Mom life, am I right? Exhausting, fulfilling, draining. It’s an entire laundry list of opposites and juxtapositions. I’m lucky enough to have stayed at home with my kids since Gabriel was four months old. He’s almost 12 now. I’m also the first to tell you that I am an absolutely terrible housewife. Here’s what a day in the life of a mostly stay at home mom looks like.
I wake up, sort of, at 6 am. One eye peels open, then the other. I reach for my cellphone and hit snooze. We’re definitely not getting up until 6:09 am. Obviously. Usually there’s at least one or two small people that have slithered their way into my bed. So their little warm bodies cozy up to mine and we snuggle and greet the morning. Usually they ask what the weather is going to be like and we ask Siri. Emilia will want to wear shorts even if it’s freezing and declare warm clothes useless.
Once the snooze period is over it’s go time. We race, (literally) downstairs, I make coffee like our lives depend on it, and start making lunches. The littles are fighting, always, about something inconsequential and the big boys are taking the dogs out. Dumpling has been removed from the counter no less than 17 times in the past 60 seconds.
Owen does his homework that he ‘just remembered he had’ this morning even though I had asked him repeatedly the night before to do it. There are 6 people in my kitchen and it’s crowded and wild. We get all of the necessary things done by 6:30 am when my alarm sounds, again. I know that it’s my cue to hurry up and get upstairs to at least run a brush through my hair and slap some mascara on these eyes or else I’ve missed my window.
7:11 (seriously almost every day) we are pulling out of the hood. Driving down hwy 98 towards the elementary school. We listen to the Pulse QOD and answer incorrectly. All of the drama of the morning is forgotten, and Emilia better have that jacket on as we pull up to the school. Doors open and the littles are on their way to learn and grow. Emilia always flashes me a smile and does sign language for “I Love You” before we pull away from the curb.
Big boys are left. We have time before their classes start so we nearly always pull into publix and get a little pick me up. Julian loves the bottled Starbucks Frappuccinos and Gabriel is an Arnold Palmer kinda guy. We get their drinks and then head into Seaside. I try to take note of the beauty that surrounds me. The gulf of Mexico to my left, and the perfectly manicured lawns around Seaside.
After the boys are delivered to their school sometimes, often times, I sit in my car and play on social media for a few minutes, just relishing the newfound silence. Then, I drive home. There I do some pretty mundane chores, laundry, mopping, sweeping, vacuuming, puppy cuddling, kitten wrangling, or product shooting.
Some days we have dance. Some days we hang out at home. Fridays though, I work. There I get to be Christia. Not just a mom and wife. There I get to do things that I don’t normally get to. I get to experience new things, new challenges, and I get to go on trips that are good for not only the people at home but for me. My days are not glamorous and neither are my nights, for the record. This is a day in the life of a mostly stay at home mom.