In which I need someone to smack me around a little

Phillip just left for work. I just put J down for a nap. Phillip has one of his big Updating Servers Something Or Other tonight and I'll be lucky if he's home by midnight. I saved this week's episode of Project Runway to watch with my sister tonight when she comes up to hang out with (babysit) me. But I've got hours and hours to while away with just myself and the boy and the empty-stretch-of-hours thing always makes me a little jittery.

I still prefer this to a Real Job. The kind where you sit in an office and sneak your blog fixes and get home after dark. But the stay at home mom gig has a whole new set of challenges and some of them are pretty difficult if you are the Anxious Sort, like myself.

Some people deal the Monotony by going to Everything. Story time, the zoo, the aquarium, Gymboree, the children's museum, the park, three different mom groups, four different playgroups, the coffee shop with the basement playroom, petting farms, language classes. I would like to be one of those moms. Those moms seem to have it all together. They've got a routine and a schedule- something to do after the morning nap, something to do after the afternoon nap. It seems like they know a lot of other moms and they always have a tip about where to go and what to do. Who has free coffee on Tuesdays, where you can get in half-price on the first Friday of the month.

But I'm the kind of mom who gets up in the morning and evaluates the next twelve hours. Am I up to going out? Did the baby sleep okay? Do I think he'll nap when he's supposed to nap? Do I have any errands to run? Do I feel like dragging a kid along on those errands? Can we wait one more day for groceries? Should I just call a friend and see if she's home this afternoon? And if not, maybe we'll just take a walk to see the ducks?

A trip to the zoo, quite frankly, always sounds exhausting.

I can't tell if it's because I'm lazy or easily overwhelmed or averse to the Getting The Baby And Myself Out The Door process. In the summer and early fall we took a lot of walks. I was pretty good about calling up a friend and walking around the lake, and I even went alone plenty of times. It's colder now so walking around the lake means a popsicle baby, but I still bundle him up and take him around the neighborhood. If I'm feeling really brave we'll go grocery shopping or walk around the mall or Target. Every two weeks I go to my moms group and J plays with other babies, which is good. Oh, and once a week we drive to my parents' house and spend the day. Even though packing for that little trip is way more work than going to the zoo, I am pretty much off duty once I get there, so it's worth the effort.

And then I feel bad saying things like that because JEEZ, I have the easiest kid in the universe and there's only one of him and HOW LAZY CAN I POSSIBLY BE?

I liked what Christina said over at Parenting. Staying at home with a baby is BORING. I liked hearing (okay, reading) someone else say that. I love my kid, I think he is the cutest thing ever, he is a little ball of squirmy fun- but ripping up magazines and opening drawers and flinging coasters across the living room is not a terribly interesting way to spend the day for someone above the age of one year. Add in the babycare- diaper changes, feeding, dressing, mopping up drool- and daily chores- laundry, dishes, picking up- and it gets dull AND tiring.

But even knowing all that, I don't know how to become the Mom That Goes Everywhere. Because THAT sounds exhausting too. I like being free to decide what to do with my day. It's just that most of the time I decide to do nothing.

You know what? I think I'm just pouty because Phillip won't be home till late and that always puts me in a Stellar Mood. The kind that likes to gripe on her website about things that could be easily solved if only she sucked it up and, you know, was not so FREAKING LAZY.

Evidence of the Lazy: I am reading the internet instead of 1) taking a shower 2) cleaning up breakfast 3) attempting to reduce the massive mountain of laundry on the floor. Sigh.

Comments

[Lisa]

Don't be too hard on yourself. There are others out there like you...like me! I always looked forward to being a full-time mom, but it is not as easy and wonderful as it looks. I have a much greater respect for moms of several kids who actually manage to make it out of the house once in awhile. I find difficulty doing it with one, and I know moms who have six or more kids and are always running to this event and that sports thing and moms group and even church things and it makes me exhausted just watching them do it!

[Salome Ellen]

One of the things I learned in treatment for my anxiety/panic is that those of us who are prone to that stuff tend to run out of energy faster than the average. And the solution to this is NOT trying to do everything at "normal" speed (which just makes us more anxious and panicky) but to make peace with the way we're made, do the necessary stuff and as much of the important as we can manage, and let the rest go. That's not lazy, it's prudent!

[andnotbysight]

This is a totally random comment, completely unconnected to the actual post! But I had a dream the other night and at one point in the dream, I was in a bookstore and bought a book you had written. :)

[Jen]

Yeah, I work from home now (no baby) instead of from my office and even that is much more boring. Hence all the blog reading I do. Like now, when I am supposed to be working. But, I keep switching back and forth between work and blogs. That is fair, right?

