After just 5 short weeks, I have come to realization that I breed children who don’t nap. At least not as infants. Whenever anyone would ask me how Stella was as a sleeper I would always have the same answer: she does pretty good at night, but napping: foggetaboutit. I can distinctly recall the frustration I felt when – after hearing and reading, over and over again, that all newborns do is sleep and eat – that Stella was having none of it. It was at this time that I found the beauty of the sling, and began to accept the reality that I needed to stop beating my head against the no-nap-brickwall and get a new strategy.

Porter has started spending more and more time strapped against my chest as I attempt to go about my life and get something accomplished each day. In much the same way that a mother’s spit becomes chemically metamorphisized to work as a cleaner or disinfectant, mothers also gain the ability to accomplish a record number of tasks in under 10 minutes, while simultaneously holding a child in one arm. Once I put Porter in the sling, I can double average productivity. If there were a Mother Olympics, I am sure that the sling would be banned as an illegal, performance-enhancing piece of equipment.

One day this week, Porter refused to nap between the hours of 11:00 am and 9:00 pm, instead choosing to subsist on little cat-naps. Each time an attempt was made to get him down he would fall sleep just long enough that we would think we were home free then, when we actually tried laying him in his bassinet he would be up and ready to party. It was precisely this type of activity that brought a flood of memories back from when Stella was a wee lass. The difference this time, is that I am not going to torture myself with thinking that I will win this battle. Instead, at the first sign of sleep defiance, I strap on the sling and proceeded to go on with my day.

On any given night, Steve and I average about 4-5 hours of sleep. Due to what I can only assume was sheer exhaustion for staying up the better part of 10 hours, Porter did give us a 5 hour stretch that night, but then promptly decided that he was pretty much done sleeping for the evening…at 2:30am. I have been racking my brain to try to remember exactly when Stella’s sleep pattern settled into a routine, but all that I recall was that at some point we finally settled into a moderately tolerable sleep-wake cycle, and that by 2 months she was sleeping through the night. Beyond that, my brain is all a blur.

One thing I do remember is sitting up one night with Andrea and Brian shortly after Stella was born and railing on and on about how hard all this was, and how completely blindsided you are by it. They – being the good friends they are – sat patiently and nodded, and basically, just let me vent. Most likely, secretly high-fiving each other for making the decision to remain kid-free. I don’t know if it was ignorance on my part or just lack of information, but I was just not truly prepared for how overwhelming it all is – even the second time. By this time I know what to expect, but the rules have changed. I have two now. Our lives are different and our routines are different. The expectations have changed. Although I know we will survive, it doesn’t necessarily change the fact that it is what it is.

I had a rather enlightening conversation with the receptionist at my dentist office last week that helped put things into perspective a little. It all started when she apologized for the delay in my appointment and I looked her square in the face and said, “Do you realize I am sitting here, by myself, reading a People magazine, and no one is begging for me or my attention? I can’t think of a better way to spend my time.” She laughed and commented that she can remember the chaos when each of her kids were born. We joked about breast pumps, germ-o-phobia, sleep depravation, the demands of extended family and the overall expectations of mothers. She was empathetic, but more importantly she made the point that one of the hardest parts is getting over the expectations we place on ourselves. We see the world, and all the mothers who have come before us and how they managed to do it. Nowhere in those perceptions do you get the stories of how they were regularly pushed to the edge of their sanity throughout the process. We get it into our heads that it is negative or weak if you complain about it or dare to admit that you are overwhelmed. And although we do get through it, it would be so much more comforting to know that you aren’t the only one who isn’t doing a perfect job of juggling the load of feedings, discipline, housework, quality spouse time, and of convincing everyone that things are just great, when really you have started wondering if a martini at 8 in the morning is really that bad of a thing?

Don’t worry, I’m not ready to lose it. It is just important to me to be able to acknowledge that although rife with rewarding moments, parenting is one damn hard job. I’d also like to be able to have this written down so that later down the road, if my children ever decide to have kids of their own, and can periodically feel the anvil of parenting crushing their chest, they will know that I was there once too. And that it is worth every moment. Like when Porter smiled at me for the first time this morning.

