Friday 3 February 2012

The Perils of a Write-At-Home Mom

Please help us welcome S.J. Drum.

Being a mother is kind of like living inside an asylum. I love my children, but no matter the time of day, someone's crying, someone's yelling, someone's drooling, and it isn't out of the question to walk into a room and find shit smeared on the wall.

Contrary to popular belief, taking "me time" for a stay-at-home mom does not translate into taking time to scrub dirty dishes, mop floors or fold laundry while a toddler screams at you because the thousand toys inside his room aren't enough to keep him occupied for thirty minutes. Nothing makes being on your knees cleaning a smelly toilet more fun than having to do it while two little people are crying and making more messes on the other side of the hallway.

You think being a writer while also holding the title of stay-at-home mom sounds like fun? Well, it is. But-- and there's always a 'but'--it also takes an insane amount of dedication that borders on obsession. Don't believe me? Here's a little story on the perils of a writing mother ...

One afternoon, after my children had been fed, cleaned and played with until I couldn't take one more round of build-the-blocks-and-knock-them-down, I put the baby down for a nap (which she thankfully accepted) and put the toddler in his room for some quiet time so I could slip into another room and get a few words written.

After thirty minutes of complete silence, I was riding high. I was thinking things like "My kids are being so good. I can't believe how quiet my toddler is being. He's never this quiet for this long."

And then I shot up out of my seat. My toddler is NEVER that quiet for that long unless it's the middle of the night. Something was amiss.

I dashed to his room and before I even got close, I smelled it. Shit. Literally.

My child had silently removed all of his clothes, taken a huge dump, and proceeded to paint his wall, his baby gate, his door, his toys, and every freaking inch of his carpet with poop. Why? Because I took thirty minutes to do some work.

Was the work I accomplished in those thirty minutes worth the gag-inducing mess that took an hour to clean up? Or the hour it took me to drive to my parents' house and borrow their carpet cleaner? Or the two showers and a bath it took to get my poop covered toddler clean?

No. No, it wasn't.

So, I've adapted. If I must do work while my children are awake, I will never again be outside of seeing (or smelling) distance.

Do you have a stay-at-home mom / write-at-home mom horror story? Let's hear it!

Buy A LIFE BEYOND YESTERDAY, written under my pen-name Clara LaVeaux, and enter to win a FREE Kindle Fire! Check my blog on the release day, February 7th , for Contest Rules and Entry Info. Happy Reading!

~ ~ ~

Blurb:

"Young mother and recent widow, Amelia Gauge, moves cross-country with her son in search of a new life in A Life Beyond Yesterday. She soon realizes life outside of the Rural Midwest is filled with deceit, danger and, too rarely, kindness. Between falling in love and fighting for her life, how will Amelia find the strength to keep her son safe and survive this new, complicated world?"

A LIFE BEYOND YESTERDAY, written under the name Clara LaVeaux, will be released by Eternal Press on February 7th, 2012.

12 comments:

SJ Drum said...

Thanks for having me on today, ladies!

Marci Baun said...

You are welcome, SJ. You know, it's not just write-at-home moms who have this issue. It's any mom who works from home. (g)

Valerie Mann said...

When my kids were little, I stayed home and babysat a little girl during the day. My husband would come home every day from work and ask, "What did you do all day?" Hmmm. What a naughty thing to ask a frazzled mom, right? So the next day, I did nothing. The kids ran wild, I sat and watched The Price is Right, Jerry Springer, and every soap opera I wanted. My house looked like a CSI crime scene and my husband was furious. Guess he didn't like having corn flakes mixed with dog crap ground into the rug? Not sure. Anyway, I never performed that little experiment again. Clean as you go and don't let asinine questions get to you, that's my motto.

Jaime Samms said...

Well, let's see...there is the bread making on the living room floor story (thankfully my mother-in-law's story, not mine. I have no clue how you would ever get that flour/water mixture out of the carpet...)The story about opening the brand new box of cat litter and making sand castles on the basement floor is mine, though. Clumping cat litter stays together really well if you add a little but of water. Getting it out of hair without clogging your bathtub drain? That's another story....

SJ Drum said...

Valerie, I love your description of your house after you took a day off.

Jamie- Cat litter? Yuck! Thankfully I haven't had to go through that yet.

Jaime Samms said...

All I can say is everyone is glad it was clean litter.......

flashlegs said...

The same thing happened to me while I worked on my suntan under a sunlamp. My daughter had reached into her diaper and smeared her shit all over a glass topped coffee table.

Bikecopblog said...

Studying for the bar exam years ago, I caught sight of my then 7 and 5 year old daughters walking something across our cul-de-sac. "WTF" I muttered as I descended the stairs toward the front door. I encountered little globs of goo, a trail of flour and a slippery floor. They were carrying five pounds of "dough" to their friend's house. The peace and quiet their kitchen escapades bought me paled in comparison to the hour it took to clean up the mess.

Marci Baun said...

Oh, Jim, that is, um, funny, but not. I found Lily and her friends creating pictures with glitter glue. Which is fine...except they were lying on her carpeted floor in her bedroom. O.o That could have been really, really bad. Thankfully, I got there before anything happened. Glitter glue would not have come out of the carpet.

SJ Drum said...

I'm so happy I'm not alone in the insanity!

The contest to win a free Kindle Fire starts today over on my blog. sj-drum.blogspot.com

Thanks!

Molly Daniels said...

LMAO! Thankfully I began writing (more) after my two oldest were out of the baby/toddler stage. I used to love nap time, because that's when I put on Hooked On Classics and wrote for two hours:) Or I'd write at the laundramat. And by the time the youngling showed up, I was happy he had older siblings to watch him while Mom locked herself in the office:) Oh wait...I had to give up the office so he'd have a room....

flashlegs said...

I used to belong to this online writing group and in it a woman, who was supposedly a successful romance authress, said she used to lock herself in the bathroom for privacy to write from her children and they would slip notes under the door ie Johnny hit me.