Life As A Stay At Home Mom

Well I have been a stay at home mom for officially 7 weeks now. Although, I don't really count the first few weeks since Brett was home and we had the craziness of the holidays. Those first few weeks were tough and really flew by.  I would be lying if I said that I've loved every minute of staying home.  There have been plenty of tears and a few "what was I thinking?"s.  This job is the toughest job I have ever had. I knew going into it that I would be busy and it would be tough, but I wasn't prepared for how tough it actually is. There is no down time. There is no break. And you are constantly putting the wants of the kids before yourself. When i was working I decided when I wanted to do things and took breaks when I wanted to.  I even ate a whole meal of my OWN food. It seems if I'm not sharing my meal with the kids I'm eating their left over hot dog as my own. If I'm not running Riley to and from preschool I'm keeping Harper out of he pantry and off of tables while taking care of Cole.  On top of all the craziness Riley decided that she would start to cry every morning that I drop her off at school. We are going on 8 weeks of crying and sometimes screaming and running after me as I leave. Just now we are seeing some improvement. She will go a few days without tears and then we are right back to square one on the fourth day. It really sets the tone for how our day goes. I've learned that my hopes of having a cleaner house has gone down the drain. Maybe in a few more months when I'm a little more organized. I'm lucky if I get breakfast and lunch picked up some days!  The amount of laundry that I do seems to have tripled but I don't seem to get it done as fast. I try to do at least one load a day but that doesn't always happen. I rarely put on makeup these days. I'd rather spend my time taking a shower before Brett leaves for the day. It helps if we get out of the house once a day. This usually consists of preschool runs and then Friday play dates or trips to the library.  But really the more time I spend at home the more I enjoy it. I have noticed that things seem to run better when it is just me home during the days, but I definitely look forward to my alone time (with my pump) every evening when Brett gets home. I'm hoping by the spring I will have this whole stay at home mom thing figured out...just in time to start spending some time outdoors!