What do I do all day?

Todays entry is all about what I do all day, since people often wonder, what do moms who stay home do all day? The best way to explain it for those who don't have kids, or who don't stay home, is to compare it to a series of meetings, it's imperative you attend the meetings, they are mandatory, your boss reminds you several times about the meetings, and so you go, coffee in hand, but after the meetings are done and gone, you realize, not only have you accomplished nothing on your list of things you wanted to, but you are now three days behind on things you have to do but don't want to do.

This morning, I was roused too early by two fleece jammies squealing 'daah daah daaah' and giggling with joy at being awake. Ahhh, to have that optimism again, the kind that can only come from getting enough sleep. Then, then what? Free time? Accomplish something? Yes, I accomplished something. I accomplished ironing my husbands wrinkle-resistant, no-need-to-iron-ever twill shirt because he got up too late to do it himself. Then I played chase the third grader out the door to school. That took a good hour. Ah, 9 a.m. Feed the Toddler time. Milk is a great adhesive, by the way. Let it sit for ten minutes, and you'll never get those cheerios off the table and floor. I'm thinking of using milk to repair my husband's ceramic eagle that flew off his bookshelf to a bad end.

After a half hour of trying to escape with cheerios into the living room, the children were fed, the bowls removed and we read a book. To keep you awake, I will refrain from posting it from memory. I bumbled around for another 45 minutes trying to finish things and start other things while simultaneously picking up the cheerios that made it into the living room and redecorating the Christmas tree, until I had what amounts to free donuts in the break room.

Now, replace the donuts with a fire and the co-workers with people that are crazy about you. My sons insisted, yes, they did, they really pointed and nagged til I sat with them in front of the fire going 'oooh' 'hoot' 'oooh' and then fighting for hugs, before they decided to amaze me with their great atheltic feets of jumping up and sideways somersaults. Sooo going to the olympics. So what next? There's lunch, herd the toddlers to nap time, a good half hour of repetitive go to sleep, then the actual nap, deal with the washing machine repair man, homework assistance for the reluctant third grader, dinner, and BUNCO muahahaha. But in between all of that, I need to hang curtains, go through the children's old toys so Santa won't overfill their toy boxes too much, clean a bathroom, write, send out the Christmas Cards that didn't have complete addresses and somehow, hopefully, I will have actually done something.

For those perceptive enough to realize that not one of those things, aside from writing and possibly christmas cards, require any sort of intellecutal effort, well, neither do most jobs, that's what books are for.

So, if anyone asks me what I do all day, from now on, I'm just going to say, "I dunno. Stuff."