My Twilight Saga Continues: Day 2 of Pretending to be a SAHM

So, a week ago, I had a day as a SAHM, and I did awesome. The dishes were done. The children were happy. The house, ultimately, smelled like a pineapple resort.

Today, my twilight phase (not quite a SAHM, not quite a working mom) continued. And well, some days are like this I suppose:

Just a tangled up mess where I'm hoping for a quick rescue and perhaps a cleaning crew. (She did this herself; I'm just grateful for washable Crayons and Mr. Clean magic erasers). 

I have a friend who also works from home, and she and commensurate about the day-to-day challenges of balancing work with working with kids at home. I hesitate to call it a work life balance, because the real balance is work on one hand and working with kids at home on the other.  She and I have discovered that conference calls and tornadoes have something in common; both are best ridden out in a centrally located closet. That is, put as many walls between the conference call and the kids. 

Today was one of those closet conference call kinds of days.  I tried to listen to two voice mails and return one tiny little call. 

"Mom!" "Mom! Hey Mom!" 

"RJ, just hush it!" (I'm way too mean when I try to balance work with kids). 

I returned my call. Sent an email. I was out of the playroom for five minutes. 

"GiGi pooped on the carpet!" 

And she had. Actually, she had pooped her Huggie, taken it off, found the wipes, cleaned her bottom (as a 20-month old would), and tried to put on a new Huggie. 

If you're looking for a guilt trip, this is a pretty good one. My toddler daughter tried to change her own diaper because I was too busy trying to "balance." 

Here's the thing though, I spent 15 minutes scrubbing poop out of the rug this morning and another 20 minutes beating myself up about GiGi having to change her own pants, but this afternoon, I did this: 

RJ is a pretty darn good photographer. 

She's pretty proud of her "feet flops." (They're her brother's, of course. Woe to the woman who marries him, because his little sister has set the bar pretty high for RJ worship.). 

We swam. We ate hot dogs for lunch. We napped (last night was a late night after I remembered at 11:30 p.m. that I had a midnight filing deadline that I had yet to meet. Made it. 11:57 p.m. Score one for the twilight lawyer.).

We fixed the patio table that has wobbled for five years (major shout out to the good old fashioned ACE Hardware store with the killer gum ball machine that made a bolt-getting errand way more exciting for a five year old.). 

I returned my call and changed all of the other dirty diapers. And, while the guilt trip is sometimes longer than a drive to Canada, my twilight days are letting me enjoy the little things: 

It's summer, so they're getting to hang out together. There won't be many more summers that they'll want to cook together. 

There won't be many more summers that he'll want to wear his apron and chef's hat either. 

Someday they'll be working on computers and writing with ink pens. Well, GiGi has already discovered the finer qualities of the Uniball--it writes really well on weathered leather. Sigh. 

Okay, so this happened on Saturday, but donut ("dane-dane") day makes me almost as happy as it makes GiGi. 

In an effort to avoid the fourth episode of Curious George today, we painted our toe nails. RJ's nanny used to send me pictures of his crazy nap hair; I'm pretty grateful that I'm getting to witness it for myself for a couple of years. 

He wanted rainbow toes. She wanted red and blue. Who am I to judge? 

All in all, a pretty good day. Oh, except for the part where RJ pooped in the pool. 

Seriously.  The house did not smell like a pineapple resort. Where is my quick rescue and cleaning crew?