Minor Misdemeanors

While I love staying home with Sam, I would say that it has taken me most of his first year to settle into the role.  For a long time I struggled with feeling unproductive and guilty about how little we accomplished in a day.  Jeff would come home from work and I would feel the need to explain that while I did watch Oprah (duh), the TV was not on all day and Sam and I did engage in various enriching activities.  I would list them out like a menu of “legitimate reasons that I do not work or produce income”.  Then I would explain any purchases made that day in a similar menu of “legitimate reasons that I do not work and now spend your income “. 

This was all very unnecessary though, thankfully, because Jeff truly does understand the value of a stay at home mother and has always been very supportive of me.  In fact, our early months with Sam were so difficult because the poor little lamb had such bad acid reflux that he would kiss us good bye in the morning and literally flee for the serenity of his office.  I think he is grateful that I am doing the daily dirty work because he is afraid he wouldn’t survive it.  Plus, I don’t think he knows all the verses to “Wheels on the Bus” so clearly it wouldn’t work anyway.

To give you a completely fair representation of our life, though, I must mention that I have a small personal chef business.  I work at most one day per week and these days those weeks are few and far between thanks to the recession.  So for the most part I would consider myself a stay at home mom.  Jeff travels extensively for his work too so there is also a lot of time when I’m flying solo.   Right now for example.  The whole thing has been an adjustment but I'm finally relaxing into a life of building blocks and walks around the neighborhood.

I was thinking last night, as I was trying not to flog our super annoying dog , that one of the most daunting aspects of parenting for me is the knowledge that Sam is watching my every move.  He’s  learning from me, mirroring me  and absorbing my actions into his little personality.  HOLY SHIT! I could have a real problem on my hands! I do take some solace in the fact that any emotional and social damage that might occur from my parenting will be in line with his true genetic lineage and not the result of a caregivers crazy baggage.  But this is really a lot of pressure.  Pressure to behave and actually think about how he is interpreting my actions.  It’s like having the paparazzi follow you around all day.  Now I know how Jennifer Aniston feels.  Ok..well…if I knew how Jennifer Anniston felt I would not be hauling this king size caboose around all day but you get where I’m going here.  I am not only someone’s role model….I’m the role model for someone who doesn’t know enough to know I’m nuts and ignore me!   (On a side note….I do want to disclaim that we did not intentionally shoplift a bottle of Tums from Target today.  They were hidden in the stroller after a lengthy “shake it baby” session and remained undiscovered until we were at the car.  Clearly anyone with kids understands that I would far rather chunk away at my good karma than put Sam back in the stroller and wait in line inside again. And somehow the bottle has now gone missing so I got what I deserved anyway I suppose.)

In other news, the sausage casing has been ordered and thankfully when you lay down $70 big ones for pantyhose they give you free shipping.  Yes folks, that is for ONE pair.  You will be relieved to know that they are antibacterial.  Oh sorry…did I just make you gag?  I can also purchase something called an “arm sleeve” for when I am so swollen that I need casing for my fat arms too.  What a relief!

I spent more time than I’d like to admit today contemplating whether you can retain water in your ass.  Because here lately I feel like my heiney is becoming formidable competition for my belly.  I keep feeling like someone is following me but I think it’s my ass shadow that keeps catching my eye.

Jeff comes home tonight and his parents are coming into town for the weekend.  His dad is going to help him build a railing along the top of the steps to our third floor.  We’ll be moving Sammy up there when the baby comes.  Then hopefully the weather will be nice enough on Sunday for us to take a bike ride.  Check out my little biker babes.

 

I’m not sure I will be able to maintain my breakneck blogging speed right now but I will at least put up a couple entries a week.  You can subscribe by clicking on the little button up top.