Are there any activities that you could just drop in on when you felt like it? Although, personally, I think Target is a fabulous activity and you should do that every day. (Wow, if I went to Target every day, I think we would be broke fast.)

[Tara]

I'm the same way. We go grocery shopping, the occasional walk, Target, library. But that's about it. I have a friend that is all about classes and events and while it sounds fun, we just don't have it together most of the time. Either that or I'm too cheap.

[Elizabeth]

Yeah, the down side of getting everything a little more together is that you have extra time on your hands. I still remember the first moment I looked around and thought "Holy Goodnight, this is SO boring!".
My theory I tell myself is that those really active (ie crazy) moms is that their kids are older. If it makes you feel better, we never do anything. And I feel overwhelmed anyway. But between running every day, cooking breakfast lunch and dinner, two naps, writing, blogging, and cleaning, when the heck would I have time to go to the zoo? Also, I hate the zoo.

[Arwen]

Can I just second my mom's comment? (Salome Ellen is my mom.) I have such an awesome mom!

Honey, I could have written this post a year ago. Being alone with a baby IS boring. Last year this time Milla was routinely sleeping until 9am, and I would still get up and feel like the eight hours until Bryan got home from work were a freaking eternity. And taking a baby places is a big pain. I certainly didn't do it more than I absolutely had to.

Here's the good news: it gets better! Toddlers are way more interesting than babies. These days more often than not it's 4:30 and I'm all, "Where did the day go?" This is not to say that it's not sometimes hard - Bryan was just out of town for 36 hours and I was more than a little ready for him to come home - but it does get better, it really does.

[Lauren]

Oh girl. I feel your pain. Staying at home with my babies (no matter how wonderful and perfect they sometimes are) is so freaking boring. And thank you for giving me a chance to say this. I swear time seems to so slowly..especially from the end of naptime to the time hubby gets home...I literally watch seconds slowly tick by. I think wintertime is way worse than summer because I have more of an excuse not to go outside-aside from my own laziness.

Anyway, I end up drinking lots more wine and making lots of trips to the grocery store. Not in that order of course...

[JMC]

After reading your last post and this one, I think you are me. Except I am not married to a devastatingly handsome Chinese man.

[Christina]

hee, glad I'm not alone in the "boring" thing! But also I don't like to plan stuff either - in fact knowing that I *have* to go someplace takes all the fun out of going. Thus why I avoid all types of playgroups and activities as much as possible! (which gets a lot harder when the kids are school age and want to do sports. What's with that?)
But it does make the day go slowly when you stay home all day - especially when I feel like I "should" be doing laundry and cooking a fabulous dinner but I totally don't want to so instead I stare at the computer all afternoon. Yeah, I'm not such a great role model, am I.

[Emily]

It is SO BORING. And if I am in my house for too long, I go stir-crazy. So we make sure to do at least one thing a day because I would rather suffer through a Target run with a baby than suffer through a whole day at home with a baby for the third day in a row.

That one thing could be get groceries or take a walk or go to the local baby store (Asher can play with the toys and I just wander around and try out all the strollers). Getting out once a day keeps me sane.

[Elaine]

Honest and truly, you sound exactly like I felt when my oldest was a baby. Umm . . . and my second one. Anyway, the big difference? We didn't have the internet back then! I mean, it had been invented and all, but it was still pretty new for home use and we, personally, didn't have it. Can you imagine!?! But I totally understand the whole being bored but not having the energy or whatever to go out with the kiddo. Don't beat yourself up over this, though. Once you start getting normal amounts of sleep every night for an extended period of time either (a. you'll have the energy to go out more or (b. you won't care that you don't want to go out more. Sleep helps put everything in perspective.

[Jess]

I was a nanny for an eight-month-old for awhile one summer, and I was with him eleven hours a day, and you are right that it was boring to stay home with him. Usually I made plans to go to lunch with a friend of mine or something, so after his morning nap we would get ready and go catch the bus to the Metro so we could go into downtown DC. It was definitely a Process to get out the door, but it was so worth it, and he liked it, even if it was just an hour at a cafe somewhere or a trip to the mall.

I guess what I'm saying is that instead of feeling like you need to plan tons of Big Activities designed to stimulate your child, maybe just do something you want to do that the child can come along with? Everything is stimulating for babies anyway.

[Barbara]

i say...enjoy it while you can!!! because pretty soon he'll be in school and there will be this event and that event, and if you have more than one by then, it only multiplies everything you have to do out of the house! i remember having only one and staying home and i LOVED it! now i have 3 to get to school and preschool and there's all these activities...
stay home and enjoy it!