Staying Home

I had the day off today because of Lincoln's birthday. I love being a public employee and our random paid holidays. My husband had to work so I spent the day pretending I was a stay at home mom. By 10am I was exhausted and sick of the whining. It ended up being a fun day and a nice little glimpse into life on the other side. I figured it out and with vacation, holidays, and weekends, I am "at home" 40% of the year. I like to think I have the best of both worlds.

We did some Valentine's Day art. Leo only ate a little bit of paint so I consider that a win.



We went out to breakfast with my sister.



I made the mistake of giving Leo a little bit of whipped cream from her hot chocolate. He spent the rest of the meal trying to climb out of his highchair to attack her hot chocolate with a fork like some kind of rabid monkey with a sweet tooth.



Then I hosted a little playdate at my house. There were three toddlers, five ladies, wine, cupcakes, cookies, and lots of catching up. I tried to make hot pink chocolate chip cookies but they came out this really weird pinky-brown color. My little pretzel, hershey kiss, m and m's things turned out really good though. Leo furiously signed "more" for my cookies. I'll take my toddler's approval any day.

Two of the moms at the playdate are stay at home moms. There was some interesting discussion about staying home v. working outside of the home. I think the consensus was that working part time is ideal because you get to use your brain and spend time with your child. That being said, no one has actually been able to find worthwhile part time work.

After the playdate it was time to make dinner. Leo helped me crush corn flakes for corn flake crusted chicken

And he helped me shake up the sweet potato fries to season them. When I make dinner after work I always have the meal on the table by 6:30 pm. By the time my husband gets home, everything is ready. Today, dinner wasn't ready until 7:10 pm. I'm not sure what happened. I kind of lost track of time. Clearly, I'm not a very good stay at home mom.

While waiting for dinner to cook we played golf, read books, and did a puzzle. All day long Leo had been saying "football, football" over and over so I put on a DVRed Michigan game. Husband was pretty surprised to walk in through the door and see the Sugar Bowl on.

After a very late dinner and a very quick bath, I had the husband put Leo to bed. I was simply physically exhausted, even my joints ached. I'm actually looking forward to setting at my desk tomorrow!