Image credit: Photo by KimmiK on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons

I was reading a guest column in the New York Times blog Motherlode today about the ways in which we spend our time as mothers. It included a claim that "the average mom who is not in the workforce and whose youngest kid is under age six, spends less than six hours per week playing or doing hobbies with her kids, and just over two hours reading or doing educational activities," which led one reader to wonder what stay-at-home moms are doing with the rest of their hours each day. A thousand other stay-at-home moms jumped all over the answer (housework!) before I could, but it did get me thinking about what I do with my day. My friend Mama at The Elmo Wallpaper has had some fun by the numbers posts about her beach vacation, so I am stealing her idea for my own day...

Time at which I crawled into bed last night: 11 p.m.

Number of times my son woke me up in the middle of the night to ask an urgent Mario Brothers related question: 3

Number of times daughter woke me to tell me her throat hurt and it was too cold in her room and she needed to sleep in my bed: 1

Maximum number of consecutive hours of sleep I got: 2, maybe.

Time at which Austen woke me, informing me it was daytime and time to play: 6:34 a.m.

Number of hours of sleep Austen got: seemingly zero.

Number of minutes Austen spent in meltdown, wailing in the hall over the trials of having such a mean mama, because I wouldn't carry all 65 pounds of him from my bedroom to the living room: 21.

Number of times this woke Janie up: 0.

Number of seconds spent getting my fine self together and presentable for the world: 30 (and it looks like it).

Number of minutes spent getting Austen dressed and fed and on the bus to summer school: 40.

Number of minutes spent doing dishes and cleaning the kitchen before Janie got up: 20.

Number of hours spent making Janie breakfast, making me breakfast, cleaning up, helping Janie with her clothes, running errands with her, making lunch, eating lunch, cleaning up: 5.

Number of minutes spent playing with Janie so far today during which we were not eating or cleaning or running errands: 0.

Number of hours spent getting Austen from the bus, cooking his lunch, helping him eat and use the bathroom: 1.

Number of minutes spent playing with Austen today during which we were not simultaneously eating: 0.

Number of hours spent doing dishes, cleaning up after our pets, putting away laundry, sweeping and vacuuming the floors while Austen and Janie played together: 1.

Number of times that (between kids and pets) I picked the same blanket up off the floor, folded it and put it away or supervised while the offending party did: 5

Number of minutes I spent considering where else to move the blanket so it wouldn't end up on the floor so often: 2.

Number of seconds before I decided that wouldn't work because the blanket would be next to my father-in-law's ashes and that would be too creepy: 1.

Number of minutes it would probably take me to clear out another space for the blanket that's not near my late father-in-law: 20.

Number of minutes that space would remain clear when blanket was in use before being filled by my husband with something other than the blanket: less than one.

Number of years I have resigned myself to picking up or supervising the pickup of said blanket: 10.

Number of minutes you would guess I spent cleaning based on the state of my house: approximately 10.

Number of Bakugan currently missing: 1.

Numbers of requests that I search the house top to bottom looking for it: 3.

Number of places I suggested the kids clean up to find it: 3.

Number of places actually cleaned by the kids: 0.

Number of friends who arrived to distract them from the Bakugan search operation: 2.

Number of Bakugan still missing: 1.

Number of kids who now care: 0.

Number of minutes I spent writing this blog post in my head while vacuuming: 2.

Time spent writing this blog post while the kids continue to play together: priceless.