Mommy Mathematics

Today was one of those days in which, with BJ gone, time is of the essence. Not all single-mother days are like this, but some of them are, and indeed today has been. If I think of it as an equation, it goes something like this:

x + y = day in mommy life,

where x may equal all of the things that need to get done in a 24 hour period. Please note that x cannot = sleep. This being said, x = first and foremost, duties such as working, pumping, paying bills, cooking dinner, laundry, dishes, other sundry housework, packing baby's milk bottles, restocking the nursery caddies, etc. Once these tasks are accomplished, x may then = things that mommy may want to do with her spare time, such as eating, watching television, taking a shower, reading, blogging, or breathing. However, one should never quote me as complaining about this schedule. Why, you may ask? Ah, reader, because of the factor y. In a nutshell,

y = time spent with baby, and therefore:

y > x

in nearly all cases. (This equation refers to quality of time rather than quantity, but it should be noted that the overall quality of the day becomes greater as the quantity of y increases in the original equation.) There are a few exceptions in which y may possibly be < or = to x, and they include changing diaper explosions, soothing your baby after hours of him screaming, and the ninth time of being up in the middle of the night with the baby. And that, my friends, is what I refer to as mommy mathematics. What what.