that are faced every 15 minutes or so of every single day. It’s enough to make ya wanna sit there and do nothin’.

How do you do it? And I’m not saying I’m unhappy with this set up; this is exactly what I want to be doing. I just mean what I said: how do we do the repetition of the day in, day out in a way that sets an example, makes us feel that we are good mothers, makes us feel like we are making the right choices, from what we do for the next fifteen minutes to how we parent our babies. I guess I just feel like I’m flailing around a bit. I look up and see a lot of question marks, not nearly enough periods.