Staying at Home

My biggest fear about not working for the next six months is falling into gradual dissipation. You’d think being a mother would automatically impart a certain level of sophisticated discipline, but that’s not true. D and I were talking about what we are like at our natural baseline. You know, the way you are when you’re alone in the house with a lot of time off. He would probably watch a lot of sports, go play Frisbee golf, eat trader joe’s frozen Chinese food, and do a few house chores. He’d relax, but the groceries would still get bought and the laundry done. I would stay in bed all day with a novel eating chips and celery sticks, immersed in some fantasy world for weeks while the place falls to ruins. My natural proclivity for complete entropy is shocking.

I’m embarrassed to say D seems naturally better staying at home with E than I am; he does house chores with her, takes her out for enriching experiences, plans her meals. My natural state would be to wake up tired getting her in the morning after staying up too late reading the night before, bumming around the house with her in my pajamas, eating whatever we have before putting her to nap so I can go back to sleep.

So I’m realizing I’ll need a game plan for the next six months. Really, for the next four months, because after the second comes in October my game plan will probably be trying to avoid mastitis while getting more than an hour of sleep at a time.

There are lots of good possibilities. I’d like to actually do house chores regularly, rather than just cleaning when the scum builds up too much. I’d like to experiment with cooking different things. I’d like to exercise regularly with D and take a class with him, maybe about missions or marriage. I’d like to find a good small group or play group. I’d like to teach E to swim. I’d love to learn how to sew curtains and pillows, to repaint and reupholster furniture. I’d like to think about how to enrich and support my parents’ lives.

And I’m reminding myself to really enjoy E. Because this time won’t come back again; it’ll be the last time she has me and I have her all to ourselves. Today I hugged her a lot and asked “who does mommy love most after daddy?” and she softly smiled and said “ay-yah” (which is how she says her name for some reason). I figure I might as well say stuff like that while I can.