SAHM's First Anniversary

It's been a year since I have taken the leap of faith and became a stay-at-home mom (SAHM). Well, technically I left the corporate workforce on the first day of June but took a terminal leave in May. It would also have been a year for us with no househelp. Yay! We survived!! :)

Home Management

After some time, I've learned that it's highly improbable to have a clean and orderly house 24/7. That chores need to be scheduled one at a time. And that sometimes, even if you do schedule doing a particular chore, there will be moments you'd put those aside to work on other things. I have learned that the average time a house (with a little boy) can remain spick-and-span is only at 10 minutes. After the given duration, my realm turns into a wasteland courtesy of toys on the floor, crayon writings on the wall, and the favorite of our "housemates" - crumbs from my little one's meal.

After a couple of weeks, I've been able to create a system on how to manage our little home. But it seems that this system is capable of redeveloping itself, leaving me at awe. The changes created, I have deduced, are directly related to two things: the time the little one wakes up, and his moods. I bet most moms would agree if I say that their worlds revolve around their children, literally - which includes their resources and schedule. And whether we like it or not, moms do the adjusting in the family.

Marriage

It gives me joy to be of service to my man. We learned more about each other now that we don't get to spend time together 24/7. It's ironic, I know. We used to work in one company a couple of years back where we first met. We had the same office schedules and even if I changed mine, he would extend his just so we can be together. Now that he works for the family and me left at home, we manage to have meaningful conversations whenever we can. Even if at sometimes, we tell stories through text. His own world is expanding and I am delighted of his progress. We both have different worlds now where each of us are being developed, making our universe a whole lot better.

Quite frankly, I miss the days when we still had a househelp at home. For the simple reason that Hubby and I can have our mini-dates because we had someone to look after Little V.  Now, having a clingy 3-yr old makes it very challenging for us to have our "alone" time. There are days that I wished that there's a Marvel movie being shown at least once a month so that we can really push our movie date into our schedule, and bring our son to his daycare center - my mother's house. I hope that we'd be able to work on a schedule (and childcare!) where Hubby and I can have more frequent dates.

Parenting

Staying at home to be with my son 24/7 has magnified my skills and talents not only as a mother, but also as a cook, nurse, dentist, teacher, and playmate. I am blessed to have this opportunity to see my little boy grow right in front of me. I am thrilled that I am the first person he looks for in the room. And that he misses me so much when I'm away to do some errands.

I have learned so much about parenting, life, first-aid, health, homeschooling, toys, and what-have-yous because of my boy. Even if at sometimes I feel so clueless and helpless in this parenting job, er calling, I hold on tight to God because I know He's in-charge of everything.

My heart and patience have grown tremendously and it definitely still has a lot more to offer.

Career

I admire work-at-home moms (WAHMs) for doing a super fine job managing their families and their careers. How'd they do that? 

I sometimes "try" to be a WAHM. I'm saying "try" because I only get to log in for this online work at a maximum of 3 hours a week. It's hard to get away from a clingy baby. Even when he's asleep, he has some sort of a radar and knows when I'm not in my bed (he has a toddler bed and shares the bedroom with us). Maybe in the future I can be more committed to it. But for now, I'll settle doing ninja moves during the night, even for just 30 minutes.

Earlier this year I found my way back into blogging. From a sporadic blogger, I now try to write at least one post every week - to keep me sane. I hope that in every article I write, I am able to touch another person, help them in what they were looking for, or just simply give them a dose of freshness in their crazy lives. I am thankful for my group, Mommy Bloggers Philippines, who I consider my new found friends. Although I have only seen a few of them in person, their virtual presence assures me that I am not alone in this journey. I can't wait to meet all of them!


A year has passed and I've grown tremendously from it. Excited for more years in this career. Cheers to a year of being a stay-at-home mom!