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I have recently heard a fantasy story describing the work and life of a mom not employed out of the home. This fantasy is a great one--I must say. This stay-at-home-mom has a clean house, clean dishes and clean laundry. Her husband goes off to work in the morning after kissing her passionately good-bye. The children (who make up their beds first thing) never argue with each other, and they play in their rooms quietly all day. This mother lounges around the house all day (since she has nothing else to do), wearing her pressed slacks and blouse, sipping sparkling water, and nibbling bon-bons while she flips the channel between One Life to Live and As the World Turns. As evening approaches, this mom whips up a nutritious dinner in just ten minutes while the children (and their clean hands and faces), set the table and sing a happy song just as Dad comes in the door from his hard day at work. Yeah right. I will have to admit, when I quit my job as a computer programmer analyst, I thought that staying at home with two (soon to be three) kids would be a cinch. Boy was I wrong! I have found that if I leave at least two dishes in the sink overnight, they will propagate into a sink-full by morning. I do not understand why the dishes give birth in the sink instead of in the dishwasher. The only things I find in the dishwasher in the morning are wadded up newspapers and an occasional rubber snake. The same scenario happens with my laundry hamper, although the laundry hamper is much worse. I have often thought of installing a hidden video camera to see where these clothes are coming from. When my husband leaves for work in the morning, (after his obligatory peck on my cheek), I can almost see him skipping to his pick-up truck. It seems as if he is singing: "no more dirty diapers, no more dirty dishes, I'm going to play with my calculator and telephone all day in my quiet office where I can go to a bathroom there ALL BY MYSELF-neener, neener, neener!" Jerk. He has such an easy time during the week. On weekends, he gets a small taste of the "real life" when I hide in the mini-van (with the doors locked) to read a magazine and have some much needed time alone. The kids eventually find me and beat on the door yelling to me that they are hungry. Sigh. Poor old Dad--he is way too busy flipping between racing, golf, and football on the television to feed his offspring. My day is filled with stuff to do. One of my working friends (who obviously did not have kids), innocently asked me, "What do you do all day?" My response was, "What don't I do all day?" In the morning, when I awaken, I pull on my tee shirt and sweat pants and start working. There are hungry kids, a hungry cat, a hungry husband, toys on the floor, dirty dishes, dirty laundry, overflowing toilets (due to non-flushable wipes being flushed), dirty sheets, dirty diapers, spilled milk, ringing telephones, fighting kids, empty cupboards, full dryers, Cheerios on the floor, a two-day missing bottle of milk, and did I mention dirty dishes? Sitting down and consuming a meal is a challenge for me. I have tried to eat when the kids eat, but when I sit down with my coffee and toast they start yelling, "I want some toast too!" "My milk's gone, I want sum more!" Not to be outdone, the baby will holler "DA!" and throw his plate of eggs on the floor. I have tried eating when the kids are finished with breakfast. Even though they are off playing at the other end of the house, they hear the toaster and start hovering around me whining that they want a bite and are starving to death. All this while the baby crawls underneath the table and tries to climb up in my lap biting my calves along the way. As far as eating bon-bons go, I would have to possibly eat them on my way to the bathroom. I would scoop a couple off the kitchen counter, and shove them in my mouth right after I change a diaper, while I walk my "I-gotta-pee- real-bad" walk, with three kids chasing after me demanding Kool aid, grape Pop Tarts, and their own bon-bons. When evening approaches at my house, the only "whipping up" going on is either what I am doing to the potatoes or what I am threatening to do to the kids. I definitely spend more than ten minutes preparing an edible supper just to have the kids say, "Yuck, shoe-nasty. Can I have cereal?" As for the happy song, this is what I hear: Four-year-old: (to the tune of the Barney song) "I love you/butt/you love me/butt/we're a happy butt butt BUTT!" Six-year-old: (shrieking sounds) "I'm ignoring you!" "Mommy, make him stop sayin' 'butt'!" One-year-old: (giggling madly) "Buh, buh, buh!" Isn't that special? My one-year-old's first word is 'butt'. When the father of my children walks in the door in the evening, he asks, "Butt?" I respond with, "Yes, butt. It's been a 'butt-day', dear." Maybe I am not doing it right. I could let the dishes, toys, Cheerios, and laundry pile up around me, and my family could eat cereal for supper. I could possibly lounge around during the day in my floral moo-moo, sipping a Yoo Hoo, and nibbling barbecue pork rinds while I flip between Oprah and Fishing With Roland Martin on the tube. My kids could join me and learn the art of fly fishing and positive affirmation. That's the life! I think I'll start it tomorrow..... Angela Gillaspie (Permission granted by Angela in 2001) 
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