I had my first “Oh my God, this is my life now” moment about three weeks in to being a stay at home mom. I was driving both the girls to my oldest daughter’s soccer practice around 4:30 the other night and the baby was angry. So like any adorable newborn… she was screaming her head off. My five year old, in her attempt to be “helpful”, was alternating between singing made up songs loudly over the baby or making up knock-knock jokes. “Knock-Knock!”, “Who’s there?”, “Banana!”, “Banana who?”, “Aren’t you glad I didn’t say ‘Orange’?” Cue hysterical laughter from five year old and high-pitched scream from baby.
It was the longest 30 minute car ride of my life.
As I sat in traffic, praying for just one green light, all I could think was, “This is my life now. I am officially a harried soccer mom.” This was the first moment where I thought maybe becoming a SAHM was not the right choice. In those few minutes, I was so stressed out that I was near tears. WHY wouldn’t the baby stop? She was full, she had a clean butt, and she was in her car seat which is normally her happy place. WHY did my five year old insist on being so loud? She had to hear the baby screaming, she could NOT think we needed more noise. WHY? Why would I choose to do this? Being a SAHM is crazy. Why did I give up a job and a paycheck to be a taxi driver for two small nutcases?
We inched along, slowly getting closer to our destination and neither girl would stop. I kept trying to do something, but it’s hard to help an infant in a rear-facing seat when you are in the front, and it’s near impossible to ever get a five year old to stop talking without promising to purchase a pony. Through the rear-view mirror I kept seeing my older daughter try to get the baby to take a pacifier and of course the baby was having no part of it. I briefly considered removing the rear-view mirror… the situation was not helping me calm down.
After a few hours (well, maybe that was just in my head), we got to the fields. I sent my little soccer star/chatter box off to work on my, um I mean HER Olympic aspirations and grabbed the baby to calm her down. A few minutes later, the baby was giggling at me while big sister was running up and down the field.
After a few minutes of calm, I remembered the answers to those WHY questions. I realized that my oldest was just trying to help in her five year old way, and that a child who loves her baby sister enough to at least try is a pretty amazing kid. I realized that as stressful as screaming babies and loud children are, thanks to being a SAHM, my oldest daughter can BE a soccer star. And I realized that I might be doing something right because when it is all said and done I was the person who calmed the baby down in thirty seconds. So despite the insane moments, the stressful moments, the terrifying moments, it’s worth it.
With this happy thought in mind, I set up camp on the sideline and prepared for an evening of being the world’s most confident, put-together soccer mom. With my perfect baby bouncing on my lap, and my perfect five year old tearing up the field, I got down to the very important business of cheering her on.
That’s when my pants became the first casualty in the Big Diaper Blow-out of 2012.
