On the reg.
It’s a term you may or may not have heard, depending on how much hip-hop music you listen to.  Rappers use this term to describe something they do regularly. For instance, “My clique rep Compton on the reg” means that your friends regularly support the community of Compton. “I drop phat beats on the reg” means that you create fun music for people to enjoy on a consistent basis. Since I am not a rapper and rep Compton or drop phat beats on any sort of consistent basis, I thought it might be fun to divulge a little information about what activities I do partake in “on the reg”.

I am a working-from-home-mom. This means I stay at home (except for Monday and Thursday mornings) where I take care of my four month old. I also do stay-at-home-mom tasks like cooking, cleaning, laundry and wrangling dog poop. But if that weren’t enough to do (which, believe me, it is plenty in and of itself) I am a mostly full time employee who usually pulls about 30 hours a week of work. This combination of tasks classifies me as a new type of person, a working-from-home-mom, or WFHM as it will hereafter be called. I get to pull double (or triple, if you are a country-club wife) duty on the reg.

People say, “Oh isn’t that wonderful- you get to stay at home”. Yes. It is wonderful. And I am so thankful that I am not missing out on moments with Eloise. But before you get all smooshy about WAFMs, let me give you a precautionary tale.

Here is what an average day looks like for a WFHM.
6:30 am- Alarm goes off. Hit snooze.
6:45 am- Snooze again.
7:00 am- claw myself out of bed and eat breakfast, get dressed, etc.- feed and wrangle dogs round one.
7:30 am- pump (not as in ‘pumping iron’) while checking e-mails
8:00 am- start my work for the day- answer e-mails and assess what to work on first

