Mommy Guilt: Or, You Know, Just Another Monday

I’m a Mom.  And I’m not perfect.   I know that you’re not either but I fear that some of you are probably doing it better than me.  Have you seen those Pinterest crafts?

This wouldn’t be such a bad thing but this job is kind of a big deal.   I read tonight that we only have 900 weeks with our children before they leave our home.  I know, right?  900 weeks. 

Black beans are her favorite. 

I fear that might not be enough to time to impart the wisdom I’ve learned from all of the John Hughes’ movies.  Notably, never wear your bra on your head during a thunderstorm, and always, always befriend the guy named Ducky.   

With my panic mode dutifully set in for the night, my brain immediately goes to the “working mom” guilt.  

I’m a mom who works outside the home.  There are so many days since I’ve had Ella (ok, all of them) that I question whether I am doing a disservice to her by working.  

Bath time! 

 It’s not like she doesn’t have a fabulous time during the day.   We are so lucky to have my aunt and uncle watch her every day.  She’s loved beyond measure, gets to grow up with her cousin, and gets to go to pre-school and do all kinds of fun things.  She’s a lucky girl. 

But it’s been a trying weekend.  A doctor’s visit on a Saturday for an ugly bug bite that made her face swell up and add that onto the misery of a late summer cold it has made someone extra cranky. 

Sippy cup not being held at the right angle?  Tears.

Diaper change without being able to stand up and walk around at the same time?  Tears, screaming and kicks to the gut (mine, not hers). 

I’m wiped.  And for the first time in a long time I’m looking forward to Monday.

So, of course, I’m a pool of mushy mom guilt.  

The girls.

 Shouldn’t I want to stay home with her all day, every day?   Shouldn’t I want to wrestle her through the tantrums because I took away her sippy cup?  Or at least be there for all of the the really, really good moments? 

Then again, for me personally, I think I have more patience with her when I know I have such limited time.   I’m scared of my ability to be patient and present with her every day.  I don’t know if I’d be the Mom she deserves and the one I want to be if I did not work outside the home. 

But it’s never that easy, is it?  One minute I’m perfectly content to be a working mom and then… BAM…I’m right back to wanting to be a stay at home momma.  

Fabulous hair styling all around. 

Really, it’s like I have split personalities.   I don’t know the answers.  I don’t know what the future holds. 

Right now, I’m planning on getting up and going to work.   Ella will have a perfectly lovely day. 

I am sure there will be a bit of guilt for the way things could be in a perfect world interspersed with feelings of gratitude for the way things are.  That is really all I know.  

Love this girl with everything I have.

Happy 3/4 Birthday Love Bug

Today marks Ella's 7th month as our baby girl. 7 whole months filled with doubt, joy, fear, laughter, and love. Lots & lots of love.

She started out in nugget form.

This post was supposed to be a 6th month thing ( Happy Half Birthday is so much catchier than Happy 3/4 Birthday or whatever 7 months is. I'm not very math-y) but time got away from me.

Our first family photo

I get so frustrated with myself for not getting these milestones down. I know I'll forget these seemingly innocuous things that make me weak in the knees - like the way her hair will never lay flat ( just like her daddy's), the way her two little teeth just barely appear through her gum, the way her feelings get hurt if you don't catch her before her wobbling becomes a tumble. I feel time slip away faster and faster and it makes me sad. She barely even wobbles any more.

I so got this, Mom

Where has the time gone? I guess we've been busy laughing at the dogs & wrinkling our noses when they get too close, enjoying our bath time & loving all this new food (Go squash & green beans!). We've gone on long walks & gone to church, visited family, taken airplane rides.

Waiting patiently for the next bite.

We've cried when the tooth fairy said it was time to get started on those teeth & when we have to go into the carseat. But we've laughed more than cried.

Daddy knows the right place to tickle & Mommy how to fake hiccup (and is really good at it).

Sometimes just looking at Daddy can insight giggles.

The dogs are comedic geniuses & are responsible for many peaceful grownup dinners (Thanks Duke & Oscar). She loves wet paper towels and tasting said towels with her little tongue.

More paper towel, please!

Having a child is so much more - more love, more joy, more light & more laughter- than I could ever dream of. Sounds very cliche, I know, but cliches are cliches for a reason.

It's too early for a photo shoot, momma.

 

Love You Forever (Ella)

By Robert Munsch

I'll love you forever

I'll like you for always

As long as I'm living

My baby you'll be.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Deadlines, Schedules & Babies...Oh My!

I’m a planner. I relish planning to the extent that when I think about getting to make lists my mouth waters. (I KNOW! So weird, right?!) For example, I’m planning Ella’s first birthday, which is in SEPTEMBER.

Planning inevitably leads to having a schedule and if I’m on schedule then all is right with the world. My schedule though can, more often than not, be arbitrary and may not always be communicated to the others in my life. This leads to problems. There have been on occasion (once or twice or 14 million…) where I have blown up, seemingly out of nowhere, because we did not adhere to the “in my head” timeline.

