Since the advent of caller ID, we all do it. We screen our calls so we don't have to talk to bill collecters, in-laws, or most often - telemarketers. I have often fantasized about putting my daugther Hannah on the phone whenever I see one of them is calling. Then I think of the prattling on and on, and ultimately I take pitty on the poor person on the other end of the line and decide not to. Afterall, they're just doing their job, and really listening to my daugther go into excruciating detail about why violet is her favorite color is mine.
Since becoming a SAHM (Stay At Home Mom) I have slowly begun to train myself to tap into my inner telemarker. With less income coming in, it's now my mission to staunch the flow of money going out. After making our first family budget (hey better late than never) I looked at areas that could be cut. Then I honed all my persuasive skills and picked up the phone. I knew that if I didn't want to pay as much for some of my regular expenses then I had no choice, but to ask. Not being my strong suit - asking for things I want - I let my inner telemarketer take over.
First up was the most expensive item on my list - #1 The Mortgage. This being the worst time to sell my home, I knew that left me with one choice - refinance. Since we bought our townhouse eight years ago at an interest rate of 5.875% and with rates being so low now I knew I could cut our payments if I could get a lower rate. So I got on the phone. I called banks and submitted my information for free quotes online. I eventually got a call from a mortgage broker willing to give me a rate of 3.5%, which will save my family approximately $260 a month. So I have become my family's broker to the broker if you will. I have been working with him since June, and although we missed two closing dates in July, I'm still calling my broker like he's my new best friend. Even when he has no news to tell me about the status of my loan, I know I will not let him forget my name. My family could use that saved money to pay off other debt more quickly and provide some much needed wiggle room in our tight budget so if I have to be a bit persistent and yes, annoying even to get it, what's it really costing me anyway - some time. Well worth it, if and when this loan ever goes through. Sigh. I'll call again next week just so he remembers I'm waiting.
#2 Debt Consolidation - After finally fessing up about the real credit card debt we have I got on the phone with my bank - Hudson Heritage FCU. I heart them so much. Thankfully, even though we had a lot of our credit lines close to tapped out, we were able to get a debt consolidation loan with a pretty low rate - 8.9%. Compared with the 14-19% interest rates on our credit cards, there's no denying it's a sweet deal. Not only is our payment pretty much the same as what we were paying for the minimum payments on our cards, it's gauranteed to be payed off in five years, a feat that would take a small miracle if not for this loan.
#3 The Cable - I thought about dropping cable altogether, but ultimately our cable bill includes our phone and Internet and we have limited options up here in the mountains, otherwise known as Sullivan County. Since I pretty much hacked dining out and entertainment like movies out of our budget, I knew I'd be hard pressed to keep a sane family without cable. So here's what I did - I decided how much I could afford to spend before I got on the phone. I told them what that number was and discussed options that might be cut out to bring it down to that payment. I wanted to pay $100 a month for phone, Internet and cable, not the $153 I was spending. I told them if I couldn't get the payment down to that number than I would have to cancel it altogether. It was not that hard at all. In light of losing my business, they found a special incentive program that would give me all three for $99 a month plus taxes for the next year. With taxes it's about $118, but still much easier to afford than the $153 for the exact same service. Guess what's on my agenda for July of 2013- oh yes I'm getting on the phone once again before they can raise it again.
#4 Miscellaneous expenses not in the regular budget - Ok so these things will not individually make or break your budget, but add them up and it does make the effort worthwhile. I got on the phone this week and booked my FREE haircut for my daughter Hannah at JC Penney Salon in Middletown, which they are giving away during August for school age kids. It saves me a little bit of money and a trip down to Newburgh where I would normally take her. Gas money saved is definitely a bonus. I felt a little guilty, because I could technically afford to pay for it, but I'm developing a new mantra- "If I want to be financially independent, then EVERY penny MUST count." I also plan on taking advantage of Shop Rite's new program, which offers free prescription multivitamins for children. With two kids and $5 co-pay for each prescription that's $10 a month or in other words $120 a year we'll save.
I find that if I look at little savings multiplied over the course of a year, it's hard to deny that they can make a significant impact on a family like mine. So for now I'm going to keep scouring the Internet looking for new ways I can lower my bills and save my family money. I guess you could say that's my job now, well besides wrangling two kids, a husband, house oh and when I remember to - taking care of myself as well.
