S.a.h.m.

[marezee]

Well I'm joining the SAHM band- my last day is tomorrow. I'm not due until November but my job was killing me with stress and we all feared my baby could be harmed because of it.

I'm taking a 3.5 week vacation courtesy of mom and dad back home. When I return from vaca I'll probably look for something part time to get me through the summer. Maybe some light filing, receptionist work answering phones or whatnot. Just enough to bring in a bit to bank away for after the baby comes.

I'm really happy with our decision to have me quit my job. It's going to be incredibly tight but we are already experiencing God's blessings in this area. We are trying to have faith- it's hard, but we can do it.

welcome! and god bless you!

good points faithmom!

 

[marezee]

today was definitely NOT a stay at home day....it seems i've been driving somewhere for something for the last 4 days!
and with the price of gas! yikes!

hope y'all are well!

 

[marezee]

today was hot and sunny!

the boys and i spent it outside. They had a blast in the pool and sprinkler.
now we are enjoying being OUT of the sun and INSIDE! lol!

 

[-~Truth_N_Trust~-]

we had a nice sunny day on thursday, probably the last one for a while since where coming into winter here, we had a picnic outside where my daughter got filthy playing in a big hole my DH was half way through, my son was practicing his climing on our pot plants and crawling through the grass - trying to discover the taste of dirt... So sweet!

 

[Moms4Christ]

ladies! I'm in the middle of remodeling our kitchen so I've been MIA on the forums. I've missed being on here. Also, I've been reading Joel Rosenberg's book Epicenter and it is very interesting.

Hope you all have a blessed Sunday!

 

[marezee]

hi moms4christ! How's your kithchen coming along?
We just finished ours 2 years ago.
Next the front porch, then the dining room!

 

[faithmom]

Today I took out all of the screens and washed both sides of the windows AND the screens, and the bases of the windows. Also 4 doors. Uf-tah!

Yep, today qualifies as one of those days where SAHMs are seriously underpaid.

 

[Melbelle]

Today, hubby was leaving for work and the car wouldn't start... The battery was dead, so he didn't go to work today, which was really a blessing in disguised cus I had to go with my MIL to do a few errons and didn't have to take Seth with me. We got done a lot quicker, and MIL didn't spoil him rotten lol...

I had woken up at 6 cus hubby came in and woke me up, and I couldn't get back to sleep...

 

[faithmom]

Hey Melly! Good to see you!

 

[-~Truth_N_Trust~-]

We got done a lot quicker, and MIL didn't spoil him rotten lol...

lol! You should've seen what my MIL bought for my DD on monday, she couldn't help herself! I kept saying - that's too expensive - and she just says, oh well, early birthday present!

 

[Melbelle]

Oh boy, maybe I get upset to easy, but it makes me mad when people assume being a SAHM we do nothing but sit on our butts. I was on another forum and the thread was about what you want or wanted to be when you grow up, and I said that I'm a SAHM, and someone said "Well I would love to stay home and do nothing, that'd be nice" I about had a cow....

Why do people assume cus we Stay home with our kids, we don't do nothing?

 

[.chrys.]

LOL, Melly......just remember, people who judge, judge themselves. (I guess if they'd stay at home, they'd do nothing all day!)

 

[marezee]

Today I took out all of the screens and washed both sides of the windows AND the screens, and the bases of the windows. Also 4 doors. Uf-tah!

Yep, today qualifies as one of those days where SAHMs are seriously underpaid.

wow! I have yet to do that in the three years since we've put in new windows! LOL! I'm terrible at getting started on spring cleaning!

Oh boy, maybe I get upset to easy, but it makes me mad when people assume being a SAHM we do nothing but sit on our butts. I was on another forum and the thread was about what you want or wanted to be when you grow up, and I said that I'm a SAHM, and someone said "Well I would love to stay home and do nothing, that'd be nice" I about had a cow....

Why do people assume cus we Stay home with our kids, we don't do nothing?

IKWYM!!! It really irkitates me when working moms think that SAHM do NOTHING ALL DAY! my DH and I have a running joke. He'll say something like, "did you do such & such today?" And I'll say "no..didn't have time." and he'll say "why not? with all that extra time you have sitting around eating bon bons & watching TV all day!" LOL!
any other SAHM hearing that would be appauled! but I know that he's only joking. we laugh about it constantly.
He always tells his buddies at work how much i do, and that i have dinner waiting for him when he gets home, and that he could never do what i do.
it's funny to me, because i enjoy being a SAHM. it's my dream job!
to all of us!

