A Day In the Life of A Typical Mom, Or Maybe It's Just Me

One of the wonderful things about being a stay at home mom is that my job(and it is ABSOLUTELY a job) is never the same. Each day is drastically different from the one before. Of course we do have a routine that we follow(key to survival with children) but nothing is set is stone and the unexpected almost always happens. I had a particularly eventful day this week and it made me wonder if other moms have days like these...

I started the day as I always do bright and early with my little pumpkin. We get up watch cartoons, eat breakfast, get ready for the day and eventually go down for a morning nap. Layla has really got the morning nap down, it usually lasts for an hour or two depending on what time she got up in the morning. I can typically take a shower, get completely ready for the day and do a few chores before she wakes up. On this particular day, for whatever reason, she woke up after a whopping 31 minutes. I of course, was in the middle of my shower when she started crying and I was completely thrown off. I rushed to get done so I could go get her and I think that was pretty much the beginning of the end for me.

From that point on, the rest of the day seemed stressful. I had to go shopping and wanted to get it out of the way but Layla needed to be breastfed before we went, so I hurried to get that done and out the door. I was very proud of the fact that the shopping trip was quick and Layla remained awake in the car and in a good mood. Of course when I got home and put her down on the floor to play, I couldn't help but notice that when I was not holding her and did not have a diaper bag on my shoulder that I felt oddly exposed. I looked down and discovered that in my haste to get out of the house quickly, post-breastfeed, I failed to pull my bra back up and clasp it before jetting off. So, though my shirt covered me completely, I did several laps around Fred Meyer with one milk jug uncapped...awesome. I decided to spend the rest of the day playing on the floor with Layla as she practices crawling(she's very shaky but she can do it), since leaving the house was clearly not a good idea.

I should probably mention at this point that our cat Saber(we have two, a skinny, sweet one - Renegade and a fat, crazy one - Saber) had surgery last week and is currently recovering in our upstairs closet that has been cleaned out and fitted with a baby gate in front of the door. He is wearing the "cone of shame" but has been pretty low maintenance for the most part. I go up and check on him a couple times a day and he has been doing just fine, that is, until now.

I took a break from playing with Layla to run upstairs and close the window in the room that Saber was in because it had started to rain. I left Layla safe and secure playing on the floor in my room where I knew she could not get into anything. As soon as I opened the door to the room we have him quarantined in, the smell of poop smacked me in the face. This distracted me momentarily from the waterfall that was pouring in the window(I was too late anyway). So after I closed the window I went over and looked in the closet where Saber was happily rolling on the floor. Obviously he had pooped in the cat box and left it right on top in all its glory, but I had completely forgotten that because there was blood all over the floor and the box and the "cone of shame" and Saber! I had no idea of what to do! He seemed fine but the closet looked like a scene from a horror movie.

I ran back downstairs and grabbed my phone. Layla was fine on the floor so I ran back upstairs dialing Matthew at work. Of course the second I left the room without acknowledging her, Layla had a screaming fit. So now, I am on the phone with my husband who is at work, looking at a room covered in blood with a fat, happy cat in the middle, while my sweet baby screams like she is in mortal danger. I very quickly and dramatically yelled to Matt that Saber was bleeding and "WHAT DO I DO?! WHAT DO I DO?!" He very calmly began explaining that Saber had probably just opened up a scab and would be just fine and to check to see if he was still bleeding. As I bent down to check him out, he reared up on his hind legs and used his front paws to very smoothly pull off the "cone of shame." WTF! NOW WHAT DO I DO?!!!

Baby still screaming, check! Floor that I'm standing on covered in blood, check! Room still reeking of poop, check! Psycho cat now completely unleashed, check!

