How is it she is stronger than I am? She's a baby! We are trying to help you!

Last night I watched the new show "Up all night" and while I liked it, there were parts I could do with out and parts I could do with more.  Basically I wanted the show to be about how crazy it is to be a stay at home mom, after being a working woman.  And how crazy it is to have a kid change your life.  Because trust me, it can be pretty funny.
Here is an example of how my day goes.

7:15- Wake up and make my husband (who gets to escape, I mean goes to work) coffee, breakfast, and lunch. I also have to pack him a water bottle and his protein shake for the gym.

7:45- I usually eat something myself, because besides my job of being a parent, I also am on a mission to EAT EVERYTHING IN THE HOUSE and then cry at least daily about my jeans not fitting.
While I'm devouring breakfast, I usually check the blog roll for my couponing fix.  I also stalk all my friend/ex coworkers on facebook and secretly scowl in jealously about their posts about being on their way to work or what a long workday they have ahead of them.

8:00- Seth leaves for work, I go back to bed.  I should stay up and do productive stuff.  I've secretly thought of trying one of those work at home programs where I would answer service phone calls about websites or something, because trust me, we could use the money.  But knowing my kid, she would wake up right as I sign in.  Because my kid can't sleep alone.  She is like me.  She is a cuddler and if she reaches out to pinch your neck and you aren't there CHAOS ENSUES.  Usually before I get back in bed, I refill her milk and change a ginaormous pee pee diaper, because if I don't she usually pees out her diaper and then I have to change the sheets and lysol the mattress.

10:30 or 11- By this time I've slept too much and feel like I need to sleep all day but of course the kid sits up and starts poking me and talking to me and torturing whatever cat has braved sleeping next to me.  I have a sleep hangover headache but force myself up anyway.  The last few days she has been getting up at 9 and 10 and I've been turning PBS on, handing her her milk and going back to sleep for an hour.  When I get up the first thing I have to do is pee.  Then I have to sit the kid on the toilet, because according to everyone who knows everything consistency is the key in potty training.
She sits on the can with the radio on, her books, and a ottoman to prop her feet up (because the kiddie stools don't help with tiny legs) for about 20 minutes.  I get dressed, wash out the milk container, pick out her clothes and a new diaper.  I turn on the PBS in the living room for her because if I don't MELTDOWN ENSUES and usually a cat is harmed in the process.  I open the screen door to give the cats the freedom they beg for and then stand there for a minute longingly looking out the door envying their sojourn in the grass.
Then I hear "MA!?  MAAAAAA!!!" signalling to me that Evelynn is ready to get off the can.  I take her off and wipe everything down and pray that she hasn't reached something and tossed it in between her legs.  I put the toilet paper back on the holder since Evelynn really really likes wiping her lady bits and will use a whole roll to do so.  By this time Evie reminded me that she gets to brush her teeth in the morning aka suck toothpaste of her toothbrush and mimic brushing her teeth when I scold her.
Then we go into living room and I change her diaper and clothes.  And try not to get in the way of her cartoons.  Lest I get screeched at.  Then I go to start lunch.

12:00 - I used to make Evelynn her own special lunch.  Healthy and wonderful and loving and all I'm a good mom-ish.  Evelynn never ate it.  I would eventually give up and chalk it up to "she isn't hungry and is just going to graze like the doctor said" and make my own lunch, sit down and commandeer the TV.  Here comes Evelynn with her mouth wide open and her little hand signing please like she is dying of starvation.  *sigh*
I feed her most if not all of my lunch and go into the kitchen to clean up and start my electric kettle for my fourth pot of hot tea.
Evelynn has also consumed most of my hot tea.  No matter how much I admonish her that it is "Hot" or that it is "Mommy's".  She will put her little mouth over my giant mug and huff into the cup repeatedly and slurp it down.  Back off and exclaim "OW" and then go back for more.  Once she ran off and came back with a straw.  God know where she got it or how long it had been in said secret place or what it was used for previously or how much mold may have accumulated on the inside of the straw.

1:00- At this point in the day I realize I have forgotten some vital part of my personal routine.  I have forgotten to wash my face, brush my teeth, or most days, put on pants.  Hopefully I haven't learned of this misstep because I went out to the mailbox and the workmen across the street trying to save the roof of the house they screwed up but only work on one day a week stared at me in abject horror.  But most days, that's when I found out.

