Adventures of a SAHM

So we finally made the leap.

As of yesterday, I have become a stay at home mom.  I'm excited, of course, because I will be the first to see and experience all the things that James will be doing and learning, and fearful at the same time because I will be the one he's learning from and imitating.

I have dreamed - longed to be a stay at home mom since we had J.  We have been toying with the idea for a couple of months and we finally made the decision to do it because we all needed a change.  Work was just getting too stressful and tedious for me.  Daycare was working well for J, but not for Daddy.  So we crunched our numbers and found that our expenses for my gas, insurance, and J's daycare amounted to just a little bit under my monthly salary anyway.  Hubby and I both agreed that the sacrifice is worth it.  We'll of course be skimping and budgeting more to make ends meet, but in the end it's what is going to work for us.  So now hubby can sleep in a little bit and get home earlier since he doesn't have to drop and pick-up J.  J can sleep in too since we no longer have to get out of the house by 7am, and no more bringing home sickness from daycare.

Call me crazy, but J has already learned so much from the time that I've been home.  There is endless possibilities of learning when you learn on a one on one basis.  Granted there is great learning potential in a group setting also but early childhood development has a big part in adulthood.  So hubby and I want him to learn from us instead of from others.

In the upcoming months we're going to have a lot of things we're going to be trying, doing, and learning.  I look forward to sharing our every adventure with you.

First off, grocery shopping with a toddler.
This will be the first time I'll be in the grocery store with J - by myself.  I usually have that time to myself since I go while the boys stay home and bond.  I'm usually in and out within 45 minutes since I plan my trip according to our needs vs. weekly ads + coupons, aisle by aisle, of course.  I'll need to be even more anal about it with a toddler that can't sit in a cart for too long.  I'm giving myself 15 minutes for our first trip.  Is that too high of an expectation for our first endeavor?  I fear I will be that mom that ends up with a cart full of candy and miscellaneous things because I threw them in the cart to appease a toddler tamper tantrum.

Wish me luck.