I have been a mother for eight years. Since my daughter was born, I have been a stay-at-home mom. I have been there 24/7 since 2016. My daughter has been in school full time for four years and my son is in preschool for half days during the week. I get small windows of childless time, about two and half hours four days a week. So many people asked what I would do when my son went to preschool. Would I go work somewhere part time? Would I find some hobby I could focus on during those couple of hours? Would my house finally be somewhat clean? What was going to happen? Well, I’ll tell ya. More things. More things are what happened. I run errands. Make phone calls for appointments. Go to my own doctor’s, dentist, therapy, OBGYN, car, etc. appointments. Needless to say, I do the things while my kids are in school.

Yesterday was Monday. Mondays are pretty open. My daughter gets on the bus in the morning and my son doesn’t go to school on Mondays. I usually take this day to recover from weekends because we always have SOMETHING to do on Saturdays and Sundays. They are always full. Always. I’ll clean up the living room. Do dishes. Laundry. Clean. Play with the kid. Stay-at-home mom things. Yesterday was a doozy for me. I didn’t really leave the couch. Not because I wasn’t doing anything because I was putting our life in order. I had my brand new 2025 planner in front of me, my colored felt tip slim makers to my right, my calendar to my left, and a to-do list rotating positions. Our family has plans months ahead. We were going into June/July already. Then I had to make appointments. Had doctor’s offices calling to do follow up appointments. My family calling about family things. More planning. More calls. More scheduling. More. More. More.

I usually feel like if I haven’t left the house, I haven’t accomplished much that day. Which I know overall is silly most days. You can accomplish plenty while staying within those four walls. However, I did so much yesterday and then this morning I sat down again and did even more. More appointments, phone calls, emails, signing up for this, messages, texts. The list goes on. While I put on my makeup with a running list going through my head, I always wonder how parents who work full time do these things as well. I am overwhelmed with getting my kids where they need to go. Dealing with all their school stuff. Getting groceries. That weekly Walmart trip. How could I work on top of this. But I also find myself saying, “I wish I could.”

Please don’t get it wrong. I love being a mom. I love being a stay-at-home mom. I got to be there for both of their first steps. First words. I get to be the face they see before school and after school. All the things. Great. I thought that as my kids got older that the demand on me would be less somehow? In some ways it is. My body isn’t in demand in terms of nursing and constant comfort (recovering mom of Velcro babies) which is nice. I don’t need to be a mind reader as to why they are crying for the most part. However, I am still in demand. Now they both talk. They. Both. Talk. A lot. I am constantly hearing “Mom, Mama, Mom, Mama, Mama, Maaammmmaaaaaa”. Getting snacks. Making breakfast, lunches, and dinners. Fixing boo boos. Teaching the rights and wrongs of life. Desperately trying to setup boundaries with them and when I need to put my foot down but do it in a way that doesn’t send them to therapy in 10 years.

Some days I sit here remembering that I was starting to have a career before moving to NH, getting married, having babies and not knowing nothing about having babies. I was someone else. People listened to me in meetings. People asked me questions and clarifications because I was good at my job. I was smart in another setting. I had value outside of laundry, cleaning, and referee. I know it’s different, it changes. No one can prepare you for motherhood. No one. Everyone’s experience is so different. Everyone’s emotions are their own. And every kid is their own kind of chaos. The level of sacrifice you make for your kids leaves you numb sometimes, and being a stay-at-home parent add another level to that. I feel like I’m seeing the lights at the end of the tunnel. My son starts kindergarten next year. I have an incredible loving and supportive husband who wants me to be happy above all else. I have the privilege to take my time to figure it out. I just want to be me again someday. I want to be asked questions and have someone come to me and ask a question outside of, “What was your solution for persistent diaper rash?”

I know that maybe that next chapter of life could center around me being a mom just talking about her life, her experiences, someone to say, “You will get there”. They say the first year of a child’s life you are truly in survival mode. What they don’t tell you is that after that first year are you constantly on The Oregon Trail and someone always has dysentery and is starving. While I don’t feel totally like myself right now, I know I’ll get there someday. I’ll find myself. I’ll be more than their mom to other people. I’ll be me. I know it won’t be for a while but that’s ok. Stan Lee was 39 when he wrote The Fantastic Four. And at the end of the day being one of the most important people to two little people is pretty cool too.