The rest of our day is up in the air.  Some days, blessed days we have playdates or cooking dates with other moms.  But those are getting few and far between since the truck broke down and my husband can't be bothered to fix it.  Also since my kid started biting other kids and drawing enough blood that it requires the first aid kid.
Most days I make a mental list of all the things a good stay at home mom/wife would do like clean the house or make a structured school day to teach my toddler everything she needs to blow the other kids out of the water at preschool and then I lay on the couch and watch PBS cartoons or Little Einsteins or Garfield.  And cuddle under the duvet with the kid.  Checking my phone and stalking my friends on facebook and admonishing them mentally for not being more interesting and posting as much as I do in a day.  I post random thoughts and get myself blocked from about 99% of my friends news feeds.
Sometimes I get a wild hair and work on the 1000 embroidery or crotchet projects I have started as Christmas presents and am no where near finishing.
I check the blog roll and do some couponing.
I count the seconds until Seth comes home, but there is never a definite on that so I count the seconds until the real world gets off work and I can start bugging them.
I send about 400 emails and texts from my phone.  Usually of the kid doing cute things.
At some point in the day, if the weather is nice, we take the wagon to the park and Evelynn plays and eats rocks and I try to read a book.  Sometimes we take a full walk and sometimes I go to the backyard and work in the garden or pick up rotten apples.
I've usually spent a good portion of the day yelling at Evelynn for doing something horrible and thrown her in time out.  Then spent 10 minutes cuddling and explaining to Evelynn why she can't bite/throw things at peoples heads/dump snacks on the floor/spit apple juice at me/hit me/lay on the cats/mess with my phone or the laptop/pinch my neck/mess with the remote/eat cat food/eat cat poop/rip pages out of books/eat foam/hang from the oven door/draw on herself with a pen/use scissors to cut holes in her sweatpants.
There is also the drama of various personal maintenance chores for Evelynn.  Cutting fingernails or toenails is an almost daily task since I can only hold her down for so long before her screams of holy terror cause the neighbors to come by to make sure I am not covering her little body up in the bathtub with cat litter.  That is usually the length of one hand.  Then there is brushing her hair and trying to keep it out of her eyes or keeping her from ripping out the barrettes or ponytail holders I spent hours wrestling her down and putting in her hair in an attempt to make her look like she didn't just get let out of the closet for the first time in a month.
We've also spent at least 50% of the day in the bathroom coaxing out poops or pees following the complicated routine of setting her up in the bathroom (radio on, books and laptop, moving the toilet paper out of reach, moving anything that she can fit between her legs out of reach, move the shower curtain out of reach, plop her on the toilet, sing the song, and walk away because she doesn't like you to watch, then walk by the door pretending to look busy and making sure she hasn't thrown anything in the toilet or gotten off because sometimes if you leave her too long she gets off and then wipes her ass on the seat and the floor and the ottoman-FUN).
I also spend a good portion of the day changing her clothes after she rubs food or spills on them, finding and putting back on her socks, chasing her around to wipe her face off and ultimately failing while she uses my shirt or the couch or a cat as a napkin instead.
Seth usually calls around 7 to tell me he is on his way home.  Some days his brother shows up and takes her for an hour and then mows the lawn.  Some days my parents rescue me, I mean her.  Some days, when I have a vehicle I get to go shopping with her or to my folks to let her run around and destroy her house.
But on the days that we can't escape and Seth is on his way home I spend that 25 minutes (because he drives slower than a drunk blind man driving) running around picking up the house and trying vainly to make it look like I didn't spend most of the day laying on the couch in defeat or chasing around the kid screaming at it, or hiding behind the laptop listening to pitbull and forcing our kid to perform for the camera.  Or that I spent half the day scheming on how to go back to work.
Usually he walks in the door and Evelynn runs up to hug him and I'm free to start dinner or do whatever it is that I need to do to detox my brain from mom mode, usually watch Anderson and Ellen.  We eat dinner, play around, talk about our days, sometimes we go for a walk.
At 9 we alternate on who gets to do Evelynn's bed time routine.  She gets a long bath and someone gets to wrestle a diaper and pj's on her and lotion her down and brush her hair.  Then she gets to watch Sesame Street on Netflix in the bedroom by herself and Seth and I spend that hour watching our own shows.  Lucky days she falls asleep on her own, but usually after one Sesame Street one of us has to go in there and lay down with her until she falls alseep.  Usually that is Seth while I take a bath.
I spend the next few hours, because Seth is usually asleep too, reading my kindle, playing scrabble, eating food in the kitchen, trying to turn my brain off.

So that is what "Up All Night" should be about.  The hilarious moments where you are chasing a naked kid out into you backyard while the neighbors sit on there deck and smoke cigarettes.
I know it sounds like a lot of complaining, but you know what makes it worth it?  When your kid says something you have been trying to teach them for months, or when she smiles at you for no reason, or runs up to hug you and give you a kiss, or laughs at you when you are at that moment between utter defeat or hysterical laughter, or when she is sleeping at the end of the night, clearly exhausted, and cuddles up to you and sighs a sigh of perfect content.  Those are the moments that make being a new stay at home mom completely worth it and they cancel out all those other moments where you thing to yourself "WHAT WAS I THINKING NOT WORKING??"

Love (being a stay at home mom),
Carrie