After a few seconds of not so deep breathing(it smelled really bad), I got a hold of my senses and sprang into action. Saber was no longer bleeding and was in fact, fine, so I wrestled him to the floor and reattached the "cone" as best I could. Then I ran back downstairs and told Layla "Mommy will be right back," which to her meant jack so she continued to scream. I grabbed a bag and a scooper and ran back up to remove his mountain of poo that he didn't feel like burying and dispose of it. I then ran back downstairs and scooped up my little drama queen who squealed with delight...faker. I collapsed on the floor sweaty, tired, and completely out of breath. Layla could tell I was having a rough day and did her best to comfort me with a spoon to the eye. Thanks pumpkin, Mommy is all better now :)

Worrying Gives You Wrinkles, Smiling Gives You...Wrinkles

The last several weeks have been packed with activity, worry and joy. I feel like I have been on an emotional roller coaster. To start, I celebrated my first Mother's Day with my wonderful hubby and daughter. Matthew got up with Layla at 6:30am and let me sleep until almost 8:00! He made yummy cinnamon rolls for breakfast and let me take a morning nap (unfortunately I was fighting a migraine all day). We then packed up the kiddo and headed out in the unusually gorgeous weather and had a lovely picnic near the water. Matt also cooked dinner and we had a very relaxing evening together. It was a perfect first Mother's Day, which I think he will live to regret, because now he has to try to keep it up in the years to come :)

Of course you couldn't have all of that wonderful with out some sort of stress and ours came in a very scary form. While getting Layla ready for dinner one night (aka stripping her down to her diaper because she prefers to wear her food before she eats it), Matt noticed a sizable lump on her back. Of course I immediately started thinking of all of the horrible things that it could be, which is never a good thing, and by the time I called the stand-in-doctor(SID - our doctor is still on maternity leave) in the morning my blood pressure must have been off the charts! The SID said that she was pretty sure it was a lipoma(a fatty deposit, that is totally benign), but to be sure she told me to call and schedule an ultrasound to get it checked out. I felt a little better but because she wasn't sure, how could I be?

So I called to schedule the ultrasound as soon as I got home but apparently the month of May is particularly busy with people with weird ailments in radiology at the hospital. Side note - I completely HATED the fact that I had to go back to the hospital where I spent 2 miserable weeks after almost kicking the bucket while having Layla, but then to have the exact same radiologist that I had the day she was born(the guy that informed me she was breech) was just the icing on the cake. He kept looking at me like "do I know you from somewhere? have I seen you before?" Let's just say I was happy to get the heck outta there! Anyway, I had to schedule it a week out so I worried for an entire week, then after they looked at the results, I was finally able to breath a sigh of relief. It is in fact a lipoma(based on what they could see, nothing is 100% unless biopsied) and required no further action. Yay! I could finally relax and destress, which was important as the worry lines are becoming more permanent on my face! I'm only 26!!!

Everything was swell again and we could move on...or so I thought. That of course was until our SID called us and LEFT A MESSAGE, that she was referring us to Children's Hospital to meet with surgeons to see about removing the lipoma. First of all, who leaves that in a voicemail?! Second of all, who leaves that in a voicemail when you are then going to be unavailable for the next 3 days?! I was beyond frustrated and upset. I was under the impression that everything was fine and now you are telling me that my sweet, perfect little baby is going to have to be knocked out and cut open?! Not cool. Oh yeah, not to mention, that this was all playing out a couple of days before we were supposed to head home to Chicago.

We finally were able to talk to the SID and she said that it was not urgent that we get it done, but to schedule an appt for when we returned. Again with the waiting! After being home for just over a week, in the insane Chicago heat, we returned and went to our appt at Children's. The surgeon that we met with was very nice and said that he was pretty sure it was just a lipoma and that there were pros and cons to removing it and leaving it. He basically gave us all of the information and told us it was up to us...great. I was really hoping he would simply say it didn't need to come out and she would be just fine...no such luck. So now Matthew and I have to figure out what we would like to do. It is not an easy decision to make, however we have some time and I am trying not to worry to much.

In doing so, I am making an effort to really enjoy Layla, who is very close to crawling and has recently started pulling up on things. She has decided that she would rather stand than anything else, it is quite the battle to get her to bend her knees anymore. Standing is where it's at, too bad she doesn't have that balance thing down yet. She is incredibly amusing and I have done a lot of smiling. Though at this rate, I'm pretty sure that smile or worry, I am going to be one giant wrinkle by the time I'm 30...kids are stressful!