First Day Home

Last Monday was my first official day as a stay at home mom.  I wasn't planning to go full on "mom mode" right away, though; the plan is for the kids to finish the month in daycare, giving me two weeks to attend to the packing and cleaning without helpful little hands.

On Sunday, Elijah started throwing up at 3am.  He continued this pattern into Sunday afternoon, which meant he would have to stay home with me on Monday.  That's ok, I can be flexible.  I had my Monday packed full of long, tedious errands (think DMV lines) not suitable for a baby, so Sunday evening, I quickly rearranged my schedule with a couple light errands and a lot of chores at home.

Elijah and I got up Monday morning and dropped the rest of the family off at daycare.  From there, we drove back to RSM and stopped at Starbucks. Mommy got coffee, and Bean got to watch the fountain in the courtyard. Looking at the time, I realized we had half an hour to kill before the post office opened, so we decided to stroll through Target.  I had some birthday money to spend, and since my casual wardrobe consists of one pair of jeans and a handful of T-shirts, I hit the clearance racks to look for some clothes more suited to my new home life.

I was actually finding some things I really liked, placing them in the cart to try on.  Then I got a text from Omar, "Come get William."  All the clothes went back on the rack, and Elijah and I drove back to the daycare to get William who had caught Elijah's stomach bug.  I decided to take Joy, too, so I wouldn't have to make a third trip later.

The day really peaked at lunch time.  William was not hungry and asked to go upstairs and lie down.  As I was serving Joy and Bean, I heard William start retching and ran upstairs to find him standing in the middle of his room throwing up.  As I rubbed his back and calmed him down, I heard Joy start crying and retching downstairs.  William hadn't eaten anything else, so he really didn't bring up much, but Joy made a mess.  I got both kids cleaned up and into bed, then put on rubber gloves and started cleaning the dining room floor, chair, and table.  This whole time, Elijah was rather unhappy about being left in his high chair and screamed at me the entire time I was trying to clean up.

I tried to get some work done while the kids were napping.  Just as the kids all started to wake up and move to the couch to watch a movie, I felt the waves of nausea starting to hit.  My first episode of vomiting was memorable as I leaned over the toilet while holding the baby back with one arm while he tried to see what new game Mommy was playing.

From that point on, I could barely get off the couch.  I was so grateful to see Omar arrive home.  He made chicken and rice soup for dinner, but Elijah was the only one who wanted to eat.  And shortly after dinner, the stomach bug got Omar.  I ended up calling my mom and asking her to come put the baby to bed.  My mom offered to take Elijah for the night, but I thought it would be too much trouble in the morning since he expects to nurse as soon as he wakes up.  I immediately regretted that decision.  Elijah woke up half an hour after my mom left.  It took Omar and I ten minutes to get down the hallway into the room, and I ended up sleeping on the floor with Elijah for an hour and a half because I couldn't get back up.

Tuesday morning, every one was feeling mostly recovered, enough to start eating a few cheerios at least.  However, the rhythm of the week was thrown off.  I got no packing or cleaning or any moving preparations done.  My dad came to visit, and the kids and I spent Wednesday and Thursday with him. Friday, I was very busy trying to catch up on my coding.

I have this wonderful idealistic vision of our life in Texas when I will be a stay at home mom.  I'll rise early and have some quiet time before cooking a healthy breakfast for my family and sending my husband off to work.  Then I will fill the kids' days with creative academics and fun field trips to libraries and museums, while getting work done during quiet time in the afternoon.  I'll have a daily house keeping schedule to follow, and have wonderful meal plans every week.

Now if all of you who are already stay at home moms are done laughing at me, let me just say, at least I've learned my lesson early!  Staying home with the kids is going to teach me how to be a lot more flexible.  I'll do my best to plan and clean and keep life going smoothly, but with 3 kids, life will definitely be unpredictable!