Ok. I've always been an advocate for stay-at-home moms. I thought I knew how much work it was to clean the house, do the laundry, run errands, cook food, and watch the baby.
Boy. Oh Boy.
Having been a working mom and also now a stay-at-home mom, let me tell you: being a stay-at-home mom is WAY more difficult/tiring than being a working mom. I wouldn't trade the opportunity to be a stay-at-home mom for anything, but it is a lot more difficult that even I thought! And Jackson is a super easy baby. I can't imagine life with a high maintenance baby!
While my life is a bit odd right now, I am still thoroughly enjoying my new job of motherhood. When I was working I was still a mother, of course, but I am just loving being at home with baby all day. It is so much fun to watch him learn new things. I can almost see the cogs in his little noggin turning as he figures out his toys. He is also fun to take out on errands as everyone we encounter just gushes over him. I mean, he is quite possibly the cutest baby ever.
My new job currently includes the busy-ness of packing up the house. Our table and chairs got picked up yesterday and someone came to pick up our dresser today. Tomorrow someone is coming to look at (and hopefully take) our loveseat. That just leaves our TV stand. The boxes are piling up on one side of the living room and our clothes are almost all packed up. I'm doing the last load of laundry with some of Matt's clothes now and then I'll hopefully just be living on the clothes I plan to pack with me on the road trip to Michigan.
It's all slowly falling together. It is nice to be able to take inventory of what we have and plan for the future. I dream up our future living room, future office/guest room, future bedroom. It will be so nice to be able to pick out our own furniture instead of living on hand-me-downs. We're not planning on going top of the line at all since we'll be moving around a lot with this furniture, but it will be nice to be able to choose the fabric/color we want and go from there.
What has kept me going through this transition? Cookies and Cream Drumsticks, Frosted Flakes, Orange Peach Mango juice, smiles and laughs from my baby, snuggles from my baby (seriously nothing better than the dead weight of your sleeping baby and then the squeeze of his hand on your shoulder), Grey's Anatomy, and hulu.
And through it all, yes, I miss my soldier. On today, 9/11, I am so proud of him for joining the service.