Friday, August 24, 2012
Monday, August 20, 2012
What Would Grandma Do?
So now that I'm staying at home with my kids I have plenty of time to reflect on my life - during that hour to three of pure peace that moms cherish - nap time. I've often wondered if my grandmother would be proud of me for FINALLY staying home as she suggested in the not so subtle guilt trip way she was famous for. In the days after my daughter was born my grandmother uttered the words that would change my life - "Why don't you stay home? You wanted that baby so much." She saw the world in a completely different way. She saw opportunities when I saw obligations.
I've decided that in my pursuit of happiness I'm going to try to see my life through her eyes, well the best I can figure anyway. We're not talking old school, we're talking old world. I would often sit in her kitchen while she reheated leftovers in her heavy cast iron skillet while the microwave (a model about a decade behind the times by the way) sat untouched in the corner. I watched her hang clothes outside to dry while her dryer sat cold in the basement. These were wonders beyond my imagination as a child. I mean, why do things the old fashioned way when there were all these modern conveniences to make life easier, better?
I wished I had asked her then, but now I see her wisdom. In our effort to make life easier, we have created a whole lifestyle that keeps us running in place, a treadmill we can't get off or slow down. We overlook and waste much of what we have, and the worst crime of all - we don't appreciate all the opportunities we have. We forget that before the manufactured "spring breeze" scent added to our detergent to make our clothes smell sweet, there was fresh air and sunshine. Now I hang my clothes out to dry whenever nature cooperates and I know there will be people who wonder why, but I know it's because mother nature has given me this gift and why use up more of her resources, like the very expensive propane needed to bake my clothes in the dryer, when I don't have to.
I often think back on how my grandmother could make leftovers taste better than the original meal. I mean if you've never had fried macaroni and cheese from the skillet then I truly feel sorry for you. It's fantastic. So that's why her easier to use microwave barely ever got used. She knew that if leftovers tasted just as good the second time around they'd definitely be eaten and my grandmother didn't like to waste food because she knew a thing or two about being hungry. I remember my grandmother saving even a small bowl of cream of wheat for the next morning's breakfast. Most of us wouldn't think twice about throwing it away, wanting something different or fresher to start a new day with, but then again most of us are lucky enough to never have learned what it really means to be hungry.
My grandmother has told me stories about being alone in war torn Germany during World War II with two small children. She said that food was so scarce she was still breastfeeding my uncle at the age of three. She talked about how people ate whatever food they could find and even things most of us would never consider food at all, like bugs. She said she was lucky to have some sour soup at one time when most had nothing. She recalled my uncle crying from hunger and her feeling so utterly helpless since there wasn't anything to give him.
So now when I look in my fridge I don't sigh and say, yuck leftovers and throw them out. I see an opportunity to make another meal for my family. Although my family has experienced a loss of income now that I'm staying at home, I know I am lucky that I don't have that fear of telling my crying, hungry children that I have nothing to give them. I have opportunities that I know my grandmother didn't at that point in her life.
I recently found my rear tire flat on my way to the grocery store and wondered where we were going to get the money for a new one. I found myself remembering my grandmother's Buick Skylark. I think she had that 1970's model my entire life, spending thousands to fix the transmission when most people would just call it quits and find a new car. We ended up just getting the tire plugged.
My grandmother had the distinct advantage of growing up in a simpler time, where everything was not manufactured to be disposable. She kept her possessions clean, in working order, and thus she was able to keep things for a long, long time. That's why she is the keeper of my childhood. Her house, her things, her love - these were the things that NEVER changed in my whole life.
Five years ago, I told my grandmother that I couldn't possibly stay home with my child, that we needed my income to survive. Now I realize how utterly foolish I must have sounded to her, what did I really know about "survival" anyway. The sacrifices I'm making for my children are meager compared to the ones she made for hers, but she gave me this amazing gift of perspective. I didn't see it five years ago, but better late than never.
Martha Fredrick, my grandmother, mentor, friend, and the voice in my head pushing me to be a better person.
I would give anything to talk to her one more time, but unfortunately time can't be refunded once it's been spent. So every time a new challenge presents itself, I'm going to ask myself four simple little words - What Would Grandma Do? I hope I can find her voice in my head when I need her, giving me strength and showing me opportunities the next time I only see obligations.
