Naptime is a precious commodity in the life of a mama who stays home with her child all day. It’s also a gamble. Will I have three hours of time to myself or will it only be thirty minutes? Have mercy on the days where morning errands run a little too close to naptime and babe fell asleep in the car for ten minutes. What a fun chaotic afternoon those days make. I’ve tried gently taking Mayne out of the car and putting him back to sleep, begging for at least twenty more minutes so I’m not dealing with Chucky until bedtime. It hasn’t worked once- yet I try every time.

I used to use naptime as my cleaning time. And when babe is little you always hear people say sleep when the baby sleeps. Couldn’t if I tried. I need at least a few minutes a day that are completely all to myself. No cleaning, no sleeping, just whatever the heck I want to do for me. The cleaning can wait until he wakes up. I like to include babe in this anyway. It’s as simple as giving him a microfiber cloth so he feels special enough to hangout without his little toddler world falling apart.

Naptime is for me and my girl Martha. I’m admittedly addicted to the Martha Stewart channel. Like a mamaw in search of a new recipe or tips on organizing a mudroom. We don’t even have a mudroom, but I know some pretty handy hacks on how to organize one now I’ll tell ya that. Learned it on an old early 2000s episode of Martha Stewart Living. Vintage episodes are my happy place, my calm among the stay at home mama storm of toddler tantrums and laundry.

Am I living a basic life, yes. Do I care? Also yes, because I love it. I never knew what I wanted to be when I grew up, but I’ve always known I wanted to make a house a happy home. I knew I wanted my child to grow up in a home in which I was not raised. So here I am- a cliche housewife soaking up every damn minute of stereotypical stay at home mama living. Martha Stewart and all.

I recently read a Substack post criticizing the Netflix series With Love, Meghan explaining how Meghan was stuck in the early 2000s and women don’t want to live that perfect housewife life anymore. It also said something along the lines of how GenZ didn’t care about Martha until she was arrested. Lies! First, the earliest born GenZ would have been seven at the time. So yes, they shouldn’t have cared who she was.

Second, how dare you downplay the queen of homemaking to what some would call a minor misunderstanding. Who wants to live that perfect housewife life anymore? I do-raises hand proudly. If that makes me chugey or cringe so be it sister. I’m not vacuuming in my pearls, but I’ll proudly bake my bread for the week on Mondays, relish in the simple joys of gardening at 2pm on a Wednesday and watch Martha Stewart during naptime.

Seriously all jokes aside, it calms my nervous system to watch someone cook or garden or organize a mudroom. I also feel a common bond with a woman who was labeled as a bitch just for speaking her mind and taking pride in her work. I’ve been called a bitch quite a few time in my life- I like to call it being passionate. I’m confident there isn’t a woman in this world who hasn’t been labeled a bitch because she set a few boundaries from time to time. There’s something so empowering about her story, her comeback, and her don’t give a damn attitude.

If you haven’t watched her documentary on Netflix you should. It’s a winner.