My First Day as a Stay at Home Mom
The alarm went off at 6 am, just like any other Monday.
I pressed the snooze button a couple of times before forcing myself out of bed and into the bathroom to put in my contacts. I didn’t hop right into the shower though, as I usually do; instead I made my way downstairs to get my first cup of coffee going. I put some dishes away and queue’d up the Today Show, waiting for Evelyn to wake at any moment. This wasn’t going to be a typical Monday, and deep down I knew that, but my brain was still working on processing that.
This was my first day as a stay at home mom. Most people will say that it feels weird on that first day, to wake up knowing you don’t have to go to the office, but it didn’t really feel that way to me. It felt natural, easy…like this was where I was supposed to be at this point in our lives.
I had worried about how this day would go for a long time. Would I be able to keep busy? Will I feel like I’ve accomplished something every day? But once I got moving, spending the day cleaning up from the weekend and entertaining Evelyn, the time flew by surprisingly fast.
Evelyn, while becoming more and more independent, still requires a good amount of attention to keep out of trouble. During naps, I would use those short bits of time to scurry around the house putting things away, cleaning the floors, doing the laundry…things that I usually would let pile up until the weekend. It felt like a productive day, and yet I still had an overwhelming feeling that there was so much to do and so little time. Which I understand sounds totally ridiculous, considering that I now had significantly more time than other busy moms I knew.
And I guess that is the root of why we decided to give this ‘stay at home’ thing a try. I wanted more time. Time to keep up the house, time to cook dinner at night, and time for little projects here and there. I’m the type of person that feels very anxious when I know my to-do list is long, and there’s not enough hours in the day to tackle everything. The thought of what’s to come and what I can hopefully accomplish for our family every day is very exciting.
But most exciting is having more time together as a family. When Matt took this new job offer last May, we decided the sacrifice of him traveling so much would be worth it in comparison to the new experiences we (Evelyn included) would have. But the only way to really maximize those experiences would be for Evelyn and I to be a part of them.
Leaving my job was a terribly hard decision: I loved my company, my coworkers, my boss…it’s not easy to give up something like that. It really came down to deciding that this was what was best for our family right now. Nothing is permanent, and we’ve decided to seize this opportunity now while we have it.
I feel a great amount of responsibility to Matt and Evelyn for this opportunity I’ve been given. I almost feel guilty, in a way, to have the luxury of staying home while Matt and all our other friends and family go off to work each day. Do I even deserve this? That is a question I’m sure I will wrestle with for a while and become more comfortable with as time goes on.
For now, day 1 is down and so far, so good. Even though my living room is starting to look like a daycare, Evelyn and I have had lots of fun playing together. I’m totally in awe as I watch the wheels spinning in her little head, figuring new stuff out for the first time. This new career venture as a stay at home mom will be quite interesting, but I couldn’t have any cuter of a new assistant than Miss Evelyn.
