Stay At Home-Alone-Mom

I'm a Stay at Home Mom. I'm really proud of that because it means I'm able to see all the little moments my kids have. I saw all of Kyra's firsts and I will get to see all of Ty's. I'm also saving a ton of money because child care around here is astronomical rightly so watching people's children is a big deal and if I were to have someone watch them I would want someone with qualifications and that means paying more, but I'm saving the money and getting to spend time with my kids. Being a Stay at Home Mom is a really awesome gig most days. The thing is....

I underestimated how lonely this would be.

My whole day is spent with the kids or kid now that Kyra is in school. There are no other adults around. Also I don't get much time to chat online with other adults because Ty is an infant and infants do not have any concept of time and schedules or Mommy's need to interact with someone who speaks. When Kyra does get home it is a rush of homework, snack, keeping her entertained while I make dinner and care for the baby, and then the whole bath time, bed time, clean up the mess routine before I finally attempt to sleep a couple hours before the baby is awake.

The thing is I've never really been lonely. I'm pretty content on my own 99% of the time.....but now I'm pretty much alone 99.9% of the time.

I listen to a lot of audio books and podcasts now just to feel like there is someone else in the room.

Now my husband does come home and he helps...sorta. He works long hours and even when he is home he is working so our conversations are pretty minimal. He wants to complain about work and I feel drained just hearing it all while doing all the things I have to do to keep the house running. He means well and he'd probably do more but the time it would take to explain how to do it right I could just do it myself. Type A personality anyone?

People will ask, "What about your friends?" Well my friends live hundreds of miles away and are childless so our lives are at different points right now.

"What about your 'mom' friends?" I don't have any. Making mom friends is hard because we all parent differently. Making mom friends is hard because there is a big age gap between me and the moms with kids my kids age. There is also a decent sized age gap between my kids, by today's standards, and that makes it hard too. Also I suck at making friends. I need friends that I can see once every few months and it still feel normal. I get bogged down in the day to day and I'm no good at gossip or talking about 'normal' things. I'm weird and always have been.

"Why don't you go out? Get out of the house and make a run to Target? That's a mom thing to do." Yeah I do that sometimes, but my car is in the shop again and has been for weeks and that leaves me exactly here, stuck, which is what opened my eyes to the whole 'this is not what I expected' thing.

I realize that may seem silly to some. I mean I chose this life. I wanted to be here with my kids all the time. I love being with my kids. This isn't about them. This is about me. I'm lonely and the only thing I can think to do is write about it. So here I am. Back to my poor neglected blog pouring out feelings while the baby takes a nap that will probably only last 45 minutes and ignoring the mess from this morning's chaos of getting everyone fed and dressed and out the door.

I don't know where I'm going with this, I guess I just needed to get it out there into the void. So there it is, I underestimated how lonely this would be.