Mr. Mom

Monday starred Tony as Mr. Mom. When asked what he’s going to do when Jill poops, Tony replies that my Mom’s pressure washer is still at the house. Oh man. Should I stay home, I ponder. No, Tony can handle this one. Besides it’s the first day of my new job and I really should be in the office, at least for most of the day.

As I discovered Sunday evening, Tony is not a big fan of the playground, abbreviated “pg” when discussed in front of Jill (like “w” stands for walk in front of Rachael). I’m sure it’s because a play session typically lasts an hour and involves interaction with other parents and even worse, their kids. He’d rather drop me off and take Jill to his work for a couple hours. From what I gathered, she was fairly well-behaved and somewhat quiet. Jill’s morning consisted of drawing on sales brochures and accounting paperwork, decorating Jenn’s desk with sticky notes and rearranging magnets on someone’s whiteboard. Less acrobatic than the “pg” but still stimulating and a lot of fun!

Despite Tony’s best efforts to engage Jill and feed crackers to her in the backseat, she crashed and slept in her carseat like she did on Saturday and Sunday. Shorter naps earlier in the day then no real nap. No nap on the weekend = mess of a house and mess of a Jill come 5 p.m. Thankfully Jill was more cheerful and less grumpy on Monday. I could hear her in the background each time Tony and I talked. She chatted away, laughed and climbed on Tony’s back. Tony laughed too. He might have actually enjoyed himself on Monday, although I don’t expect him to volunteer again next week. My Mom is visiting her sister in California so we are sharing the Jill Monday coverage responsibilities for two weeks.

In the darkness of the early morning hours, Monday began with a test run to the local YMCA. My sales pitch to Tony on the family membership (it’s expensive) was that we needed activities to do with Jill throughout the winter months. The playground in February won’t work. Family swim works. So we toured the facility this weekend and LOVED it! Free babysitting while you workout! Are you kidding me? Why are we just discovering this now? Jill walked into the playroom and didn’t look back. We finished the tour sans Jill but I’m sure she would have been equally as impressed by the pool area. There are two pools with a ton of options for family swim, lap swim, lessons, swim team, you name it. Monday morning wasn’t as exciting for me, just 20 minutes running intervals on the treadmill. Five minutes to drive there, five minutes home and I was showered before Jill even woke up. I could do this more often. In fact, I think I will!

TUESDAY: Eggs, anyone? As the usual breakfast chef, I realized how empty the cereal and bread shelves were. Oh man, no English muffins either. What are Jill and Tony going to eat? The last few mornings I’d made a bigger batch of steel cut oats (dipping into the pantry now) and drizzled honey on top. Jill shoveled it down. This morning we scrambled eggs. With Jill’s track record of Tony-like food preferences, it was sure to be a hit. NOPE, not at all! She took one whiff and turned her nose up with a disgusted look on her face. This got a good laugh out of Tony. Waffles it is!

Tuesday’s commute included a drive by Occupy Boston, the local version of Occupy Wall Street, set up across the street from South Station. Some in our household perhaps refer to it as “Camp Entitlement.” I was honestly impressed by the number of tents and the area the demonstration covered. My friend Jocelyn follows bebehblog and sends me links every now and then. This writer and stay at home Mom is a riot! She addressed the OWS movement in today’s post called What’s In a Choice? It discusses the choices Moms may or may not have to either work or stay home to raise their children. This shouldn’t be the case, but it all comes down to money, doesn’t it? Money for your mortgage, health insurance, food, child care and bills. So going strictly by the numbers, you could stay home if you made more than your child care costs, right? Yes and no. Work provides an adult environment. Day care offers hours filled with interaction with other children for your toddler. Work provides health insurance, something not all spouses can get, at least at a reasonable price. Suzanne presents this thought in her post: What would you do if you won the lottery? Would you stay home?