Last fall I lost the job that I had most wanted my whole life and that was being a stay at home Mom. Well, I guess the job I wanted most was to be a Mom and that still stands but for the whole time I knew to think about it, I wanted to be able to stay home with my kids. My Mom was home for nearly my whole childhood, she went back to full-time teaching my senior year of high school, and I wanted to be able to do that with the kids that we wanted and worked so hard for. And, luckily, I was able to do that for 10 years.
I quit my full-time accounting job when we were listed for Luke (Hahahahahaha at the confidence that we'd get a baby within a year, which we did the first time but then never again). I went back part-time for a few months before we got him and then promptly quit again, at the beginning of April, at the very end of tax season for accountants. I was then home with the boys, nearly constantly, for 10 years, 4 months. I continued to work very part-time for pay, working once every few weeks until Luke was 9 months old and then working about one morning a week, most weeks, through when Sam started school almost 10 years later. So I worked 1-8 hours a week most of the time and the rest I was focused just on being a Mom. Well, a mom and a very part-time blogger.
There were many days during those 10 years at home that I just wished for an hour of peace and quiet. Just a little bit of time I could focus on one single thing without being interrupted. And there were years when nap schedules worked out that I could do that but then there were also the years when the boys weren't napping and even with afternoon quiet time, I didn't usually get real quiet time (there was always a lot of chasing them back upstairs). I don't think I realized how much my brain appreciated some focus time until I started getting big chunks of it when both boys were in school last fall. All of a sudden my brain remember what it was like to do one solid thing at a time (although, to be clear, I still regularly get distracted by my phone). But that was also my life for 10 years, getting "my time" while they were sleeping, either in the morning, during naps, or after they went to bed. And, of course, Matt has been a very supportive husband so I wasn't solely on kid duty in the evenings.
The nearly 5 years I had at home with just our oldest were a lot more unstructured and laid back than the nearly 5 years I had at home with our youngest, just because by the time we got our youngest, the oldest was just months away from starting school so our lives soon revolved around a school schedule. I was just telling my oldest yesterday that when he was a kid he often got to sleep as late as he wanted (which then gave us problems at bedtime) whereas our youngest was up and out the door before 8am some 800+ school days before he started school himself.
Our days were spent reading stacks of books, playing games (especially as they got older), coloring, running errands, having play dates, going outside as weather permitted, baking, housework, reorganizing the house, etc. A lot of the same things I do now, just alone instead of with a tagalong buddy. (I've lamented to Matt more than once, when he has a school day off to do his own homework and I'm working from home, that my days when I used to color and play Monopoly Deal with our youngest were A LOT MORE FUN than working for pay). We made play forts and played play-doh and picked up all their many messes. I was probably usually thinking about all the things I'd like to get done too and also not fully engaging as often as I should have.
They were hard years but I never once wished I was working full-time or even more than I already was. We waited years to be parents and it felt like such a gift to get to stay home with them, as much work as it was. And a lot of that work hasn't changed since they are in school. I'm still doing laundry and going to the grocery store and doing housework and cleaning things out, I'm just largely doing it alone (although my sister and I usually go to the grocery at the same time so a niece and nephew will often shop with me which is delightful).
I know I was frustrated many days about not getting the time to blog that I wished I could have. And I still cranked out a lot of blog posts some years! I know I felt guilty every time they got daytime screens so I could work more or blog more. The years were not always easy, days could be very hard. But, now on the other side of that time, I am so glad I had that time.
I also know that part of the reason that the shift to being home alone during the school day was particularly hard for me was that we didn't realize our youngest would, in fact, stay our youngest until he was almost ready to start school. I didn't know that the last time I did things with him, when he outgrew a stage, that that would be it for us. We wouldn't have a napping baby again or a toddler or dry out the cloth diapers over the dining chairs. I truly soaked in my last few months with him at home because by that point it was becoming obvious that that would be it for my stay at home Mom days. There were a lot of things to grieve at once late last summer which made it all particularly challenging. Getting to decide and know your baby is your final baby really is a gift.
It still feels like an adjustment at times, after so many years of planning my day around afternoon quiet time I am still reprograming my brain around NOT having that, not trying to have everything done before 1pm or something. I still get sad dropping the boys off at school, particularly on Monday mornings. I still lament that I do more work for pay now and I'm not spending my day playing games and coloring. There are some things easier, definitely. I get to read in silence. I blog in silence. The house mostly stays clean all day unless I'm decluttering. I can hear myself think! But I also get nostalgic when I see SAHMs out and about with their kids. Those years, especially the toddler ones, seem so long ago already.
Those 10 years I had at home with the boys were truly a blessing and I hope they remember parts of them as fondly as I do. Now we're in a new stage and this is fun too, just different. Does anyone dream of being a bookkeeper?? Probably not but it's an easy job to do part-time and mostly from home where I can watch episode of The Office while I work and still switch laundry. And I still have after school hours and summer and all the breaks with the boys. Having them both in full-time school was a HUGE change, especially for me and our youngest. It's been 6 months and I still haven't fully figured out how to structure all this child-free time! But I also appreciate when my brain can think a little smoother and, hopefully, I can focus more on them in the after school hours because I will have gotten plenty of quiet hours during the day. It's all an adjustment, just like life. It would be boring if nothing ever changed!
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