We (heart) Amalah
Do you read Amalah’s blog? You should, if you don’t.
It is much more lively than mine. Also, she frequently posts pictures of Noah, her extremely cute baby, and you’ll never get that here. Wacky Mommy is much too verbose for pix. When her little guy was born she got approximately 8,052 posts congratulating her and her honey of a husband, Jason. Anyhoo — her maternity leave is up and she’s heading back to work, and of course this opens up the whole “If you don’t stay home with your kids you are evil and suck” discussion. Rilly, does any discussion get stupider than that one? Here’s my input:
re: Kasey, an Amalah reader who is all nyah, nyah, why have kids if you don’t want to stay home with them? She said, and I quote, “You will have what, a whole two hours after dinner to play mommy, right?”
My response: I “play mommy” at home with my two kids and we are lucky if we get two hours of playtime a day. Because I am a busy girl cooking food they refuse to eat (“That is some yucky kind of food, Mommy!” — Wacky Boy. Another WB quote: “You are the kind of bad mommy who never feeds her kids.” This, when I was making him homemade mac and cheese. Little ingrate!), cleaning up puke (dog/cat/kid), washing peed-on laundry, doing yardwork, trying to, maybe, do an hour of g.d. yoga so I can stay limber enough to keep up with my babies, volunteering at school and in the community (cuz I’ve got oodles of free time, right? so of course I’ll do the PTA newsletter, go on field trips, do neighborhood clean-ups, help build playgrounds, spend time in the class, etc.) and…
(this part was a surprise for me) staying at home is like any other g.d. job. Except you go more in debt with just one income. Woo-hoo! I do love the “lovebucks.” (Wacky Boy just came in to give kisses.) But staying home full-time isn’t like when you take a snow day and lie around in your jammies. It’s a job. My kids were mad at me all day long today and it wasn’t cuz I was “abandoning” them. It’s cuz I didn’t let them eat cookies all day in their jammies. I forced them to get dressed and go to the library and Santaland and they howled like I was torturing them. They got over it. Kids can deal, they do it well.
Be supportive, Kasey, would you? We’re all just trying to do our best.
Kisses, Amalah, and all you other mothers, from the whole Wacky Family. Happy Year of the Dog! Aroooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo…
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hey wacky mommy … just found your blog and you rock! i heart amalah too, and totally agree with you in this blog. this is the dumbest topic to discuss because you are right, it is g.d. job. if you want/have to work outside of the home do … or don’t! whatever happen to “to each their own”? i am a sahm because i thought it was the “right thing to do” for my family and i miss working outside of the home. i have decided to have my cake and eat it too … since i already love to drop my babe off at daycare, i have decided to find a pt job. it won’t be galm, but i am confident that it will make me a better mom in the long run. thanks for letting me rant. happy holidays!
December 25th, 2005 | #
Happy Holidays to you, too! It has sometimes been a struggle for me, staying at home and finding ways to not get depressed/beat down/tired of the tedium. (It’s never boring here at Wacky House, but it does get tedious occasionally!) My writing has always kept me busy at least part-time and sometimes full-time since the kids have come into my life. It makes me a stronger mother, remembering who I am as a person. As for the Mommy Wars — who’s volunteering more, who’s sacrificing more, who’s spending more “quality time” with her kids — fuck it. I mean really, truly, fuck it. There’s no competition if you don’t choose to compete. My mom’s mantra has always been, “You could be right,” whenever anyone’s challenging her and she doesn’t feel like a confrontation. She is very casual and it serves her well.
December 25th, 2005 | #