9:00 am- say hello to husband who just woke up- dog wrangle round two- get first phone call from work of the day notifying me of something some crazy client wants right away that they should have told me about weeks ago but conveniently forgot to
9:30- put laundry in wash and start on emergency thing
10:00- put laundry in dryer and continue on emergency thing
12:00 noon- Eloise wakes up- feed and dress her- dog wrangle three in which one of the dogs manages to run away and I have to carry my baby around the neighborhood looking for her
12:30-Locate missing dog by her smell because she has somehow rolled in something dead
12:45 – Spray Febreeze on roadkill scented dog and say a prayer she doesn’t lay on the sofa when I’m not looking
1:00 pm- Chris comes home for lunch and I make him something to eat because he needs a break
1:30 pm – Chris leaves and I finish emergency project
2:00 pm- Then I start on all of my planned work for the day and Eloise has a blow out
2:15 pm- Blow out managed, I sit back down and start on my planned work
2:30 pm- The sun goes behind a cloud and our internet goes out (Thank you, Comcast)
2:45 pm- While the internet is out, I decide to wash the dirty dishes in the sink. I put Eloise in her swing so I have two hands to work with.
2:50 pm- Big Wheeze is in no mood for the swing and screams bloody murder.
2:51 pm- Abandon plans for dish washing and move on to nursing round two. Strap on the ‘My Brest Friend’ pillow
3:00 pm- Eloise is fed and starts to become drowsy. The internet is back on, so I return to my office to start on my work for the day, with a drowsy baby strapped around my midsection.
3:05 pm- Open the first photoshop file for the first item on my to-do list. Eloise is asleep.
3:10 pm- Just as I am deciding to put her in her bed, the wind blows our broken screen door, causing it to slam into the side of the house. The dogs freak out and bark, which wakes up my mercifully sleeping baby
3:20 pm- Eloise is back asleep again after being consoled by me bouncing her around the house on my shoulder. The bouncing motion caused her to spit up all down my neck. I wipe it up with my hair and carry on.
3:25 pm- I put her in her crib and return to work
3:30 pm- I just spent the last five minutes trying to figure out where I left off in my work, only to discover that I hadn’t really started yet
4:00 pm- I finally make some headway on the first item on my to do list. I decide to go celebrate by getting a glass of water from the kitchen.
4:01 pm- I reach the kitchen, only to find that one of the dogs has gotten into the trash and distributed its contents all over the floor. The evildoer incriminates her doggy self because she is now covered in mustard and plastic wrap.
4:02 pm- Wipe roadkill-secnted mustard dog with a wet paper towel to clean off the funk and say a prayer she doesn’t sit on the sofa
4:03 pm- Eloise wakes up and is hungry. I strap on the My Breast Friend and let her go to town. I sit back down at my desk to start on the next item on my to do list.
4:07 pm- The phone rings in another part of the house. I trip over my office chair trying to get up with a baby strapped around my middle. While trying to steady myself so I don’t fall and kill the baby, I knock over my celebratory glass of water on my desktop. I grab everything electronic on the desktop and keep it away from what is certain peril.
4:10 pm- After cleaning up the mess, I put Eloise in the Johnny Jump Up and sit at my desk to get some work done.
4:20 pm- Eloise is so over the Johnny Jump Up and is crying, so I move her to the exersaucer.
4:30 pm- The exersaucer isn’t doing it either, so I move her to the baby gym.
4:45 pm- Baby gym is out as well so I hold her in one arm and type with one hand.
5:00 pm- The phone rings again and I find it under a stack of papers. It’s a client who has another emergency that he should have told me about last week, yesterday, or even this morning, but is just now thinking about it, and couldyoupleasemakethischangeformerightaway-ing while I hold the phone up with my right shoulder, type with my right hand, and hold my baby with the left. Eloise barfs down the back of my left shoulder and it is heading straight for my pants, so I scoot my office chair up against the nearest wall so my shirt can absorb some of the onslaught, all while saying, “yeah, sure I can make that change,” and “oh, it’s not a problem at all- that will be great” to whoever is on the phone.
5:15 pm- In honor of clients waiting until the last minute to be ridiculous, I carry Eloise to the kitchen to start thawing out whatever meat is for dinner. Before I get there, the the dogs start clawing my legs and barking for their food. I inadvertently step on one of them and he yelps, which scares Eloise and she starts crying.
5:20 pm- I console Eloise and place her in her Bumbo seat. I throw the meat in some warm water to thaw and the dogs’ food in their bowls.
5:30 pm- Meat thawing, I decide to move my computer to the kitchen so I can do some work and have a change of scenery. The dogs go out to the bathroom and one of them sees a kid on a bicycle and chases after him, barking. The other one follows. I call for them to come back, but they are chasing after the kid, who is now pedaling for his life a block away. I go back inside and pretend they aren’t mine.
5:45 pm- Chris pulls in the driveway and I see a little black and a little white head sticking out of his back window. He has found the dogs, running amok through the neighborhood and has brought them safely home.
5:46 pm- I get a mini-lecture about how letting the dogs run away isn’t safe and I should really be more responsible. Then I get a hello, how was your day? to which I want to reply this was considered a day? but I mumble something like “fine” or “peachy”. The hello is promptly followed by “What’s for dinner? I’m starving”, to which I respond by saying, “here- take this” and thrust our baby daughter into his arms.
6:00 pm- Dinner is served.
6:15 pm- Dinner is finished.
6:30 pm- Dishes are washed and the kitchen is cleaned up. I join Chris and Eloise in the living room for a little R&R. It’s time to feed again, so we strap in and she eats.
6:45 pm- R&R time is over and the nightly work shift begins. Chris usually goes out to the home studio to get some work done and I stay inside with Eloise to try to finish up the work that I meant to do earlier in the day.
6:50 pm-  I put Eloise in the Johnny Jump Up and sit at my desk to get some work done.
7:00 pm- Eloise is so over the Johnny Jump Up and is crying, so I move her to the exersaucer.
7:10 pm- The exersaucer isn’t doing it either, so I move her to the baby gym.
7:20 pm- Baby gym is out as well so I hold her in one arm and type with one hand.
7:30 pm- Eloise barfs down my right shoulder this time, just to even things up. I try to wipe it up with my hair, but it has crusted into a clump and is no longer absorbent. I use the bottom of my shirt instead.
7:45 pm- I abandon work and decide to fold the laundry that has been in the dryer all day. I carry the clean laundry to our bed to fold it, where I discover my roadkill-scented mustard dog laying on my pillow. She is eating her own poop. ON MY PILLOW.
7:46 pm- I simultaneously fight back the urge to kill the dog and throw up in my mouth and strip the sheets, taking extra care with my pillowcase, which now smells like a port-o-potty in Central Park. Into the wash they go. My dog, using her fight or flight reflexes, tucks her tail and runs away.
7:47 pm- I finish folding the clean laundry and march out to the studio to bring Chris in for reinforcements. The dogs must be cleaned or PETA will have to get involved for their safety.
8:20 pm- The dogs are now cleaned and blow-dried (yes, we blow dry them- who says we don’t love them) and we discuss the benefits of selling a kidney on the black market in order to get a fence.
8:45 pm- Eloise falls asleep for her second nap of the day, and I decide to start work on the second emergency project of the day.
9:00 pm- Chris comes in from working in the home studio and asks me why I am tired.
9:15 pm- Nap two is over, and I hand Eloise to Chris as a last-ditch effort to get some work done. He puts her in the Johnny Jump Up.
9:30 pm- Eloise is so over the Johnny Jump Up and is crying, so  he moves her to the exersaucer.
9:45 pm- The exersaucer isn’t doing it either, so he moves her to the baby gym.
10:00 pm- Baby gym is out as well so I finally call it a night as far as work goes. I read what I have accomplished and it reads like  a drunk Japanese tourist. When I skim over sentences like “Thanks your for you interest product time” and “They talking cam loosing speed”, I write myself a note to go back and redo all of it tomorrow.
10:15 pm- I decide that Eloise and I are both in need of a bath, so I hop in the shower with her and we both clean off. I hand her off to Chris and finish my shower, blissfully alone.
10:20 pm- I get out of the shower to the sounds of a crying baby, and dry off to “Laura, I think she’s hungry”.
10:30 pm- I strap on the ‘My Brest Friend’ and she eats again. Chris and I catch up on the day.
10:45 pm- I burp the freshly bathed Eloise and she spits up all down my freshly washed shoulder.
11:00 pm- Eloise starts to get fussy so I bounce her around the house to soothe her. She spits up down my other freshly washed shoulder for consistency.
11:15 pm- I take her into her bedroom and rock her to try to get her to go to sleep a little earlier.
11:30 pm- She falls asleep and I place her in her bed.
11:35 pm- She wakes back up and I rock her back to sleep.
11:45 pm- Finally asleep for good, I survey the house. Dishes, glasses, poop, laundry, everything is a mess. I don’t care. I’m too tired to care. I was too tired to care yesterday, and today I am so tired that I think it is kinda funny that everything is a mess.
11:50 pm- Put dogs in their kennel.
11:55 pm- Brush my teeth.
12:00 am- Fall into bed and instantly slip into a sleep coma so I can do the same thing again tomorrow.

So and so that is the life of a WFHM. That is what I do on the reg. This is not an exaggeration. It’s real life.

Maybe in a few years I can write an exciting rap song about my life on the reg. Maybe one day I will rep Compton (doubtful) or drop phat beats. Heck, I’d be happy if I could just say “I go outside on the reg” or “I paint my toenails on the reg” or “I have a conversation with someone my age on the reg”- whatever. I’m not really very picky. Until then, I will keep telling myself that this is good. This is from God, and He is good at taking care of my needs when I have them. He always is.  On the reg.