Lather. Rinse. Repeat

Babies don’t come with instructions (a fact universally bemoaned by new parents), but if they did, it would read like the back of a shampoo bottle. Sure, these instructions have long been derided for their moronic simplicity, but it pretty much sums up 90% of your parental duties in the first year or two.

Babies thrive on routines and schedules, even though many of us adults do not. I love being a mother and I love my boys with obsessive ardor. But honestly, I find most of my maternal duties mind-numbingly dull and bereft of intellectual stimulation. Some of my daily duties, repeated ad nauseam, could probably be used as effective brain washing techniques by religious cults. When my non-mom friends ask me what it’s like being a mother, I enthuse about how it’s analagous to life before cell phones, color tv, TiVo and the internet. Sure, life was fine then because you didn’t know what you were missing, but now, you can’t imagine life without these indispensable items. But imagine being stuck on the same phone call, or tv show or web page and repeating it over and over again.

I wouldn’t trade being a stay-at-home mom for the invaluable time I get to spend with my boys. Their childhood is already slipping through my fingers like sand. But on a day-to-day basis, I feel like I’m running on a domestic treadmill and going nowhere fast. I swear I’m cleaning up the same mess over and over again. The same toys, the same Cheerios on the floor and the same loads of laundry. I once read a quote in an insipid book about motherhood that someone gave me as a gift (as if moms have time to read that crap) that said cleaning up after small children is like shoveling the walkway while it’s still snowing. Not that I know anything about shoveling snow, but it sounds oh so true. I think a better analogy would be that it’s like bailing out a boat that’s sprunk a leak. You may not ever get ahead, but at least you’re preventing the vessel from completely capsizing.

And then there’s the meals: breakfast, lunch and dinner and two snacks in between. I’m forever in the kitchen preparing food that gets thrown on the floor. And then I’m on the floor scraping off encrusted food and sweeping the same floor again and again and again. Reading the same stories (because my son loves the repetition), watching the same sign language dvd and shows, running the same errands to Target to buy the same stuff, and taking my older son to the same karate classes. The utter sameness and the endless repetition can be trance-inducing. The days blend together into a blur of routine.

It’s not that I’m complaining (okay, maybe a little) because it’s just an inevitable part of raising children. But it’s hard nonetheless and some days, I just long to lather and rinse and NOT repeat.