The Price of Staying Home

Being a stay-at-home mom has its costs. When I was working, we had a cleaning service, a lawn service, we went on trips, I got pedicures. I got my hair colored more than once every three months. My clothes were better and didn't consist of tee-shirts. If I had gone back to work, Helen was going to go to a daycare where they learned French. So I guess by staying home, I'm costing my children the opportunity to be bilingual at the age of two. Although sometimes I do wake Helen up by saying "bonjour."

But the real cost is that I have had to take on a lot of tasks that Matt and I used to share. For example, I go to the grocery store. Obviously it makes a lot more sense for me to go during the day than for Matt to go at night. I do the laundry. Again its a lot easier to throw on a load during the day than for Matt to have to do it after a day of working.

But the one task that I cannot stand is that now I have to kill bugs. When Helen was a newborn, a salamander got into our house. I actually called Matt and asked him to come home on his lunch break and get rid of it. He told me that if I was going to stay at home then I would just have to take care of the creatures that sneak into our house during the day (to be fair, he did say he would still take on any nighttime killings). So in order to prove that I could handle any situation that cropped up during the day-whether it be a child or a bug emergency-I decided to rid our home of the salamander. I put on Matt's boots (bigger, stronger, taller). I got a broom and some Raid. That's right, I "Raided" the salamander. Raid doesn't really kill salamanders, it sort of tortures them into some sort of frantic seizure state. I actually felt bad about that. So after torturing the salamander, it was still alive. I tried to sweep it outside, but it would just flop around. Finally I got it near the backdoor only to have it flop into the little crevice at the bottom of the door. I finally shoveled it out with a spatula and threw it outside. I also threw the spatula away. It did eventually die a Raid-induced torture death on our patio.

That was almost two years ago. I guess I proved to Matt that I could handle it because I am still staying home and still handling the bugs that appear during the day. Although my methods are much more sophisticated. Today I just used the dust-buster to nab a spider. I can't actually touch a bug! But I still put on Matt's boots...just in case.