A Day in the Life of a SAHM

I work. 40 hours a week, 2-2.5 hours total commute time each day. Work's typically not stressful, I have the flexibility to set my own hours as long as I'm getting things done. (The flexibility went out the window with the kid. My job may be flexible, but daycare is less so. Unless I want to wake up earlier, which I do not.)

Today I was a stay-at-home-mom. Kiddo, age 2, has a fever and diarrhea. Husband's job doesn't offer sick time, only PTO. My job offers sick time and allows me to use it for a sick kiddo. So I try and do sick-kid duty whenever I'm not really busy.

I have total respect for stay-at-home moms. It's not like you can just hang out at home all day, the kids need to see friends and go do different activities. It's not easy to just be present for a toddler all day long, every single day of your life. I love eating my lunch in peace at work. I can't do that at home.

But you know what I can't do at work? Drink a margarita. Yep, that's exactly what I did this afternoon while I was making pasta salad and whipping up a batch of my special hot dog relish for dinner. The other thing I can't do at work is make pasta salad and hot dog relish. During a normal work week, this activity would occur at 9:30 or 10:00 at night, when I'd much prefer to be winding down for bed. Also, when your work is in your home, you don't have to commute at the end of the day. So by about 5:00 this afternoon, I was like "I could totally do this! Much easier than working all day, bookended with commuting, followed by dinner preparation, etc."

Then Husband came home. I asked if he wanted pasta salad? "Yes." And some hot dogs? "I had hot dogs for breakfast." Are you kidding me? Aside from the obvious absurdity of eating hot dogs for breakfast, I spent a significant amount of time preparing this damn relish. On top of that, I waited for his late ass to get home before we ate dinner, so we could eat as a family.

Never mind this SAHM stuff, I'm going back to work.

Update: Poor kiddo was sick the next day, then even sicker the next. Spent the whole week out of daycare due to fever and barfing (luckily the diarrhea subsided for the most part.)