SAHM vs Working Mom

So like most people I did not know what "SAHM" meant until it became my occupation.  For 5 months now I am a Stay at Home Mom.  Prior to bedrest (which was a glorious 9 weeks of worry, constant contractions, Sex and the City reruns, a boatload of HGTV and any kind of food I could get my hands on) I was a "working mom."

Now that I am home with the kids, I've come to discover that I have a problem with these two terms.  "Working mom" isn't bad until you face it up against "Stay at home mom."  "Working mom" makes the term "Stay at home mom" seem like a sugary piece of holiday pie that we all want a piece of.  Sure, in the 13 years I worked in an office, I always dreamed of the day I had kids and could afford to stay home with them.  I was part of the misconception.  The misconception being that SAH mom's don't work very hard.  Shoot they don't even deserve the word "work" in their title.

I call Bullshit.  This is the hardest job in the world.  Well maybe not the world.  But it's certainly the hardest thing I've ever done.  I am just one opinion, and my situation isn't particularly the norm.  That being said, I would never judge a stay at home mom of one or two children, no matter the child's age or disposition, and assume that my job is harder than theirs.  Being at home with small babies or children is A LOT of work.  Different kind of work, different kind of brain power, but easily the most work I've done in years.

I also have to take into consideration that I never worked particularly hard.  I had my days, and I definitely pride myself on being extremely efficient, so I think sometimes I made certain things look easy.  I always managed to get my work done in a timely manner and get out the door at a very reasonable hour and get my baby home from daycare in enough time to make dinner or help with dinner.  However, I never really went above and beyond in my work.  I was not motivated enough for that.  Part of the reason is I think I was not working in the right field, I was not inspired by my jobs.  I was also never particularly challenged in my jobs.  And in my mind challenges produce.  Not being challenged produces apathy. And lastly, I wanted to get home to my family and my new baby girl.  After all, I was still a mom and had responsibilities at home.

This job leaves no room for apathy.  It is impossible to shut your brain off.  I find myself staring into space a moment or two during the week, mostly when the boys are napping and I am outside with Lilli and she is playing on her own (which is SO rare).  These moments I consider sleeping with my eyes open, this is not boredom.  This is me getting lost for a minute, taking a rest, only to come back to the world because my child has covered her own face in sidewalk chalk.  And I'm back in the game.

So I am taking it upon myself to change the phrase "Stay at home mom".  It irks me, and I will not label myself as such.  I am too brain fried right now to relabel myself, but believe me, I will think about this until I find something perfect and all of you who agree with me can join my club.

Homework

Obviously we have a lot going on here.  So the work we want to do on this house has taken a back, back, back seat.  We have managed to make a little progress on the kids rooms, but they still are not complete.  There are little things here and there that I would like to finish, but either they can't be done due to the stage the kids are in, or I'm just not sure yet what I would like to do.

This picture is where we started with Lilli's room.  It used to be an old office I suppose.  This is at the stage where we ripped down the old chair rail all around the room and filled in the gap with dry wall mud.  The walls had been papered and painted many times to the point where the chair rail left about a 1/8" to 1/4" ridge.

Once the walls were cleaned up we painted them a bright pink.  And all the trim and doors painted a clean coat of white.  Then we ripped out the nasty carpet.  The closet had this lovely puke yellow colored carpet that I'm sure was about as old as the house.  Why someone would leave that nasty carpet and put in new carpet in the room is beyond me.  What is a few extra square feet really?  This is Lilli's book nook.

I hung a canvas covered in chalk board paint in the corner opposite the book nook.  It's low enough for Lilli to reach, but I have not come up with a cool storage system for chalk yet.  I'm thinking a coat rack with buckets hanging from the hooks placed below the chalkboard.

Lilli was always our little birdie when she was a baby.  So I designed her duvet cover fabric and had it printed at a little website called www.spoonflower.com.  I love the way it turned out, but I have yet to finish it.  First the bedrest put it on hold, and now Lilli has bedrails on her bed that don't allow us to make her bed, so I figure, what's the point?  It will get done soon and her bed will be all fresh and pretty when she no longer falls out of it.

This is the wall hanging I also designed, had printed, and sewed together above her bed, matching the soon to be duvet cover and pillow shams.  I happen to love the way this turned out.  The birds hang from little silver clothes pins and can be removed to play with.  I have come into the room at nap time to find the little one with a birdie in her bed.

And my favorite piece...John snagged this dresser off a moving neighbors' front lawn.  It was the right size for a room as small as Lilli's, so we thought a nice paint job on the worn out wood finish would turn it into the perfect piece.  I sprayed the entire thing with silver spray paint, then rubbed it with a charcoal paint.  I left the handles original at first, but decided I thought it needed a little oomph.  Hot pink handles did the trick.  I love how it turned out.  And the mirror is hung just perfectly to catch the sparkling, girly, chandelier on the ceiling.

This was Lilli's room before we learned we were having twins.  When we moved into this house, we didn't bother doing her room because we knew we wanted to start trying for #2 (and #3).  We thought we'd just make it function long enough to get pregnant and then make it into a big girl room when the crib was needed elsewhere.  It is the biggest room on the main floor.  So once we learned of the boys, we had to move her to the smaller room next door, which I just detailed.  This room also had a fair amount of chair rail, which was removed and the walls cleaned up.  Thankfully the previous owners had already taken care of the carpet in this room.

I wanted to make the boys room fairly simple because we have to load it with furniture.  Two walls are painted a nice mid-tone blue and two are white.  I think it brightens the room.  At first we just kept Lilli's crib in the room and moved a full size bed from one of the upstairs bedrooms.  The babies slept together in the one crib and the full bed came in extremely handy for overnight feedings (you can't nurse twins tandem in a rocking chair) and long sleepless nights.  The twins started sleeping through the night about the same time they got big enough to separate into their own cribs.

Now Lilli's old crib is Will's crib.  No bumpers, no blankets, just as simple as it can be.  A few pieces of fabric hung over the bed and a new rug and the room is starting to take shape.

Sam's crib was his cousin's, given to us by John's sister.  Thankfully we had this gift because when faced with having 3 children and losing an income gifts are graciously accepted.  She likely knows how OCD I am and let us know that we could paint the crib to help it match the other one a little better.  Four coats of paint later, and I think it turned out well.  The mobile is also a hand-me-down from Lilli and the boys hang out under it together when mom is putting away laundry or getting the bath ready.

And these have been posted before.  Hanging next to Sam's bed we have their little chalkboards, which will one day be hung at their level.  For now, I keep them up to date with the latest stats.  I can't believe we are already up to 4 months and these babies are starting to do such fun things.  Twins are really an amazing phenomenon.  I look at them everyday and wonder how they got here.  I wish I could get more done around the house, but I couldn't ask for a better distraction than my three kiddos.