I was just about to indulge in my morning caffeine fix when I heard screaming coming from the bathroom.
“Help me mommy,” pleaded Molly, my precocious toddler. “She is coming to get me!”
A quick glance at the clock en route to the loo to save my three-year-old revealed that it wasn’t even 7 a.m.
It was going to be one of “those days,” again.
Just great.
Sitting on the porcelain throne, my pint-size princess attempted to deter her fearless and determined one-year-old sister from making the toilet her personal water park.
She was unsuccessful and I was just a little too slow (I plead coffee depravity).
We both watched in horror as Zoe, my feisty redhead, plunked both hands deep into the bowl and pulled out a wad of sopping wet toilet paper, tossing it carelessly to the floor.
“Splat.”
“Get away from that toilet right now,” I yelled, darting toward her.
Before I could scoop her up she decided to show her big sister and her tired mom who was boss. Leaning against the bowl — her chubby legs wobbling to support herself — she splashed with all her might, drenching all three of us.
Now I was awake.
Not exactly the wakeup call I had in mind, but it did the trick.
After cleaning the three of us up, I checked the time again and shook my head. The rest of the world was probably showered, at work and enjoying their second or third cup of coffee — I still hadn’t managed to do any of the above. Such is my life; but that hasn’t always been the case.
It seems like only yesterday that I was out with friends sipping dirty martinis, popping bottles and sleeping in until noon.
Now my life as a stay-at-home-mom is all about changing dirty diapers, warming bottles and consoling a teething baby during the twilight hours. I can assure you there are no sexy vampires when dawn breaks. However, there is a frightening plethora of infomercials. Who orders a food dehydrator at 4 a.m. anyway?
Life in the Clark home is certainly no Norman Rockwell painting. And, let’s be honest, I am no Martha Stewart. If the queen of domesticity herself ever stepped foot in my house, she’d be disgusted with the endless pile of pink laundry, dishes collecting in the sink and (gasp!) little Zoe’s penchant for playing in the toilet. Hey, I still consider myself a domestic rookie.
After all, it was only six months ago that I decided to leave my job as a reporter to become a stay-at-home mom — a job that is far more demanding than any story deadline I’d ever faced.
While there are no pats on the back for a job well done, pay raises (or any pay, for that matter), I am truly happy and fortunate that I am able to stay at home with my two girls. In this economy staying home isn’t always a viable option. For my husband and me it means having to wait even longer until we are able to purchase a home. But that’s a sacrifice we’re OK with, for now.
Even when the day is in the toilet (quite literally), I attempt to soak up every precious, fleeting moment with my girls. For I know they will soon be grown up and living their own lives, raising their own children.
As a mom who has spent a great deal of her childhood in Langley and has stayed put to raise her own brood, I am thrilled to be writing this parenting column for the Langley Times. Stay tuned for my musings on motherhood —the good, the bad and the ugly.
Kristyl Clark is a stay-at-home-mom who writes monthly for the Langley Times and is a co-founder of the women’s lifestyle blog, Sex and the Suburb (www.sexandthesuburb.com).
