Sitting on the Toilet with Brock

I made a statement to my friend the other day at the gym that went like this....

"I have joy, but not a lot of moments of happiness..."  She looked at me like I had figured out tonight's lottery numbers and said, "YES, THAT'S IT!! I HAVE JOY BUT I'M NOT HAPPY!!! EXACTLY!!"

And so I proceeded to tell her why I thought this was the case in my life.

1) I can't get anything done at all, including but not limited to;
  a) making dinner
  b) going to the bathroom
  c) picking up the house
  d) trying on clothes
  e) buying freaking anything without being completely stressed out because everyone is being rotten
  f)  eating my damn dinner and actually tasting the calories that I don't need
  g) going to the grocery store and having A COMPLETE MEAL AT THE END OF THE TRIP THAT ISN'T CEREAL?!?!?
  h) sleeping
  i) showering
  j) thinking...
....ok ok, I'm done...

I go from playgroup to the gym to a play-place to dishes to laundry to sweeping to cleaning up Tupperware to picking up toys to folding laundry to the grocery store.  Of which all public places I am being starred at because Brock (now 10 1/2 months old) has the highest pitch scream EVERRRRR and he sounds like Sponge Bob on crack and people look at me like I am the worst mom ever.  I feel like the mother of the children of the corn... all dragging my kids to the post office and the store. (How the heck does Angelina Jolie do this and why doesn't she look like a lunatic schlepping kids all over the place? Perhaps it is because she is thin?)



So throughout my day I am filled with joy i.e. my life is great, I have a home, my kids are healthy, my bills are paid, my mom and I are speaking (wait, not that one), but anyway, I have joy.  But as the minutes tick I can't say that I am necessarily happy sitting in the family room one more day watching my kids play..again...and fighting....and needing their diaper changed.

I guess it is just time for a 24 hour break?  Perhaps I need to step back and remember why I am sitting in the family room listening to Sponge Bob over there scream for absolutely NO NO NO reason!  Perhaps I need to revisit why I have given up my adulthood to wipe butts and make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  Because right now I can't seem to wrap my brain around how to get happy about it all.

Perhaps I need to remind myself that with the screaming, I also get to watch Emersyn at gymnastics.  Perhaps I need to think about the fact that if I weren't home making lunch, I would miss Brock's first steps.  Maybe I need to wrap my head around the idea that if I weren't doing THIS, I would be aimlessly walking around TJMaxx buying crap I don't need just before going to get my nails done for the second time in a week (ok, that one doesn't sound that bad....)

With every moment of screaming, pooping, boring, insanity, there are countless happenings that I wouldn't miss for anything.  Every time I go to the bathroom with Brock on my lap, there is also the moment of Emersyn singing from the bathroom that I get to laugh about. And, with every waisted, insane trip to the grocery store, there is also the moment of my day when I get to listen to Emersyn speak to Dora on the phone in Spanish.

I believe that every person sits where they are and forgets why they are "there."  I think that we start looking at all the crap that we have to deal with and forget that with all that crap there is also fun and funny and happiness.

Without happiness, I don't believe that we could sum total it all up to joy.  I believe that joy is the feel-good, end-of-the-day warmness that covers us up as we lay our heads down at night.  I think that even though we get bored and stressed and have without a doubt overused the ponytail and "bun" as a hair style option, us stay-at-home-moms are just as happy as anyone else.

Hey, where else can you work where someone sits on your lap in the bathroom and it doesn't faze you to have someone barf all over you....for free anyway...

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