Life inside my head
(I’m sure my fellow homemakers can relate.)
Noah: Mommy, I’m hungry. Can I have a bar?
I glance at the box of granola bars to count them, scan the cupboards for other portable snacks suitable for Brett to grab in the morning or to pack for the park. I realize that Noah is indicating the last of the granola bars and seeing only two fruit leathers I then run through our schedule for the rest of the week to see if there’s time to grocery shop in the next two days. I spot a hole tomorrow evening when I could either head out for supplies or send Brett since we need milk anyway, which means that, supply-wise, Noah could have the granola bar. I then switch my brain to Noah’s diet for the last two days, noticing a preponderance of grain-foods so I glance at the fruit bowl seeing only a withered apple and a slightly wrinkled kiwi. I fast-forward to the planned dinner menu — soup with beans and vegetables — and decide that given that it’s a dinner Noah enjoys with some other kinds of foods that the granola bar is still an ok snackfood for now.
Mommy: Yes.
As any other child caretaker knows, this mental run-through done in a matter of 1.5 seconds.
Brett has yet to learn this art. He also doesn’t know how to menu plan on the fly like when they’re out of the thing you planned your meal around or something else really good is on sale so you decide to use this other recipe, picturing your cupboard shelves to see if you ought to grab a 28-oz can of tomatoes while you’re here. Noah, however, is getting good at shopping so there’s hope that one day I’ll have someone I can trust to stay within our budget, meet our nutritional needs, and buy things that everyone actually wants to eat.
My friends say they do this millisecond management, too, so I know it’s a common homemaker — whether s/he is full-time at home or not — thing. It’s exhausting, isn’t it? And of course, we’re doing this about everything. I see a great shirt on sale at Kohl’s only one size bigger than Noah and I send my mind back to the closet with the rubbermaid tub of big kid clothes to try and remember if the shirt is worth buying all the while subtracting the amount from today’s budget, including the cost of the present we were here to find in the first place and trying to justify the very small, very on sale frame that would be just right for Madison’s newborn pic.
Then there’s baby wardrobe — if I use the really good all-in-one dipe to take her to grandma’s then I won’t have it for the playdate tomorrow, which is ok except the other ones are a wee bit leaky so I should use the regular poofy diapers and then I’ll need to put her in the other outfit with a big enough tush but that one is maybe a tad too warm so I better check the weather forecast before I make a move at all. Or — and this is my favorite choice — go ahead and use the disposables that Brett’s co-workers sent home for her baby shower. (The disposables go up to 14 lbs and she was 12 lbs last week so I’ve been using them awfully like the junkie I am and pretending her stupendous growth justifies it.)
My head is full of consequential but very small details and it’s no wonder that other things — like the thank you notes that only need stamps gathering dust here on top of my desk — sometimes fall by the wayside.
Those of you still waiting, rest assured, the thank you notes will go out — someday. Before she starts crawling, definitely. Have patience!!!!
Oh, thank the gods. I always thought it was just me. I’ve been (repeatedly) accused of being overly-organized. And occasionally accused of being just plain psychotic.
But as time goes on, the people who actually know me see me around the house and with the kids and say “Oh … I get it. You’re a really good Mom.” Which is better than being organized or psychotic, because I like being a good mom, but while I know the organized helps, I’m starting to realize the crazy bit is going to get stuck in there too, no matter what I try. I think that’s a Mom thing, too.
Hahaha, I thought it was just me. My husband, who loses his own glasses 47 times a day, has no problem dressing the baby in the same outfit 3 days in a row (always with mismatched socks) or feeding her only one thing for days on end.
I find this so frustrating, because my husband just doesn’t think it’s necessary, so I feel like I do all this work that’s not appreciated. Grr.. And, honestly, women are judged for things like matching socks in a way that men aren’t. If I want people to be nice to me and my child and give her the impression that the world is nice, I feel like I have to meet certain minimum standards of dress and cleanliness, even though she doesn’t actually suffer if her face is dirty or if her clothes clash.
My husband does do the shopping and the cooking though, and he’s really good at it, so it’s not all bad.
It’s even worse when you have two different grocery stores. In our case these are Big Corporate But Super-Cheap Store and Local Entirely Organic But Sometimes Ill-Stocked Co-op:
“Do I compromise and get the 3-for-a-dollar canned tomatoes, or wait a couple days and buy the over-a-dollar-per-can organic tomatoes–if they’re in stock?”
heh … it wears me out sometimes, all this mental-calculating I have to make to do *anything*.
This could be classic Erma Bombeck. I’ve never heard the process explained so perfectly - let alone realized that Mom’s do this so automatically. Thanks!