 

[faithmom]

LOL(big sarcasm on the LOL)....Since I have both worked full time as a mother (with travel the 1st 6 months of my daughter's life), AND been at home full time (the past 10 years). I can tell you that I found it easier to work, then come home to her mentally and physically. There are no lunch breaks or work breaks worked into full-time mommying. In fact, here are some of the things that a person gets to do when they work, that you do NOT get to do as a full-time parent:

• Talk on the phone withouth "mommymommymommymommy" droning in the backgournd. This happens EVERYTIME THE PHONE RINGS until your kids turn 20.
• Write your to-do list, fill in your calandar, or plan your work-day without a child asking if they can color on your planning, or can have a paper and pencil too, or you make a list for them of things to keep them busy so you can get your stuff done.
• Go to the bathroom with the door closed, rather than keeping it open in case of toddler emergencies (which always happen at that moment).
• Go to the bathroom...period....rather than holding it for the next 15 minutes while you encourage your child who is in potty training to just relax and see if it will come out. Or hold it while you remind your grade school child to come back and flush and wash their hands.
• Squeeze in a quick workout or walk over the lunch break, rather than making lunch, feeding lunch, eating the leftoveres and cleaning up the lunch....then planning supper.
• I also used to balance my checkbook and do my bills over my lunch break, eating a sandwich while I did, then file the papers when I arrived home. Try to write out a check accurately when your kids are demanding your attention.
• Take time off from work for dentist, doctor, and OB visits. Without your 2 year old daughter in tow...for instance, standing behind the OB saying, "Mommy, you have lots of little strings where you go pee and babies come out (our son was in utero, and I couldn't find a sitter for the girls on my prenatal exam day)."
• Take off a sick day and go home to bed while your kids are at day care....rather than pouring cough medicine, aspirin and coffee into you to get through being sick, while you care for the kids who were either sick last week, or will be by next week.
• Take the majority of your clothes to the dry-cleaners for pressing and dry-cleaning....it helps professional clothing look better and last, and that is part of what you get paid for right? But if you ar eat home, you buy everything wash and wear (I miss silk very much, thank you), and wash nearly 10 loads of laundry a week for a family of 5. Most of that would still be there, but about a load of my own clothing would be washed by someone else.
• Having a grown up conversation with a grown up about inspiring work strategies, grown up jokes and grown-up issues....like what is happening in the world. VS.....BARNEY IS A DINASAUR IN OUR IMAGINATION lalalalalala for the 100thgazillionth time.
• You have a post-supper tidy routine, tidy again before you go to work in the morning, and arrive home to your home STILL CLEAN!!!!!! You're weekly house cleaining is to clean up after supper....throw in a load of laundry in, fold the last one, go to bed. Dust and vac and scrub on Saturday. Hubbys often split chores when wives work. When you stay at home, what happens in one Saturday for the working person happens EVERYDAY for the stay at home person because people make messes all the time, and people are there all the time. When your kids go to daycare....they clean up the messes your kids made all day.
• When you work, your car also stays cleaner....same reasons as above.
• When you work, you don't pull every muscle in your lower back and between your shoulder blades by carrying around kids on your hip or nursing them all day.
• When you work, and your kids wake at night, you share the duties with your spouse, because you are both working....when you stay at home, it's your job to get up so you spouse can get to work the next day, because you can sit, eat bonbons and recover later.
• When you work, you can run to the grocery store, run errands, get the gas tank filled, etc. on the way to the day care provider. All of that is slower, or has to be done late evening, when you are at home with kids. PLUS you have more grocery shopping to do because you cook more meals.

Simply...when I worked and my daughter was an infant, I was more intellectually stimulated by adults, had more sleep, less cleaning, shopping, cooking and errands to do and had less distractions.

As for what I do during the day? Same thing as a day care provider, only with more intensity and dedication to my childrens health, nutrition, education, morals, values, faith and developement of their abililites and talents, because I am the parent. I also try to make sure all is ready for my spouse when he gets home, so he has a place of solace after a busy day, dinner with his family so he feels connected to us and a chance to unwind. I also do many things we would hire out for otherewise, because I am at home (like all the window screens-sills-bases, I keep a large garden, and I don't have any dry-cleanable clothes) and it saves money. We often make gifts, rather than buy them to save money, and we live by a stricter budget, which means less eating out and more work at home.

Next time someone says something so naive....send them to this post. I've done both, and I know the difference. AND if they wonder why stay at home with all of that work, well, then they just don't get the idea about how effective we can be when we are the ultimate day-care profider, custom matched to the needs of our kids.

Like I've always said, I can always work, but I can't always have a chance raise my kids hands on like I do when they are young.

 

[faithmom]

Double posted...don't know why.

 

[.chrys.]

Wow! Your post totally rocks, Faithmom!!

 

[faithmom]

Thanks....I'm just with Melly on this. I shouldn't, but I can't help but get angry at the assumptions made about SAHMs. Why should people assume anything unless they have been there-done that. Even then, every family and homelife is different. How sadly presumtive.

 

[marezee]

SAHM's!
The last two weeks have been busy and NOT sahm days...LOL!

today...we are headed to the indoor playground after Nick comes home...he has a half day today. It's raining today.

thanks for your earlier post faithmom! you do ROCK!

 

[divineelements]

Faithmom rocks!

 

[Melbelle]

Hey ladies, its been a wild morning, ontop of me being sick the last few days, I'm feeling better, and my house looked sick, and I can't deal with a dirty house erk. So all day today, I been working on cleaning, I'm finally done, I tore Seth's room apart and cleaned it really good, he has this thing where every night before bed he wants to go in his room and take every toy out of the toy box. Then he falls asleep and I wake him up and tell him to go in his room and clean it, of course he is so tired he can't get it all done, so the morning time is spent cleaning so I went in and reorginized things, and hopefully it'll help keep things cleaned up better.... I see him now tragging toys in, I just had to stop him, he'll bring his toybox in here if I'd let him... I'm pooped.