I actually emailed Carolyn to thank her when I’d finished reading her answer, because she told the reader exactly what stay-at-home moms do all day: everything. And this bit, which I just love, has been particularly on my mind recently: “When you have young kids, your typical day [includes] … having two arms and carrying one kid, one set of car keys, and supplies for even the quickest trips … It’s needing 45 minutes to do what takes others 15.”

Yes. Forty-five minutes to do what takes others 15. Which of course is not unique to stay-at-home moms, but something I’m sure every parent has experienced.

It happened to me recently at Hannaford. I’d gotten a much-needed cup of coffee at the bakery upon our arrival, and was carrying the hot cup in one hand, along with my list, while pushing the boys in the “truck cart,” as Thomas calls it (they love being “drivers”), with the other hand. It was a disaster waiting to happen, and sure enough, I ended up spilling the entire cup of coffee all over the floor in aisle four.

The 45-minutes-to-do-what-it-takes-others-15 part was the clean up. Being the kind of person who hates to be a bother to anyone, and who hates to attract any kind of negative attention, I decided to try to clean it up myself. Which meant walking — slowly, because by this time Thomas was no longer riding but rather “helping” to push the cart — to the bacon section to grab a bunch of paper towels from their box above the display case, then walking slowly back, hoping the whole time that no one had slipped and fallen in the puddle. Then mopping it up, and discovering the handful of paper towels wasn’t nearly enough, and also that there were coffee’d truck-cart wheel tracks going back and forth from the bacon section to the spill in the aisle, all the while answering about a hundred questions from Thomas, while Gabe also squealed and hollered. Clearly, any hope I’d had of being discreet and efficient had been naive.

But at least I got a lesson in patience, and the boys learned the importance of cleaning up after themselves, right?

As much as it can be trying to go half as fast as I would like, with most everything the boys and I do during the day, such a lifestyle absolutely has its positives. A perfect example presented itself on a walk we took a few weeks ago.

It was in May, and it had been a cranky day — the boys were cabin-feverish, since my allergies are too bad during all of May (and some April and June) to take them outside to play. I couldn’t remember when the peak pollen part of the day was, but the evening was so nice and cool that I felt like it would be okay to get out for a little while. We just walked in a loop around our neighborhood, walking slowly because of the little legs, so it took about a half hour to get around the block. But I so enjoyed every minute of it! Thomas talked nonstop during the entire walk — I learned all sorts of things, like how every single house looks “like my house, Mom!” We stopped to visit with my brother and sister-in-law for a minute. Gabe got excited about sticks and cars and balls in other people’s yards. When we got home, we sat on the porch and waited for Steve to come home from work; when he did, the boys ran excitedly to meet him.

It was the perfect end to an otherwise difficult day, and tied right back into another point Carolyn Hax made in that same column: After listing for her readers all the difficult, very busy, nonstop moments of a stay-at-home mom’s day, she then balanced it all by writing, “It’s also a choice, yes. And a joy.” Which is exactly how I’d sum it up. My short experience as a mom has shown that every extra-slow moment is made easier by that very joy that comes from sharing life with one’s kids.

Kate Towne Sherwin is a stay-at-home mom (SAHM) living in Saratoga Springs with her husband, Steve, and sons Thomas (3), Gabriel (1), and John Dominic (born June 28, 2008!).

She can be reached at sksherwin@hotmail.com.