Adventures in the Life of a (Work-from-home) Mom

There are a lot of things your doctors and parents don't tell you about being a parent.  Some of it involves nuances to the obvious: who knew that babies' first poop resembles roofing tar on a summer day?  Who knew that breastfeeding isn't necessarily the easiest thing in the world, and that it doesn't necessarily come naturally?  Who knew that labor (in my case at least) would be an absolute cinch?  Who knew that cuddling a baby is one of the best feelings in the world?  I sure didn't know any of those things.

There are other things that you don't even imagine, it's not even nuance and shades of grey.  Currently my schedule involves working 3 half days a week while my 3-year-old son is at day-care.  One or two of those mornings, I take my almost 9-month-old daughter to my mom's house.  At noon, I pack up and go on home to continue working from there.  Some days it's easy: the baby naps until it is time to go pick up her brother, and work is slow.  Other days, fifty people need a hundred things, the baby screams for hours on end, and I wonder briefly if the return period has expired on my kids.

The other two days of the work week, I work from home entirely.  I have both the 3-year-old and the 9-month-old with me.  This is okay on the aforementioned slow days.  We play in the kids' bedroom, or downstairs, or bake rolls or cookies and I step away to my computer as needed.  On any given weekday, I may have to wait until the kids go to bed and my household chores are done to go back to my work and finish it up.  This is okay.  But on the busy days, or the days that I have time-sensitive projects to work on, it seems that something always comes up.

Cue the video tape up to today folks, because here is something you never imagined would happen as a parent.  To all of you with children, new babies, thinking about children....here's the real gory truth about working from home.  (Which is an ENORMOUS blessing, it just requires a lot more flexibility than I had previously assumed I possess)

This morning started out like many other mornings.  Ryan left for work at quarter after six, leaving Tanner with a small bowl of cereal to tide him over til breakfast time.  I got up about 10 minutes later, and turned on Tanner's morning cartoon that he is allowed.  So far, so good.  Fast forward about an hour and a half later and the baby, struggling with two new teeth about to erupt and newly discovered allergies, got whiny, so I decided to put her to sleep out on the couch.  At which point her brother decided to start with the day's rambunctiousness.  Half an hour later, she was asleep, and I wanted a shower.  Okay.  Bring the big kid with me, is my thought.  After getting out of the shower, Tanner needs to poop.  He's still using a diaper to poop in, which is totally fine by me as long as he's pooping.  So I throw my underwear on, run into his bedroom, grab a pull-up, and he is good.

This is where the fun starts.  The baby wakes and starts coughing and crying.  I decide to feed her breakfast and work on one of my projects for work while I do so.  This works remarkably well!  Feed baby a bite, talk to her, work on a line item.  Rinse, repeat.

Then I hear Tanner - "Mom, I need some help wiping!" which means that he's sitting on his floor, diaper still on, and wants me to change him like a baby.  (New development I think is due to jealousy of attention to the baby).  I mark my place in my work, stand up, turn to walk to the bedrooms....and hear the sound of retching coming from behind me.  Ariana is vomiting all over herself, her high chair, and the floor.  My suspicion is the drainage from her allergies has caused this massive rejection of mucus from her stomach.  Gross.  So crisis management mode kicks in: first, strip baby of clothes, second, deal with brother.  Okay. Okay.

Okay.  Get baby stripped to a onesie and diaper, and turn to deal with Tanner.  Get him almost done, and I hear all kinds of flatulence coming from the floor level.  Turn to Ariana, and realize that probably more poop escaped the top of the diaper than stayed inside.  Tanner starts crying.  I turn, and he has rolled over on his bed into the poopy diaper.  His pants are now poop-stained...on the outside.  Grab his pants, throw them in the dirty laundry.  Grab the baby, strip her down, do a quick wipe, help Tanner find new pants.

Oh. My. Goodness.  I finally got the kids all settled, picked up the baby and steered Tanner out to the living areas so I can clean up the puke....and the cat is sitting in it.  Well, the cat is due to be groomed this weekend anyway, so no big deal, but....REALLY?!  Are you KIDDING me?!

You would think that these children would have the decency to space this stuff out a little bit.  Apparently, not.  Now they will make up for this later when we get ready for nap or bed time when they smell all sweet from being cleaned up and get all snuggly.  But the main thing I never knew about having (two) kid(s) is: Poop. Pee. Poop. Pee. Vomit. Poop. Sleep. Rinse. Repeat.

Seriously?


Edit: baby is sleeping, Tanner is doing art at his table.  Phew.