You read the title right – I am a working mom; our home has two of us, that’s right TWO working moms. While we are by no means the only ones out there attempting this crazy feat, we have a blog so we can share about it (and you’re here so you are reading about it).
I recognize that working moms have been around for a long time, and have become more and more prevalent as time marches on, I choose only to write about my experiences because I cannot speak to anyone else’s (this is my disclaimer).
I go between I/me and our/we because sometimes I am referring to just myself and sometimes I am referring to both myself and my wonderful, amazing, beautiful, wife Jeanna.
So………back to the reason for this post – I/we are working moms. We get up in the morning and have to not only get ourselves looking acceptable for public viewing but we also have to take care of a very rambunctious two-year old, who I can say with complete certainty, got her love for mornings from me.
I am very much so NOT a morning person. I am in fact a professional snooze button pusher (I should add that to my resume). I have been known to snooze my alarm the full 10 times it goes off and then continue to sleep after. I am extremely fortunate to not have a job that requires I show up at a very specific time or I surely would be fired (a lot!).
But I digress…..so we wake up and attempt to beautify ourselves to a point where we won’t scare little children. Then we attempt to wake the beast/Gradie that is of course if she didn’t wake up first; refer back to my ability to snooze my alarm. When I get her up I of course give in to to the insanely cute requests for ‘boobie’ – who can resist?
After a few minutes of nursing and snuggling I attempt to get her ready to go ‘bye bye’ to “Jami’s House” (our daycare provider for those who don’t know) or as she’s being saying lately, “We go to TAAARRGETTT??” Either way – we just need to get her ready.
AND HERE IN LIES THE PROBLEM………
Toddlers don’t want to get dressed, well I should have added to the disclaimer that I am only talking about my/our toddler, all kids are different, right?! Anyways, she does not want to get dressed, and changing her diaper – ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME??
I begin asking, explaining, pleading (and I am not above bribing) her to get ready. “Let’s take off those silly sleep pants and put on these super-duper fun and exciting PLAY PANTS.” To which I am normally met with, “NO, no take off sleep pants!” or “No Momma no want play pants!” At which point she normally takes off faster than you would think a tiny, petite two-year old could move. Thankfully our house isn’t that big and I am able to rein her in with minimal squealing, wriggling and all out squirming out of my grasp.
This goes on for a few more minutes, after which we attempt to change the diaper and get her ‘play shirt’ on. This has now changed to ‘WE’ as my amazing, wonderful, beautiful wife Jeanna has returned from feeding and taking out our one blind and one half crippled dogs, honestly you can’t make this stuff up.
With two sets of hands/two adults to bribe, I mean encourage her to get dressed; we are able to pry off that diaper, replace it with a new one (before you ask we’re working on potty training…..sort of) and got her ‘play’ shirt on.
SUCCESS – she’s dressed, now what?! Oh that’s right, complete getting ourselves ready, get our lunches (yes one day we’ll pack them the night before, just not right now), and then the most amazing toddler in the world says, “SNACKS!!!!!” Of course we comply, or so we think. We grab a bag of ‘snacks’ (fruit snacks or animal crackers) from the pantry and she gets super excited, BUT………..you take too long, in her eyes, opening them, and all hell breaks loose.
She is as upset as if one of the before mentioned puppies died. However, you cannot make out what she is saying as she is sooooooooooo upset she’s releasing 5 words from her mouth AT THE SAME TIME, repeatedly!! Luckily this only lasts a short time and is usually rather amusing, I’m not sure why, but it is. She is now her happy-go-lucky self again and with any amount of luck I’ll be able to pick her up, hand her over to Jeanna and they’ll be off on their way to “Jami’s House” (or TAAARRGETTT in Gradie’s mind).
That my friends is a morning routine of TWO working moms!!