My Gilded Cage

Little Lily likes to dress herself. If I dress her she has a meltdown of vast proportions. While there are many things in our day that I have had to stand up to Lily about, that she had horrendous screaming fits about, and I had to stand my ground, dressing herself is not one of those things. However, she knows that I know that if I help her she will have an enormous fit. Therefore she revels in the power she believes she holds in her tiny little hands when she is dressing herself. She will chat with me. She will sing songs, or whatever. She will take her time, while I sit next to her. She gets that little smile on her face, like, I have all the power, hee--hee-hee.

Even if we are getting dressed to go to the playground or the cookie store, Lily will take her time. I will remind her that we are off on a grand adventure and she will still take her time. Because she can. I imagine if I was in a hurry we wouldn’t have this moment. This moment that comes about everyday that gives Lily her power trip and seems to settle her in regards to fits and being contrary. It is also a moment of many laughs. This is the reason I like to be a stay at home mom. I feel our home is running smoothly at an unhurried pace. That everyone is getting the moments that they need.

On the other hand, everyday is a struggle for me as a stay at home mom. I have a lot of trouble pulling myself up out of the murky depth of one day after another. It is a vast gulf of repetition everyday. Endless dishes, laundry, vacuuming, scrubbing, cooking, more dishes. There are days, weeks even that I don’t have the will power to pick myself up and do all that crap one more day. I have to struggle against the lethargy of sitting on the couch and watching TV or reading blogs. If I am really good. If I make us a schedule and get outside, do crafts, keep the house clean, cook fabulous dinners; if I do my job with the vigor of a thousand women, life is exactly the same as if I spend the day watching soaps and eating cookies. I feel like the concept of accomplishment is abstract and hard to wrap my mind around. For me being a stay at home mom is hard.

For me the decision to stay home was not one made with absolute certainty, it was the lesser of two evils. In a way I am marking time until I get my degree, until Lily is in school, until Jeff retires from the military, until Mandy graduates from high school. Then I will be a working mom. Then the circumstances will finally be aligned in such a way that working will be the decision which will make a bit more sense. I imagine I will miss sitting on the floor and discussing the meaning of life with a three year old, while I patiently wait for her to put on her clothes so we can actually leave the house, my gilded cage.