When you said we you needed to drop off the dry cleaning I took that to mean we’d have to eat lunch first and then drop off the dry cleaning because I ate breakfast at 9:15 and you know I can’t go more than 2 hours without food and if we eat lunch then that means we have to leave the house by 10:30 or else we can’t drive to Corelli’s (b/c that is where I planned on going IN MY MIND) and be done by Noon in order to get to the dry cleaners. AND it is very clearly 10:45 and we are OFF THE FREAKIN’ SCHEDULE!

Those conversations never goes well.

So now, enter Baby. She also likes schedules (thank you, Jesus!). She enjoys sleep (again, thank you, Jesus!). But there isn’t enough time in the evening to get everything we need to get done for ourselves (for instance, pick up a few quick groceries, go workout, pick up prescriptions etc.) and feed her, bathe her and put her to bed before she blows up like a little firecracker out of sheer exhaustion.

What happens when we fail as parents!

The hubs feels that her going to bed later is not a big deal. I feel tremendous guilt – she’s not getting enough sleep, her pattern is going to be all messed up, she won’t nap properly for her caregivers tomorrow, then her eating schedule will be all messed up. The hamster wheel in my brain never stops spinning on the What Ifs.

I’m not sure if this schedule thing is just in my head or if we really need to be strict getting her to bed on time. Screw working out (which is not too hard to give up)! I know everyone with kids goes through this and everyone without kids has time management issues. So please tell me if I’m being crazy or not. And please give me some suggestions!

And you have a deadline but it’s in my head and I won’t tell you until you miss it at which point you’ll see me explode with rage.

You’re welcome.

 

Heathens

It’s not often that the hubs and I have an issue that festers.  I’m a talker and a feeler.  I NEED to discuss things until they've been dissected into teeny-tiny fragments. 

Notice I did not say communicator.  To be a communicator, apparently, you need to relay your thoughts  in an intelligible and straightforward way and then engage in a dialogue with the other person.  Or so I’m told.  Instead of, I don’t know, mumbling incoherent phrases in between crying jags.  Again, I’m a feeler, people.   I have big emotions.   The hubs, let’s just say, is not so much a feeler or a talker.   

Whewww....all that to say we like to solve things differently. 

So the point of religion has never really been an issue for us. (Woa…It just got real up in here, folks!)   He was raised Catholic.  I was raised Baptist (Northern Baptist.  Is that a thing? I mean, they have Southern Baptists so if you go to a baptist church in Ohio that would be Northern Baptist, right???).  So basically on the same page, except for a few Hail Marys and a sprinkling of holy water or too. 

However, once we had Ella the tides seem to have shifted a bit.  He would like to raise her Catholic.  I would like to find a church where we can blend our familial traditions and beliefs and raise her in the Christian faith.   But we’re stuck.  It's festering.  We talk about it, I cry, we walk on the fringes, I mumble,  but we haven’t settled it.  I know people go through this all the time and there is a way to do the right thing so that each of us, Ella included, will be fulfilled in our faith.  I just don’t know what it is yet. 

There is certainly give or take on both of our parts.  I attended Easter services on Sunday at the Catholic Church.  He has attended my church back home.  We compromise and can see each other’s points of view but this is the one issue that vexes us.  So we’re stuck at that spot in the conversation where you can’t find any new points to bring up so you just kind of settle into this détente.  Inertia can kill us if we let it so we need to write the conclusion of this chapter sooner rather than later. 

And as long as we're talking about this religious stuff, I have another confession... I eat the little heads off all of the animal shaped Easter candy and throw away the bodies.  I felt I needed to get that off my chest.  

4 Months and 6 Days

4 months and 6 days.   That is how long I've been a Mom.  The first two weeks and then the next two weeks were the hardest weeks of my life.   I was fairly certain I’d made a mistake – I wasn’t cut out to be a mom.  The thing I thought I wanted was so unfamiliar and so tough and so demanding that thoughts of sending her to Grandma and Grandpa’s for a few years flooded my brain.   I was unsure of every move I made.  I slept in increments of minutes not hours (standard practice, I know).  I cannot be certain of how many showers I took those first weeks but let’s just say it wasn’t a lot (again, fairly standard).   I cried many days, some for hours and some for only minutes but I cried almost every day.  For those crazy, stressful, mind-numbing weeks, I clung to the one piece of hope I had: “It will get better”.  My best friend, who lives states away, would text or email me that sentence every few days – when she was diagnosed with reflux, when the first medicines didn’t do anything, when I got mastitis, when I got the second round of mastitis, when we had to stop breastfeeding, when the formula didn’t agree, when the 2^nd and 3^rd formula’s didn’t work.   I clung to that little piece of hope. 

And now…it is beyond anything I could ever imagine.  I didn’t get that burst of baby love when they plopped her on my chest after she was born.  It took me a while to feel that deep emotional connection but I think I’ve made up for that.  She fills my heart with a joy I wasn’t prepared for or believed was possible.   And I can’t imagine life without her.   I’m sure it sounds cliche and sappy (I would have said the same thing 4 months and 6 days ago!) but it’s cliche for a reason.  

Our lives were so thoroughly enriched when Ella came into our world.   She is our little nugget of wonderful.   I've been told it gets even better than this...but I can't imagine how.