From Working Mom to WORKING Mom!

So, I have started a blog....now what?! I think my purpose for this blog is an attempt help organize and process all the crazy thoughts that I have on a daily basis, figure out what the heck I am supposed to do with this stay at home mom gig, and maybe through all my ramblings, I will figure out what I want to do when I grow up and perhaps I even will help somebody else figure it out too.

In 2009 I was officially booted out (laid-off) of the working mom world into the WORKING MOM world....aka stay at-home-mom.  After pulling myself out of the shock, disbelief and denial that I was in after losing my job, I decided everything might just be okay.  Hey, I could do this...it can't be so hard!  After all I didn't have to get up until the kids did and I could be in my PJ's all day if I wanted!  Staying at home is "easy" right?! I can be super mom!! I have a college degree in Early Childhood Education I should LOVE this. I will always have so many tricks up my sleeve the kids will LOVE it!! Ha....um, yeah, right.

Then reality set in....The first thing I learned while being at home with my kids was, being at home was a NEW kind of work!! I thought what am I doing?! I can't do this!! Somebody get me out of here and find me a job quick!

Being home with the kids all day means, planning 3 meals, keeping the house clean ( or ehem....trying to), HOPING to fit in a shower before the hubby comes home, doing laundry, budgeting, grocery shopping, looking for new employment all the while trying to entertain the kids.

Don't get me wrong I LOVE my children to the ends of the earth and beyond (or is that to infinity and beyond?). But unlike many "self-imposed" stay-at-home moms out there.  Being a stay at home mom was not by choice.  I never envisioned myself being at home raising my children.  I thought I would always be a successful career women.  I would bring home the money, I would be an expert in my field and yes, my children would be in....daycare.  Unlike many others out there who feel guilty for having their children in daycare, I believed that daycare would be good for my kids.  Socially, intellectually, and emotionally they would benefit from the daily interaction with their peers. And guess what?  Daycare was great for them. My five year-old still talks about his old daycare and his friends there.  What does he miss the most?  He misses the home cooked food (I don't blame him).

As a working mom (career women), I rarely cooked in fact, I hated cooking, I hated the kitchen,that was my husband's forte (not by choice but purely because if he wanted to eat, somebody had to do it).  I pretty much disliked anything that had to do with domestication. I fought a lot of it and fought hard.  Laundry was the arch enemy.  Actually washing it was not the bad part, it was folding it and putting it away that I hated.  So, I let it stack up until we had to wash clothes.  There were a few times I thought of going out and buying a new pack of socks just so I didn't have to do laundry. I never did let it get to that point, but it was tempting.  I hated grocery shopping, so tedious, so time consuming and I hated the crowds.  Going grocery shopping was TORTURE for me.  During the work week I dropped my kids off at daycare and my husband picked them up at the end of the day.  After work, I played with my kids between the hours of six o' clock to eight o' clock, soaked up every minute, then it was bedtime.  On the weekends, we were busy doing errands, doing laundry, maybe a fun family outing here and there.  Then, we spent Sunday night getting ready for the next work week ahead.

All this perfectly orchestrated career women life ended abruptly when I became a stay-at-home mom in October of 2009.  My world as I knew it had changed and I was suddenly not a working mom anymore. I was a WORKING mom!!  Stay with me as I chronicle the daily struggles, joys, concerns, blood (usually from one of the boys), sweat and tears (just as many from me as from them) of this WORKING mom!