Take Your Brother to Work Week: Stay at Home Mom Edition

Last week the Bennett hotel was overbooked so I moved out. Rather than stay at a boring Day's Inn or Ramada I chose to move in with my sister in Georgetown (a neighborhood of DC). She and her husband and my only niece, Ruby, live in a nice three bedroom townhouse. I spent the whole week with them, learning the ropes of being a stay at home mom while Father Jeff went to work. Here I will describe some of my observations and funny experiences.
On Monday we went to the National Museum of Natural History in the morning. That's a great place. Ruby loved all the 'stuffed animals,' especially and including the giant elephant and the giraffe. I even had a great time down there.

• Lesson number one: Being a stay at home mom is much more enjoyable when both the kids and the parents are interested in the activity. It would have been a long day at the museum if it had not been so fascinating.

On Tuesday we went to a children's concert down by the river. A man stepped out of a van and offered to sing to us so we obliged. There were many other moms and nannies there so we figured it was legit. There were bandanas to wave around, egg shakers to shake, and bells to ring. This part of the story is true (actually everything else was, except for the man in the van): A Mom turned to me while I was singing the ABCs and said "You have a very nice voice!" I said thanks and told her it was one of my favorite songs. She then said to me "So what do you do with your voice?" Me: "Um, what do you mean?" Her: "I mean, do you sing professionally or anything?" This kind woman honestly asked me if I sang professionally based on my sing-along version of the ABCs. If anyone has ever heard me sing they know that I was not exactly blessed with an angelic singing voice. Sometimes at Church I like to sit next to the opera singer in our ward and lip-sync really aggressively in hopes that others will think it's me that's actually singing.
Wednesday was the Fourth, so Father Jeff was home and we went out separate ways- me to a BBQ and them to a parade.
Thursday we went to the Hirshorn Museum of Modern Art and rode the carousel on the Mall. It was also delightful.

• Second lesson: DC is a great place to be a stay at home mom. There is so much free stuff and so much outdoors or indoors stuff to do. How's your city compare?

Friday we went to another children's concert- this time out at Wolftrap. Wolftrap is an outdoor concert hall, similar to Tanglewood in MA, and is operated by the National Park Service. The children's concert (Elizabeth Mitchell for all you mommies who are wondering) was great. Never mind that it was 102F out, we were in the shade and in the woods. All the children were really cute and it was enjoyable to be out at Wolftrap on a non busy day.

• Lesson Three: Stay at home moms work hard. Kids are ever needy, and there is no shortage of tasks to accomplish. Sure there's some perks like hanging out in museums all morning and napping in the afternoon, but all in all it's a no break job. There's no rest for a stay at home mom.
• 4th Lesson: It's absolutely necessary to get out of the house every day. Even if it's just a walk around the neighborhood, getting out of the house at least once a day is a must.

I often thought that I would like being a stay at home Dad but now I realize it would definitely take some getting used to. I also realized that stay at home Dads are extremely rare. I did see some Dads out and about during our events, but none of them were alone with the kids. There was always a mother along.
It was a great experience for me, and now I'm much more in tune with all you stay at home moms.