You've GOT to be kidding! If you told me a month ago that I'd have a completely stress-free Sunday and an enjoyable Monday.. I would have laughed at you while heading to grab a pint of ice cream.

Today was the first day of my new schedule at work. I was home today with Ben and will be working Tuesday through Friday for my normal hours. Today has been great. Ben is currently playing with his home depot tools, so I have a few minutes to share our day with you all.

This morning started off pretty low key and laid back. Ben woke up at 8:30. We both got up and had breakfast and played for a bit. We then picked up the toys and I put Sprout on while I went to do some dishes. Ben climbed onto the couch "by self" and watched a bit of Elmo before proceeding to pull out all of the toys that we had just put away. I finished up with the dishes and we played "climb under mommy" and "jump on top of mommy".. which was much more fun for the 18-month old, i think.... but I got a few good hugs out of the deal.. so no complaints here (but maybe a bruise or two!). We then picked up his toys again and had a quick snack before he trucked off to bed for his morning nap.

I logged onto the computer to do random things like update my Facebook status and check my email. Then it was off to drink a glass of Diet Coke and watch the second half of Maury after bringing out the trash. By the time Maury ended, Ben was starting to wake back up.

We had lunch and then headed out to do some errands and to visit Mamom at work. After that, we hit not one.. not two.. but THREE parks in Belmont. The first one sucked.. everything was in the sun and the slides were HOT.. i quickly learned why it was so quiet there. We then headed to a park with some more shade but got pretty sweaty, so we packed up and headed over to another park that has a sprinkler setup. Ben had his first push-up pop. I was a bit of a loser-mom and forgot his crocs and his water shoes (i hadn't planned on going someplace with water).. so he went barefoot for a while until i was worrying too much about the heat of the areas that weren't wet.. so he was the poor little kid on the playground with the mother who made him wear a tshirt with his swim diaper AND sneakers into the water play area. Not only that.. but I had a spray bottle of sunblock that I kept chasing him down with. I think I actually did embarrass him.. or I just annoyed him after I sprayed it on his head for the 5th time because he sternly said "ma ma" while clapping his hands at me. and not in a good way.

At about 4:30, we headed back to the car.. Ben was asleep before Jill (the lady in my GPS) had the chance to link up with the satellites to tell me that I had missed my turn to head home... so we took the long way and Ben slept. He was sleeping so well that I was able to get home.. get him up to his room.. change him out of his swim stuff into dry clothes and still take a bit of a nap! yay!

It's now almost 7pm.. we've had a bath (well.. ben has.. i will have one after he goes to bed).. it took three washes to get all the sunblock out of his hair.. whoops! he's now playing in his little tent in the middle of the living room.. and I've had the time to update my blog. We're very mellow this evening.. my guess is because we had a long day playing! We miss mamom, who isn't home quite yet.. but we'll see her soon and then tomorrow night we get to go to a Red Sox game after work/school! yay!

and so ends my first day as a "stay at home mom".. tomorrow I morph back into a "working mom" but I get the chance to do this all over again next week.