Ninety-five percent…

I used to write in here a lot. It was like a brain purge. And I was hon­est. When life was good I wrote it, when it wasn’t I wrote it, when preg­nancy was awe­some or it sucked I was hon­est about it. But for some rea­son I’ve always avoided writ­ing about days like today…I guess its fear, of judg­ment or dis­ap­proval, fear of being taken wrong instead of as I mean to be.

Days like today have me run­ning to get a job. Not because I want to work out of the house, not because we so des­per­ately need the money. Today would be the day that I would want a job purely as an excuse to drop off Eli­jah at day care. I find myself look­ing at prices and fig­ur­ing exactly how much I would need to make just to pay for it.

Days when the whine is at a con­stant since wake up. When he would rather sit and cry then read, or play, or sleep. When noth­ing you do is right except car­ry­ing him around. The days where he doesn’t want to eat, or knock down blocks, or play with hot pads. The days where you remem­ber colic and how at least that was eas­ier because he would even­tu­ally fall asleep. Days when you won­der if you should call the Dr. either for him or for you because there is obvi­ously some­thing not right in the scenario.

And you know that he’s grow­ing, and teething, and learn­ing. You know that his brain is going a mil­lion miles and hour and it must be crazy to be alive and be him, but it doesn’t help. It still takes every ounce of restraint not to just scream and cry as much as he is. When all you really want is for him to be happy but you just can’t be climbed on, pulled at, and carry any more.

Then you’ll get a break. Five min­utes of happy bab­ble. The amus­ing attempt at feta cheese. A nap for both of you. And that’s the only thing that sus­tains you, because you are so close to the tip­ping point.

Being a stay at home mom is dif­fi­cult, and seems impos­si­ble some­times. The per­cent­ages vary, depend­ing on if it’s on of those days or not. I’m think­ing though, on aver­age, through­out a life time (or baby-time) its ninety-five per­cent. Ninety-five per­cent great, and five per­cent impos­si­ble. But I guess most jobs are like that, and the ninety-five isn’t as rewarding.

So today I will bite my tongue, not work on my resume, and look for­ward to the next cheese encounter or five min­utes of bab­ble. Because even though I’m in the five per­cent right now, the per­cent­ages change and the day is made up of a lot of time.

Tags: baby, daily life, daily photo, emotions, Ijah, Life, mental health, motherhood, new mom, parenting, perspective, stay at home mom, stress