Long and not mine.

Hey Moms- I got this off of facebook. I don't know who the original author or poster is. If I did I would totally give credit. I also don't know who added the grocery store part. Anyways, I always want to say this to my non mom friends....Instead, I tell them that they won't understand until they are a mom. I know it's a cop out answer but I don't want to say or constantly explain my day. Enjoy!
Lysandra

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Dear Carolyn:My best friend has a child. Her: Exhausted, busy, no time for self, no time for me, etc. Me (no kids): Wow. Sorry. What did you do today? Her: Park, play group . . .OK. I've done Internet searches; I've talked to parents. I don't get it. What do stay-at-home moms do all day? Please, no lists of library, grocery store, dry cleaners. . . . I do all those things, too, and I don't do them every day. I guess what I'm asking is: What is a typical day, and why don't moms have time for a call or e-mail?I work and am away from home nine hours a day (plus a few late work events), and I manage to get it all done. I'm feeling like the kid is an excuse to relax and enjoy — not a bad thing at all — but if so, why won't my friend tell me the truth?Is this a contest ("My life is so much harder than yours")? What's the deal? I've got friends with and without kids, and all us child-free folks get the same story and have the same questions.— Tacoma, Wash.

Dear Tacoma:Relax and enjoy. You're funny.Or you're lying about having friends with kids.Or you're taking them at their word that they actually have kids, because you haven't personally been in the same room with them.Internet searches?I keep wavering between giving you a straight answer and giving my forehead some keyboard. To claim you want to understand — while in the same breath implying that the only logical conclusions are that your mom friends are either lying or competing with you — is disingenuous indeed.
So, since it's validation you seem to want, the real answer is what you get. In list form. When you have young kids, your typical day is: constant attention, from getting them out of bed, fed, clean, dressed; to keeping them out of harm's way; to answering their coos, cries and questions; to having two arms and carrying one kid, one set of car keys and supplies for even the quickest trips, including the latest-to-be-declared-essential piece of molded plastic gear; to keeping them from de-shelving books at the library; to enforcing rest times; to staying one step ahead of them lest they get too hungry, tired or bored, any one of which produces the kind of checkout-line screaming that gets the checkout line shaking its head. It's needing 45 minutes to do what takes others 15. It's constant vigilance, constant touch, constant use of your voice, constant relegation of your needs to the second tier. It's constant scrutiny and second-guessing from family members and friends, well-meaning and otherwise. It's resisting the constant temptation to seek short-term relief at every one's long-term expense. It's doing all this while concurrently teaching virtually everything — language, manners, safety, resourcefulness, discipline, curiosity, creativity, empathy. Everything.
It's also a choice, yes. And a joy. But if you spent all day, every day, with this brand of joy — and then when you got your first 10 minutes to yourself, you wanted to be alone with your thoughts instead of calling a good friend — a good friend wouldn't judge you, complain about you to mutual friends or marvel at how much more productively she uses her time.Either make a sincere effort to understand, or keep your snit to yourself.


***And seriously folks, this ain't the half of it. You say you go to the grocery store, too? You drive to the store, park, get out of your car and walk into the store, get your stuff, and go. I pack the kids and all their paraphernalia into the car, pull out of the driveway, pull back in because I forgot something, run in, can't find it, search frantically, eventually find it in some completely illogical place like the dryer or the toy box, run out, pull out again. Then on the way to the store I sing ridiculous children's songs at the top of my lungs, driving with one hand and handing out Nilla Wafers with the others, and occasionally stopping to put my 2-yr-old back in her seat belt (how does she get that thing off?). Once at the store you don't look for the spot closest to the door, you look for the spot closest to an available shopping cart so you don't have to carry both of them and their stuff in yourself, even if it's at the other end of the lot from the door. Once you have the kids, toys, drinks, cookies, purse, list (oh yeah, you have to have a list, or you WILL be going back tomorrow) and relative sanity into the cart, you can finally trudge inside. You might think it gets easy from here. Ha. If you're lucky, you got the "race cart" with seat belts for two, but if not, one is either running free or sitting in the basket, getting into everything you put into the cart, standing up and leaning over the edge giving you and the grandmother blocking the aisle in front of you a heart attack for fear they will fall out and break their neck. Then you have to stand there politely while said grandmother (the first of several, even on a good day) coos over them and tells you how beautiful they are and then tells you all about her children and grandchildren, even though you don't care and she probably didn't either, when it was her in the store 30 years ago. Eventually, you move on, staying in the middle of the aisle so the shelves are out of reach of little fingers, and hoping you don't have to let someone pass when there is someone in front of you also, because then you'll be fighting two sets of hands pulling things down, or paying for something later that you didn't know was there. Maybe you make it through the store without any fighting, hair-pulling, or other scream-inducing incidents, but probably not. Most people smile with understanding, humor and a small amount of pity at these outbursts, but you usually get at least one old timer who thinks you should take your kids out of the store and just leave all the stuff you clawed your way through the aisles to acquire. Granted, they usually just glare, but sometimes they don't have the good manners to mind their own business and you just want to shake them. So now you're in the checkout, taking food out as fast as you can so you can just get the heck out of there, and hopefully catching any covert additions to your collection. And at least one of the kids has taken a proprietary interest in everything in the cart because, after all, Mom, you did hand it to her, and she's not interested in the fact that you have to pay for it and you'll get it back honey just as soon as the nice lady rings it up, can you ring this first please, sorry about the slobber, no I don't need a new box my toddler chewed that open not a rat in the back room, no I don't want plastic I have my own bags load them as full as you can so I don't have to make as many trips when I unload, I thought that was on sale, no I don't want to wait while you check I JUST WANT TO GET OUT OF HERE and I will pay full price to do it, YES I want help going out are you insane? And your husband gets home that night and says, "All you did today was go to the grocery store?" So you shoot him.