It’s been more than a week since we came back to Dubai. While our “vacation” in Japan is officially over, I am yet to go back to work next Sunday (yes, we work on Sundays here in case you’re a new reader). So I got like almost 2 weeks at home without any house help / nanny for a week as she is on vacation too.

I thought – it’s  great way to be a stay at home mom which was what I somehow wanted (even just temporarily). Just me, the kids and the husband. That wouldn’t be too bad, what could go wrong?

But by day three, I was exhausted, frustrated and annoyed at myself. Four large suitcases to unpack, piles of laundry, thick sand in the balcony, a broken washing machine, a broken aircondition, an eternally messy kitchen, a toddler that is going through a pace of sticking to my body as long as he can, any time he wants to and there is only one me – a heavily jet lagged me.

I know what triggers me to be frustrated – when I couldn’t write as much as I want to. I’ve got so many things I want to write about, so many photos to organize, edit, watermark. Emails to send and reply to.

When I am doing other chores Benjamin is ok with it but the moment I sit in front of the PC, it won’t take 10 seconds before he comes up to me and breaks my concentration, halting whatever I do.

I could never rock this work from home style – unless I build a secret fortress to hide.

When we were still in Japan, I wasn’t able to publish posts as much as I would like. It was either the poor internet connection at home, the PC that I wasn’t used to, the house hold chores that needing urgent attention, the strolls I needed to take Benjamin out to or the sleep ins.

The sleep-ins are huge.

I’ve read blogs about families with small children who travel around the world and then blog about it. There are pretty successful families like that like Caz and Craig of YTravel Blog. How do they find the time? I realized, most probably, these mighty bloggers must SLEEP LESS. When their kids are sleeping, they creep out of the bed and burn the midnight candle.

But what do I do? I allow myself to sleep too, maybe a little bit more than I should?

I am still breastfeeding Benjamin, 21 months after. When he wants to take a nap or sleep at night, I lie down with him and you guessed it, I sleep in the process of making my son sleep.

And most likely, I don’t wake up until morning.

He has this strange censors that detect when I am not beside him. It could be the warmth or the smell, I don’t know but the moment I go to the other room to attempt to do something else, he wakes up and cries. Then I have to scamper in and lie with him again. (Please don’t tell me to use the CIO (cry it out) method of ‘sleep training’. It won’t work for me because I can’t stand my small child crying. If it worked for you, I’m happy for you.)

Right now, he can’t sleep without me but that is OK. Because it’s not like it’s like this until he is 18. And besides, I love cuddling my children to sleep. Love, love, love.

The writing and the emails can wait. They take a back seat, for now.

So anyway, while I’ve been writing this post, I’m taking the challenge not to sleep while the baby sleeps. I’ve been shuttling to the bedroom and back every 10 minutes or so but thankfully, I am about to conclude this writing.

Lastly, I re-realized (is that a word?) how difficult it must be to be a stay at home mom. I have high respect for moms who choose to stay at home. Sure it looks easy but the tasks are just unending and finding time for yourself is almost impossible without an extra pair of hands.

It’s a tug of war inside my heart – I totally love the time to be near my kids and take care of them myself. Those precious moments of afternoon naps with Ben’s sweet smelling head under my nose are the best… yet, I miss the quiet time I can have for myself to do what I love to do, to see what I can do to make myself proud and feel good and make them happy too in the process because a self-fulfilled mom is a better parent.

Such selfish thoughts, wanting to have the best of both worlds. Such is the life of moms, working or stay at home!