Big Mistake

In the great debate between being a stay-at-home mom and a work-outside-the-home mom (a debate that exists, largely, inside each individual mom's own head), there is the question of whether staying home will bring a mom more free time. More time with your child(ren), yes. More time for household chores, yes. But more free time? Hard to say.

I think that as a SAHM, I have more unstructured time than I did when I was working. When I was working, my whole day was scheduled with my work shift and then my at-home evening routines. Even the weekends had to be used mostly for catching up on laundry and grocery shopping. It was stressful, and I admit that being a SAHM is a lot less stressful in terms of scheduling. I do feel like I have time to get things done.

However, I also have less alone time, and that makes it hard to get certain kid-free activities done. I am lucky to have childcare on Tuesdays, but I can only get so much done on those days. It's hard for me to thoroughly clean my whole house from top-to-bottom with Nathan around, so I usually do that on Tuesdays. Throw in some grocery shopping and other miscellaneous errands/appointments, and my Tuesdays are more or less shot.

So I usually start thinking around Sunday about what I can do to lessen my Tuesday load. For example, could I possibly squeeze in a small grocery-shopping trip with Nathan Monday afternoon to tide us over until the following weekend?

So, the big mistake part comes in here, when I was using today to try to get some of my Tuesday to-do's done. As you may recall, I got fake nails a couple of weeks ago. I got them mostly for the wedding I was in, and then my intention was to have them removed this week. I got to thinking that Nathan could probably behave himself long enough in the nail place for them to pry off my acrylic nails, and for me to get an eyebrow wax. I have brought him along for eyebrow waxes before, because it's not like those are relaxing anyway. They're ripping your facial hair out from the roots, so adding in the pain of wrangling a toddler doesn't make it that much more painful.

So it was gonna be brow wax, then nail removal. But when I got into the nail place, I was seduced by the many pretty colors I could get if I just got my nails filled in another time. I craved that feeling of walking away with something pretty and novel to have all for myself. So I asked to have my nails filled, with the bright pink sea gems tips.

Nathan had many toys. He played with them for a time, ate a sucker from my purse for a time, and sat on my lap for a time. However, he also wanted to spin around in the chair, step on the pedals that operate the electric nail tools, and play with those fake hands that display the different kinds of nails you could get. He broke off two of the nails on the display hands, and the lady was mad. She yelled at him, "You go sit down!" And that child looked like my old dog used to when you would scold her for peeing on the carpet and she'd hide in the corner with her tail between her legs.

Maybe I should yell at him more.

Anyway, I learned that you should not take your child with you to the nail place. You have to spend every second controlling his behavior, and you have to do it from a chair with only one available hand. And you have to endure yelling from the nail lady and Judgmental Looks from the other patrons.

The thing is, I feel like an idiot in so many ways. First of all, what made me think the child could behave himself while I got my nails done? Second, why am I not a good enough parent to just get my kid to listen to me? I swear, that child fights back on every command I give him. I mean, not in an argumentative way, just in a "let me ascertain the exact limits of my behavior" way. So, say he is screaming and yelling. You say, "Stop screaming." And instead he changes his voice to making the same noise, just in a voice that's not quite loud enough to qualify as a scream, but is still loud enough to be annoying. And it's like, must you be so sneaky?

I think I need to find a new nail place. I'm too embarrassed to show my face in there ever again.