Life as a Stay at Home Mom

My whole life I have known I wanted to be a stay at home Mom. Now, that I am one I can say that I knew exactly what I was talking about! I guess I am a stay at home Mom/missionary. But being a missionary is really a way of life. As Jack gets older I will do more "missionary stuff" but for now my time is consumed by "Mom stuff" which is exactly the way it should be according to this book I read called the Bible.

I have so much fun being home with Jack that I thought I would share a little of our day with you.

Jack is a FABULOUS sleeper and sleeps often until 8:30 or 9 -- and that is after 12 hours of sleep! I get up at 7 and get dressed and have some quiet time with the Lord and then get breakfast ready for the family. Sometimes I make muffins or something and sometimes we have cereal. But, I always make Johann a cup of coffee and Jack always has his morning yogurt. His favorite flavor is strawberry, followed closely by banana. After breakfast, Jack gets cleaned up and dressed for the day. Johann and I sit down and watch the 18 minute ABC news webcast that we download. We missed watching news in the morning -- so Johann found a way to get the news to us!

At 10, our language teacher Tony arrives. Tony and I go and have my language lesson until 11:30. Johann takes care of Jack. Then we switch. While Johann is having his lesson Jack and I play for awhile and read some books. Then we either fix lunch or go to the store. Jack is very good at holding things for me in his stroller. He held a whole head of cauliflower on the way home yesterday.

After lunch, it is usually laundry time. I have to do a load everyday. Since I don't have a dryer here I hang the clothes up and they take a full 24 hours (sometimes longer) to dry. Also, a load here is half a load at home. So, I have to make sure and stay on top of the laundry or it stays on top of us! Afternoons are usually full of laundry, cleaning the chasing Jack around and getting him down. He pulls himself up on everything but hasn't figured out how to get down. While I am doing all this, Johann is usually back in our makeshift office doing stuff for "the office" or he is actually at the office. How many time can office go in one sentence?

At 4ish Jack has a snack. That is a huge mess to clean up.

I start supper around 5:30 or 6. Jack eats his supper around 6:15 and then pretends to eat a banana while we eat our supper. I say pretend because all he really does is smash it between his fingers.

After supper, Jack gets a bath and gets in his jammies. We have some more story time and then he goes to bed.

After the kitchen is clean, Johann and I hit the language books for a couple of hours. We've given up on getting much studying done in the day (thank you Jack) and save most of it for the evening.

When our homework is done and our brains hurt. We give up and have a little chill out time before going to bed around 11 or 11:30 ish.

That is a typical day for my life as a stay at home Mom. I am so blessed to be home with Jack throughout every day. I get to really watch him and see his personality develop -- like I never would if I weren't home with him. I'm busier than I've ever been in my life I think and I wouldn't change any of it!

Here are some pics of Jack after he has pulled himself up.

Speaking of Parks . . .

I didn't think it was that big of a deal when we took Jack to the park this week. Sure, it was special because it was his first time in a park. But, I didn't really understand how special it was. I found out this week that during communism, there were no parks. There was nowhere at all for little children to go and play. Nothing. During recess at school children were made to walk in circles outside. Maybe that is whey a Czech park always has children in it -- these Czechs know what it is to grow up and have no place to play outside. They take full advantage of it.

They also didn't have much fruit and no bananas. Every Christmas, rumors would go all over Prague that a few stores were allowed to get a shipment of bananas. However, each person was only allowed so many bananas. So, the Czechs got smart. A whole family would arrive at separate times to the banana line and stand in line (sometimes for hours) to get their allotment of bananas. Then they would all meet up at home and glory in all the bananas they managed to get.

We just have no idea. None.

So say a prayer for Prague the next time you see a park or eat a banana.

Jack's First Day at the Park

Yesterday we took Jack to the park for the first time. The sun was shining brightly for the first time in forever and we decided to take advantage of it by going to the park. The park is really close and has lots of great stuff for kids. It also has lots of graffiti. Sometimes it's a really good thing to have the vocabulary of a 3 year old -- graffiti isn't offensive:) Jack loved the park. I loved the sunshine. It's amazing what a little sunshine can do to lift spirits. For most of the day yesterday I kept thinking I had the lights on all over the apartment because it was so bright. It makes me quite anxious for summer to get here.

On the Move

We've added "chase Jack around the entire apartment" to our list of daily duties. Our life as we know it is now over.

Tony Is Sick

Tony is our language teacher. We really like Tony. But, today he is sick. He said we might have lessons again on Friday. Being sick in Prague is an interesting thing. If you are sick enough to warrant antibiotics (which they hand out here like candy) then you are sick for the full course of antibiotics. For example, we were supposed to have our neighbors over awhile ago. On the night they were supposed to come over the wife found us in the hall of our building and said, "I'm so sorry we cannot meet tonight because we are sick. I told my husband to go tell you last week that we couldn't come because we are sick but he didn't." Last week you knew you would be sick this week? That sounds a little strange to we Americans. However it is totally normal here. They really were sick because they had a 10 day course of antibiotics which meant nobody in that family went to work or school for 10 days. It is perfectly acceptable here to call your employer and say, "I will be sick for 10 days, I will come back to work after that." A Czech cannot be fired for that -- in fact it is assumed such things will happen and it is totally ok. Kids in school can miss as many sick days as they need to as there is no law saying they have to be in school so many days of the year. There's a little Czech culture lesson for you.

All of that to say that Tony is sick. He sounded bad. We are hoping he doesn't need antibiotics or else he will be sick for 10 days which means we won't have language for 10 days. Well, that and Tony is a nice guy and we don't want him to have to suffer through being sick.

Lots of Pictures

I know, I know. It's been nearly a month since a post. In our defense, my Mom and brother were here for almost 2 weeks! Our holidays were great and now we are back to normal. We've started up with language again and life is getting back to normal. I'll let the pictures do the talking of what has gone on here the past few weeks. You'll see pics of the visit with Mom and bro, pics of the Prague Christmas market, pics of Prague from an observation tower and I'm sure a few of Jack:) Enjoy and we'll post again soon!