"What is A Clockwork Orange."

The subject of this blog post is more about me than it is about my son, which marks a departure from the martyrdom that is motherhood. As my husband and I were lounging quietly on the couch the other day, both with our respective laptops perched in front of us, he turned to me and said, “Your blog sucks; there’s not enough of it.” I was at once offended and flattered. But his remark got me thinking. Why don’t I blog more often? And the answer is simple…my life has become boring and, for the most part, follows the same circuit of events day in and day out, varied only by the occasional lunch date with friends and the choice of whether to get groceries on Friday or Saturday. I’m not complaining; I’ve discovered over the last few months that I like the mundane, but such a static routine doesn’t leave much in the way of fodder for posts. So, I’ve decided to embrace the ordinary and dedicate this post to a description of my day(s).

A basic day in the life begins between 7 and 8 am (my husband is currently smirking, knowing that it’s closer to 8 than 7 and closer to 9 than 8). After a feeding, clean up, and diaper change, Suttie and I are ready to start the day. We play – on his playmat, on his circular walker, on the vanity, making faces in the mirror…anything to keep him occupied for more than 5 minutes at a time. About an hour later, he goes down for his first nap, during which time I read, trying to better myself for a career I may never have and a book I may never write. Over the last 3 years of my unemployed existence, I’ve found that I enjoy the distance that I’ve put between myself and ambition. I was always putting far too much pressure on my grades and my job, and, until I can reenter the working world with a revamped set of priorities, I would rather not do so at all.

Now we’ve come to the point in my day when I start to transform into an 80-something year old woman. Around noon, Suttie wakes up for another diaper change and bottle. During this feeding, I usually flip on the noonday news in time to hear about the Monte Sano Quilting Club’s Annual Stitch-Off or whatever other non-newsworthy item happens to be on the docket for today. But what I’m really waiting for is Jeopardy, which starts at 12:27 pm on the nose. During the 30 minutes that follow, I use every bit of my 6 years of higher education to answer 9 out of 10 questions abysmally wrong. Then, during the breaks, I become intensely wrapped up in the commercials that characterize daytime television, thinking, “Maybe I do need additional Term Life Insurance…That is a good price for diabetic testing supplies…and why am I suddenly hungry for oatmeal?”

After crashing and burning at trivia, I again try to entertain my son. We walk the dog, play in his nursery, call his dad…ticking off items on a limited list of things that might appease a 4 month old. Then, to both my relief and his, it’s afternoon nap time. While he’s snoring in his bassinet, I’m usually in the laundry room, going through an entire bottle of Spray-N-Wash on sleepers and onesies that have only the slightest chance of survival. It never ceases to amaze me how he can get poop stains half way up his back, nearly up to his armpit. And then, just as I’ve finished with the laundry and am ready to sit down for a bit of rest and relaxation, I hear it…those first piercing cries of a baby who is awake and mad about it.

So restarts the cycle of diapering, feeding, and playing until his dad comes home to give me a well-earned break so that I can finally bathe. Now, if you’re thinking that this is the part of the post where I sum up its contents into some sort of lesson, you’re wrong. Like I said, I haven’t had much in the way of significant events lately, so to fill blog space I’m giving you a window into a typical day here. But, I guess if you’re going to force it out of me, the lesson that you should take away from this is that someone who once had great ambition, who once thought that her life would be filled with achievement is now quite happy to sit back and enjoy the repetition of a day in which her greatest accomplishment was scotch-guarding the couch. And I’m sure one day soon, I’ll be back in the throws of the classroom full time, both as a student and a teacher, but until then I’m going to relish the time that I have with my son, even if it means scrubbing his more colorful stains.