What Exactly, Do I Do All Day?

To those not in the know, staying at home and being 'just a mom' is more than a full time job. I get very upset when working parents act like I'm not doing much but watching Oprah and the View and not much else. I often hear, "You try doing what I do...blah de blah de blah".

How about YOU try doing what I do? Not that I'm playing tit for tat, but here's what my job consisted of doing yesterday...and I'm not even going to get a stimulus bonus to prove that it was worthwhile.

All Before I took Jack to school at 12:30 I had:

*Fed 3 kids breakfast.
*Gotten 3 kids ready for the day, dressed, teeth brushed, etc.
*done 3 loads of laundry (washed, dried, put away)
*taken Nate to preschool
*Sat in on an impromptu preschool meeting
*swum exactly 1 mile
*picked Nate up from school
*taken Nate to speech therapy
*fed Jack and Maddie lunch
*picked Nate up from speech therapy
*taken Jack to school.

My afternoon then consisted of:
*Feeding Nate lunch
*reading pre-naptime stories
*put kids in bed for nap
*clean kitchen
*eat lunch (read also, first meal of the day at 2 p.m. because that's when I had time).
*start crock-pot chicken for dinner
*deal with bout of stomach flu
*sweep floors
*More stomach flu
*wash windows
*More stomach flu
*wake up Nate and Maddie in order to get Jack from school
*Pick up Jack and market day order simultaneously
*More stomach flu
*change Nate's sheets, since he wet the bed during Nap
*feed children dinner while silently begging God for John to get home so I can lie down
*Weigh myself on the Wii-which incidentally thinks I need to lose another SEVEN POUNDS!!!
*dress kids after bath
*Read to Maddie
*Read to Jack
*CRASH!!!!


Somewhere in all this autopilot running, I'm educating my children, instilling morals, teaching them respect, and dealing with school papers, homework, gathering things to get into backpacks, etc. etc. I'm glad I'm at home raising my own kids. Nobody can take any credit for how awesome they are, but it gets tiring. And maybe it's the fact that I am not feeling the greatest, but I am tired. And I'm VERY tired of people thinking that because I'm home I'm not working. Because when I used to work Saturdays, that was the easiest day of my week. I took care of myself, got myself out the door, listened to my music on the car ride in, and crazy of all craziness, I was able to form a coherent thought in my head without someone needing, demanding, needing, wanting, demanding, needing.

I suppose I could prioritze and not do some of the things I'm doing, but what EXACTLY should I cut out?

Speech therapy is 3 days a week, and very necessary.
School is NOT OPTIONAL, so 2 mornings and 5 afternoons a week I am shuttling the kids there and back.
Exercise for me is also NOT OPTIONAL. I don't think it's too unfair for me to be physcially fit and mentally stable, and exercise helps with both.

Anything else we do for fun I almost feel obligated to do, because we are always running to the have-to's, like speech and school. The boys have asked to play soccer and t-ball. I can't really say no since they will learn a lot, skills, teamwork, etc. And that hasn't even started yet.....

And really, what would/should I change about all this.

Probably not a darned thing. I think for the most part I'm an a-okay mom. Maybe not the coolest mom (reading these Star Wars books to Jack at night is like reading Russian, I just don't get it), but the kids are thriving.

Right?