Before and After (AKA: Working and Not Working)

I’ve been at this whole Stay-at-home-mom gig for a little over 6 months now, so I thought I would give a brief update on my life before SAHM and after SAHM.

Before: 1 cup of tea in the morning with salt and vinegar potato chips for breakfast. Sometimes 1 cup of tea in the afternoon but it was decaffeinated.

After: 2 cups of tea in the morning with cereal for breakfast (as much as I love my salt and vinny’s, I just can’t set that kind of breakfast example for Ella). Usually a cup of tea or soda in the afternoon and it’s always caffeinated.

Before: Lunch at Subway or out with friends.

After: Lunch at home with a homemade sandwich, a bowl of cereal or leftovers.

Before: Spend my days in front of a computer, in meetings, or in my car going from place to place.

After: Spend my days making Irish Soda Bread, Homemade play dough, cookies, brownies, etc.

Before: Business attire (suit with dress shirt, nice dress with hose and heels, dress slacks with coordinating blazer)

After: Jeans, jeans and more jeans! With various sweaters and t-shirts.

Before: Run to the grocery store after work to pick up what we need…and yes, sometimes I would call Metti on her way to our house and ask her to pick up a gallon of milk.

After: Clip coupons, plan out what to get at which store, and shop at 3 different stores to ensure I’m getting the best deal.

Before: Come home and throw dinner together…usually Hamburger Helper, spaghetti, chicken breast or London broil with whatever frozen veggies we had on the side.

After: Yes, we do still have the above meals, however now I make many more soups and casseroles and I actually try to marinate the chicken or London broil with more than just salt and pepper. We haven’t had Hamburger Helper in a long time (although all 3 of us love it).

Before: Send Joe’s dress shirts to the cleaner to have them washed and pressed.

After: Wash Joe’s shirts at home and wake up early each morning to iron one for the day (it’s too daunting to spend hours ironing all of them at once).

Before: Maid=clean house.

After: No maid=dirty house.

Before: Spend all day Saturday trying to catch up on all the things I didn’t have time to do during the week.

After: Spend Saturday hanging out with Joe and Ella doing fun things like going for walks, going to the park, etc.

Needless to say I love being at home. There are things that I miss (oddly enough I miss getting to dress up), but this has definitely been the right move for our family. Ella is doing better, I am doing better, Joe is doing better and our family unit is doing better. I feel so much more at peace with my life. I felt a lot of guilt for working. I felt like Ella got the worst of me. She got me after I had worked all day, after everyone else had taken the “nice” out of me, when all I really wanted to do was come home and sit on the couch in front of the TV. And as soon as I would walk in the door the first thing I had to do was put her through pain for the next 2 hours during a bath and bandage change (no wonder she cried when I got home). And the quality time we did get was while I was scrambling to cook dinner. Like I said, things are much more at peace.