I have spent a month at home this week (on vacation) and I am ready to go back to work. In the ongoing argument on which is harder, staying at home with the kids or juggling work and the kids, staying at home is much, much, much harder! Did I say much harder?

Now I know working moms are all going to get mad at me for not giving credit for all that stressful work; ghost writing your boss's presentation, faxing reports, or putting on makeup at 75 miles per hour, but I have lived it this week and keeping kids 24/7 is harder than my normal job, which is: I am sole salesman for United States and Canada for the Gretsch Guitar Co. and also website administrator for Gretsch.com. Yet, my wife Julie has my utmost regard and respect for how she deals with staying at home with the kids day in, day out.

Herein is a snippet of this week at home watching Olivia, our 3-year-old, and Davis, our 1-year-old.

7:14 a.m. - "Daddy, Daddy, wake up, it's light outside. Can we go to Kmart now? I need a toy," says Olivia. 7:15 a.m. - ditto. 7:16 a.m. - ibid., ditto, ibid., ditto, ibid., ditto, ibid., ditto, ibid., ditto.

7:17 a.m. - I wake up and push away a sea of toys including Winnie, Tigger, and Mickey, among others. I dreamt last night that I was taken hostage in Vietnam and soldiers had bayonets to my back. I had been sleeping on a Barbie.

7:33 a.m. - Olivia states, "I don't want breakfast, I ate yesterday. Ha, ha, look at Davis, Daddy, he has your sock in his mouth."

8:16 a.m. - After breakfast, some PBS and some games, I am completely out of things to do for the day. 8:17 a.m. - Olivia brings me the complete works of "A Bug's Life" in hardcover. Twenty-six grueling Kroger special editions to read to her while Davis proceeds to break a lamp, push over a plant, bump his head and stuff a complete, peeled banana into the VCR.

9:51 a.m. - While on hold with the video repairman, I make a mental note, should I ever become a terrorist, to add Kroger to my list.

10 a.m. - The kids program, "Arthur," comes on and, darn it, I've never learned so much from an aardvark who wore glasses. Davis goes down for his first nap.

10:07 a.m. - Davis wakes up from his nap fully energized. He resists eating my offerings of pears, then cheese, then bread, then crackers, then chips, then cookies, then raw, unbleached sugar, yet he proceeds to feed off the carpet in a way that would make Hoover, Electrolux and Orkin green with envy.

11:31 a.m. - We head to the park for a breath of fresh air.

11:33 a.m. - I join the ranks of 15 other frazzled parents and three $30-an-hour nannies. We mostly stand around watching our kids, all the while saying things like, "I have never heard her say anything like that before, wonder where she heard that word." "He usually plays well with other children." And, "They say advanced and gifted kids tend to have behavior problems."

12:45 p.m. - We arrive home for bath time. Davis bumps his head, Olivia gets soap in her eyes, 28 toys get washed thoroughly and I feel smug because even if I failed to clean them properly, hey, some parents in this world don't even care enough to get their kids wet.

1 p.m. - We all settle back into the family room for a nice game of "See who can get stitches first."