Ok so as a follow up to the question of the day: for women who are educated and articulate that continue to work and keep their mind titillated with things-other-than-baby, do they try to make up for a day not spent with their child all in the few precious hours they see them after work? Do they feel fulfilled as a mom, knowing that their child is being raised with the proper amount of love and guidance, or worried that their child will not be raised with the same amount of affection and care without them?

Are a few brain cells lost worth the assurance that your baby is being raised the way you want them to be? I have often heard that pregnancy messes up your mind. I am such living proof of that. My theory is that all of those hormones make holes in your brain so that important thoughts fall out. Case in point: I scheduled my morning around a noon occupational therapy appointment, only to realize half way through it that the appointment is for tomorrow!

I even went so far as to plan his nap schedule around that time...dosing Connor with some of his left over Tylenol with Codeine to make sure he napped for a good length. A cranky kid does not do well in OT. I was so proud of myself for my scheduling excellence! I was thinking all about the appointment, what questions I had, what errands to run after the appointment...the day was really shaping up! My watch was the bearer of bad news; today is Wednesday, not Thursday. Well WTF? I am showered, dressed...Connor will be well napped...what do we do with our day?

Dr. Phil would want us to get some exercise, so we will, but here is the question of the day? How do stay at home moms keep their sanity? I am a college educated, articulate person, trained to move and shake out there in the world. How do I adjust to this new life? Will all of my good brain cells die? What kind of brain aerobics can I do to keep my mental abilities from slipping away? Naps. We scoff at them as non-parents. In our non-child-having bliss we look at our friends struggling with nap times and wonder what the big deal is. The big deal is that naps are like blowfish. How? Dice the blowfish right and you get a tasty fish to eat, dice it the wrong way, you get a dinner of death.

I read some books about the subject, but the fact is, IT IS ROCKET SCIENCE. Mornings put them down after and hour and a half, mid-day two hours, afternoon two hours, unless you want to watch how they are acting and then you should put them down when they are happy but calm, not cranky or they can't get themselves in a restful state to fall asleep. If they miss a nap keep them up till their next nap time. How do you go to the grocery store? What about a million doctors visits?

If they get off of their nap schedule, they get cranky. Continued occurrences of non-napping results in meltdowns and an hour of screaming before they fall asleep. And just when you think you have this whole thing figured out, they have bad-napping relapses that seem to coincide with growth spurts, SO YOU HAVE TO START ALL OVER AGAIN. Read the book, skim the problem solving section, call technical support, re-read the warranty. You never have it under control. Control is a myth that will sneak up when you aren't looking and bite you in the ass.

Then let's add the worries of what bad napping leads to. Children who go through life sleep deprived don't learn as well, have attitude problems, then ADD, ADHD, ABCD, bad grades, drug addiction, prostitution, jail time, apocalypse. So the message from these experts is that you had better learn how to make nap times work or your kid will have a lousy life and live in a van down by the river. Shit.

There he is now crying on the monitor. I'll help Connor pick out a nice van. Enter my madness. Today begins my first blog. I feel the need to vent as a way to windex my mind. I have been a stay at home mom of a child with special concerns and sometimes I just want to SHOUT and YELL because of the frustrations.

Today I woke up at 6 AM to get to an 8:30 appointment with my son's surgeon. My son Connor just had his bilateral cleft lip repaired, and today was the day the stitches came out. Holding my son down and watching him scream in pain is nothing new, it goes with the territory now. He has been through so much already to get to this point, he is just such a trooper. Moms who complain about seeing their precious perfect little babies get their first shots can eat my shorts.

The experience of staying at home is just starting to hit me if you can believe it. For almost eight months my life has been so consumed with appointments and doctors, that I am waking up to the fact that THIS is my career. My home IS my place of work. The stinky ferret cage is an office hazard that needs to be condemned! OSHA would close us down in a heartbeat if they took a whiff of that thing right now.

I think that the key to dealing with this new career is to get organized. Connor is finally taking a nap, so I can think for a minute. Think. Think. Think. What was I saying again?