Any stay at home mother will tell you that it's not all fun and games. Most days I feel like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, except I never have time to learn the piano.
Yesterday was a day when I found myself wishing it was the 18th century, we were rich, and my children both had their own nanny.
My son has decided he does not want to use the potty anymore. I thought, "Okay. It's a phase, he'll get over it." I took him to the potty twice in the thirty minutes before his nap yesterday afternoon and both times he just said, "No Potty!" So, eventually I put him in his room with all his lovely toys and put the gate up.
10 minutes later, after tending to his baby sister, I went to check on him. And found him painting the mirrored closet doors.
He had already painted the gate (somehow getting it inside the thing so I ended up having to dismantle the contraption), he'd painted his door-both sides- AND the handle, including the little hole where you stick a bobbypin if the door gets locked from the inside, and was in the process of thoroughly and liberally covering his closet doors.
Now, this would have been a huge mess. It would have been a huge mess if it was paint. But it was not paint. No, it was poop! POOP! My son, his room, and the carpet were all covered in shit. He even had it in his eye!
So, I put his sister in her crib and let her yell while I placed him in the bath with the water running and plug open so he wouldn't be sitting in poop water while I scrubbed his room. I
had to throw away two good brushes after I finished scrubbing the carpet with them!Meanwhile, I'm 5,000 words from finishing my second novel's first draft, spiders have invaded my house like Arachnophobia, there's a hole in my backyard where we dug up a pipe and then couldn't afford to have it fixed, my bathroom wall is falling apart because the previous owners were dipshits, the swing-set needs to be finished, the playhouse needs to be leveled, a ceiling in one room of our house needs to be replaced, and ... and ... Well, damn.
I love my children. I love my husband. And I love that I know my kids aren't being abused by some creepy daycare provider. But, if I ever win the lottery, I'm totally hiring an old-school nanny and a maid. Then, when I say, "I need to get some work done." I can go into my office and work, uninterrupted, for more than five minutes at a time.
