The isolation of the modern SAHM

Sirenita and I took a walk this morning before the temperature skyrocketed from "uncomfortably sticky" to "heat warning." I was, of course, wearing my work out gear - aka stuff that makes me look like an active person instead of someone who showers during AM Naptime. Our 8 year old toy poodle trotted (or panted, more like) along at my heels.

As we walked, I explained where we were going, and the things around us, like a good parent developing their child's communication skills is supposed to. I was feeling pretty good about our walk. And then they showed up. The local clique of stay at home moms.

Three fit women in their "I haven't showered yet" work out gear, marching right at me with their kids in strollers taking up the entire road. There was no way they couldn't have seen me. I smiled, nodded a normal gringo greeting... And they swept on like I didn't exist, laughing and talking behind their strollers. And leaving me feeling incredibly isolated, like the little girl ignored by the other kids at recess.

The Accountant and I only have one car. As much as I would love to have one, we honestly we don't need a second one. It would just sit in the garage most of the week anyhow.  But because we have only one car, and all the local mom groups seem to be an hour away on the far side of the city, I am not really connected with any other SAHM. 

Being a stay at home mom is hard work. I spend my whole day wrapped up in the whims of a tiny person who communicates through "ITA, ITA, ITA!" (Sirenita speaks Spanish only right now, Ita is "Lista" or ready) at best, and leaves me wondering what in the world she is telling me she is ready for?  That's not the really difficult part of it, though. As a stay at home mom, your identity suddenly takes a drastic shift. Once, you were a social person talking about interesting things with your friends. Now you tell yourself to refrain from sending them video of your genius 11 month old making farm animal sounds, because they're surely sick of hearing about your child. You become keenly aware that you've become that mom. The one that talks about kids all day, and little else. You feel socially awkward, and even if you do manage to have a conversation that doesn't revolve around your child, you have to interrupt it every 30 seconds to pull your child out of flower pots, remove dvd's from their mouth, drag them out from under the couch, and run down the hall because God alone knows what she'll get into by herself down there. 

It's a hard life, trying to keep a decent identity, or just not care what your friends think. If you're lucky, you aren't the first to have a kid and the transition is smoother. Or someone else gets pregnant and you find yourself looking with joyful anticipation to the moment they understand your sudden insanity, and why bath time and animal noises are so wonderful

But I'm sure there are plenty more of us out there, pushing on through the ups and downs of the mom life, feeling lonely, awkward, stinky, and ignored. It's a sad world where we live so close to so many people that we'll never know.

Several blocks later, we passed another Mom. She too, was in her haven't had a chance to shower yet work out gear, as she pulled her little one along in a wagon. She smiled, commented on my well behaved dog. Exchanged a moment of humanity. Ladies, this mom business is far too lonely to be cliquish and rude. Have a heart, and at least smile at others as you go by. I know I will be, because they may just need an extra cup of coffee and a smile today. 

Human Waste and Crisis Management?

Yesterday, Monday, was my regular cleaning day. There's nothing like getting the house back in order after the weekend. Sweeping, mopping, cleaning the kitchen, the guest bath, vacuum, the laundry... I always save the master bath for last. It's easy for me to do while my Sirenita is up. Our master bath has a big doorway that opens, obviously, into the master bedroom. The Master has been baby proofed to bareness since Sirenita was 3 months old and started rolling everywhere to get around. It's easy for me to put a baby gate between the bathroom and let her play while I clean, and then shower.
Our day started out like any other Monday. As I stepped out of the shower, I prided myself on the speed of my cleaning, and thought that there would be enough time before nap time to sit down and play with Sirenita. Maybe go through the enormous book of animals she loves so much.
I looked up at her as I grabbed my towel. So sweet, sitting on the floor, playing with.... Wait. What in the world is she playing with?
I squinted at my daughter. She was sitting on the floor, not far from the bathroom door with something about the size and shape of a blueberry in her hand.
"What??!!! What is that, and where did she get it?! I just vacuumed, she can't have found it on the floor, whatever it is! It looks like a choking hazard!"
All my mom alarms were going off. How could I have missed this dangerous object? I stepped to the gate.
Time froze as I realized what Sirenita had in her hands. The strobe lights going off in my mommy paranoid brain stopped exactly where they were. There was no sound, no time. My first reaction (a bad one, I must say) was to yell, "Nooooo!!!!!" As if she were the dog, and that would help. I'm thankful it didn't start her into scrambling away. Instead, she continued to play with it.
I stepped over the gate. My second reaction was a much better, more reasonable one. "Sirenita, sweetie... Look at me."
She dropped the ball of feces she had been playing with on the floor, and looked up at me.
"Oh thank God..." She hadn't been eating it. Her face was clean.  There was, however, blueberry tinged poop smeared across her belly, her hands, her feet, and rolling out of her open diaper onto the floor.
"Ok.... What do I do now?" I thought fast, then closed the diaper back on her, and whisked her away to the bathtub.  Where does one even start when their child discovers his or her own poop for the first time? I felt so...unprepared. I didn't know whether to clean the child, or the floor.. Or how to clean the child.
I opted to leave my little Poopykins in the empty tub while I removed the escaped convicts from the carpet, not considering the immediate draw and imminent contamination of my shampoo bottles. Next, I came back, realized I was going to have to clean the bathtub again, pulled Poopykins out of the tub, and removed the diaper and remaining offense from her backside on a towel. (We don't have a changer.. but who would want their little feces dipped baby on the changer anyhow?) Then back in the tub for a nice bath, into a diaper, and out into the bedroom to play some more while I cleaned the tub and all my  bottles.
Later on, over extra coffee I contemplated the events. Two things stuck out in my mind. One, if I had her in cloth this wouldn't have happened. In fact, she will never be left unclothed or "unattended" in a two piece outfit and a disposable diaper again. Viva la Sleep Sack. She'll be wearing them to bed until she is potty trained!
Two, They say all babies do this. I've heard horror stories of children who painted their entire rooms, or ate their own. I experienced first hand the time my niece opened her diaper to scratch her little bum during a nap, then twirled poo in her hair and went back to sleep. The hospitals offer birthing classes, hoo heee, hoo, hee... and breast feeding classes... and daddy classes, and sibling classes, and basic baby care classes... But why is their not a "Human Waste and Crisis Management" class?