Starting this summer, I will be a homemaker. No, not a stay at home mom - that won't happen until December. I will be a wife, at home during the day simply tending to the house (and the dog).
For some reason, this seems even more incredible to me than my becoming a SAHM. Even once I realized I was going to stay at home with our child(ren), I assumed I'd work until late in pregnancy. But with only six months between finishing my degree and having our baby, it's almost silly to try to find a job in this economy when I'll be overqualified and only stay for a few months. My sweet generous husband told me not to worry about it and just enjoy our first pregnancy.
Since deciding this, I've toyed with the idea of what to do with all that time. Prepping for baby will only take so much time, after all. I've come up with lots of other plans, everything from sewing curtains to learning how to cook new things to catching up on my reading to getting into a housecleaning routine. That's what homemakers do, right?
But yesterday as I started to fix dinner, I felt like I was failing in my homemaking attempts. There was no reason for this. Here I was, starting a delicious homecooked dinner that would be ready when my husband walked in the door. I'd actually managed to get the dishes done during the day, so the counters looked good. I'd even set the table, something I usually let him take care of. Sure, the living room was cluttered and a load of laundry needed to be done, but that was no big deal - I'm still technically working from home, so I haven't felt the need to be a complete Suzy Homemaker yet. My husband doesn't mind that, as he'd rather I spend time writing my dissertation than dusting.
And yet something was still off. As I chopped the lettuce, it hit me. Our house didn't feel like a haven.
My husband had had a hard day at work and was fighting off a cold, and yet every time he talked to his self-absorbed wife that day, she complained about the dog and the rain. She even sent him not one but two emails detailing everything that had come out of the dog that day (from both ends). Sure, the smell of dinner might be wafting out the door, but dinner just doesn't taste as good when it's a nagging wife that cooks it. Who wants to come home to that?
That's when I realized that the most important aspect of being a homemaker is making home a haven. Someplace that you can retreat to at the end of a long day in the world, where you will be surrounded by comfort and love. If the haven is clean with hot food waiting, that's a bonus.
My husband came home last night to a happy dog jumping on him, a happy wife jumping on him, and undercooked pork tenderloin. I considered it a success.