Okay, so I have started writing – literally – over a dozen posts throughout the course of the last week, and ended up having to abort each one for various reasons – usually to stop Stella from doing something annoying and/or dangerous. I tried writing something on Porter’s 1 month birthday, but got stuck moderating an altercation between Stella and the cat – again. I tried writing something about my inagural outings with TWO children, but had to stop in order to keep Stella from crushing her newborn brother. I tried writing about my week alone with both of my children, but had to stop and count to 10 so I wouldn’t murder Stella for ignoring my repeated pleas to cease rocking the rocking chair so violently that it would put holes in the wall. Then there was the episode where she tried to burn the house down. Yes, really. (more on this later) And, there are the many posts that have just plain gone by the wayside because I never even got to begin them, and I couldn’t remember them now if I tried. And there is the post that I started a month ago that I have refused to give up on, no matter how many interruptions I get…someday you will get to read it, I promise.

I am not even mentioning the numerous times that I have had to stop because as soon as I sat down and got about 4 words written, Porter decided that a 12 minute nap was juuuuusssst right, thank you very much.

I have made absolutely no secret of the fact that full-time, stay-at-home mothers are an admirable group – and one that I am just fine not being a member of. Getting to straddle the divide between being gainfully employed, and being a mother is an opportunity in which I find great value. Whether anyone else believes it or not, I think it actually makes me a better Mom. If there is anything I have learned this week is that periodically removing one’s self from a given physical environment is key to maintaining sanity. Some other wisdom gained from this week’s adventure has been: 1) that no matter what I write in these pages, the thought of having to be home alone, all day, everyday with both of my children was far worse than the reality, 2.) Never – I mean NEVER – underestimate how much damage a two-year-old can do when your back is turned, and 3.) if it weren’t for Dore, there is a good chance that by this time I would have found myself in either handcuffs or a straight-jacket.

If I were to pick one moment from this week that shines above all the rest it would be when I came home from taking both kids out on a field-trip and noticed that the hot water heater blazing as though someone had just taken a 3-hour shower. The hot water heater is just not something I ever pay attention to (that is my OCD husband’s job), so the fact that I noticed anything at all was noteworthy unto itself. Of course, the idea of having to assess the mechanical function of a hot water heater is about as appealing as having to lift the hood of my car and figure out, well, anything. I couldn’t have less of a clue. As I surveyed the situation though I did notice that the little dial on the front of the heater was set to ‘VERY HOT’. Not knowing if this was the intended setting, I started tinkering with the dial until I, at least, got the thing to shut off. I left it at this and just figured I’d let Steve deal with it when he got home.

As the whole situation was unfolding, my brain was recalling an episode from earlier in the morning, when I had made Stella pick up all the magnets that she had removed from the side of the dryer. And when I say ‘removed’ I mean swept to the floor in a fit of rage. For any of you who are not aware of the layout of our laundry room, the dryer sits directly next to the hot water heater, and the dial of which I have spoken is at the eye level of, oh say, your average 2-year-old. It didn’t take me long to piece together the events that had most likely taken place. Basically, the hot water heater had been set to flamethrower and left to boil for the better part of 4 hours. Steve pointed out that had the overflow valve not been working properly, there were about a million different circumstances under which we would have had to initiate our homeowners policy. Oh, and Stella: we will be levying charges against your college fund to offset this month’s PG&E bill.

So in a nutshell, that is my week. My week as a stay-at-home, full-time, single parent. And did I mention that the whole week was punctuated by the fact that as a campus club advisor, Steve had to be present for the full 24 hours of the Youth Relay for Life event (from 5:00pm on Friday until 5:00pm on Saturday), then work prom duty Saturday night? No? How about the fact that Porter finally succumbed to his first cold?

To every stay-at-home mother out there: I salute you.