I've decided that in my pursuit of happiness I'm going to try to see my life through her eyes, well the best I can figure anyway. We're not talking old school, we're talking old world. I would often sit in her kitchen while she reheated leftovers in her heavy cast iron skillet while the microwave (a model about a decade behind the times by the way) sat untouched in the corner. I watched her hang clothes outside to dry while her dryer sat cold in the basement. These were wonders beyond my imagination as a child. I mean, why do things the old fashioned way when there were all these modern conveniences to make life easier, better?
I wished I had asked her then, but now I see her wisdom. In our effort to make life easier, we have created a whole lifestyle that keeps us running in place, a treadmill we can't get off or slow down. We overlook and waste much of what we have, and the worst crime of all - we don't appreciate all the opportunities we have. We forget that before the manufactured "spring breeze" scent added to our detergent to make our clothes smell sweet, there was fresh air and sunshine. Now I hang my clothes out to dry whenever nature cooperates and I know there will be people who wonder why, but I know it's because mother nature has given me this gift and why use up more of her resources, like the very expensive propane needed to bake my clothes in the dryer, when I don't have to.
I often think back on how my grandmother could make leftovers taste better than the original meal. I mean if you've never had fried macaroni and cheese from the skillet then I truly feel sorry for you. It's fantastic. So that's why her easier to use microwave barely ever got used. She knew that if leftovers tasted just as good the second time around they'd definitely be eaten and my grandmother didn't like to waste food because she knew a thing or two about being hungry. I remember my grandmother saving even a small bowl of cream of wheat for the next morning's breakfast. Most of us wouldn't think twice about throwing it away, wanting something different or fresher to start a new day with, but then again most of us are lucky enough to never have learned what it really means to be hungry.
My grandmother has told me stories about being alone in war torn Germany during World War II with two small children. She said that food was so scarce she was still breastfeeding my uncle at the age of three. She talked about how people ate whatever food they could find and even things most of us would never consider food at all, like bugs. She said she was lucky to have some sour soup at one time when most had nothing. She recalled my uncle crying from hunger and her feeling so utterly helpless since there wasn't anything to give him.
So now when I look in my fridge I don't sigh and say, yuck leftovers and throw them out. I see an opportunity to make another meal for my family. Although my family has experienced a loss of income now that I'm staying at home, I know I am lucky that I don't have that fear of telling my crying, hungry children that I have nothing to give them. I have opportunities that I know my grandmother didn't at that point in her life.
I recently found my rear tire flat on my way to the grocery store and wondered where we were going to get the money for a new one. I found myself remembering my grandmother's Buick Skylark. I think she had that 1970's model my entire life, spending thousands to fix the transmission when most people would just call it quits and find a new car. We ended up just getting the tire plugged.
My grandmother had the distinct advantage of growing up in a simpler time, where everything was not manufactured to be disposable. She kept her possessions clean, in working order, and thus she was able to keep things for a long, long time. That's why she is the keeper of my childhood. Her house, her things, her love - these were the things that NEVER changed in my whole life.
Five years ago, I told my grandmother that I couldn't possibly stay home with my child, that we needed my income to survive. Now I realize how utterly foolish I must have sounded to her, what did I really know about "survival" anyway. The sacrifices I'm making for my children are meager compared to the ones she made for hers, but she gave me this amazing gift of perspective. I didn't see it five years ago, but better late than never.
Martha Fredrick, my grandmother, mentor, friend, and the voice in my head pushing me to be a better person.
I would give anything to talk to her one more time, but unfortunately time can't be refunded once it's been spent. So every time a new challenge presents itself, I'm going to ask myself four simple little words - What Would Grandma Do? I hope I can find her voice in my head when I need her, giving me strength and showing me opportunities the next time I only see obligations.
Sunday, July 29, 2012
When Bigger Is Not Better and Free Is Expensive
So my husband and I had this great idea to take our kids to the Bronx Zoo as a part of our staycation this year. It was the first trip for all of us so I was really excited. Being on a budget, I thought it was great that Wednesdays are free days, well better known as suggested donation day for those that have more wiggle room in their budgets than we do. Unfortunately, to see many of the exhibits we wanted to see we had to pay extra for the "ultimate experience." So for this we shelled out a little over $50, which sadly is a bargain compared to what they normally charge.
Well it was an experience alright. Now I truly understand where the expression "that place was a zoo" came from. There were literally more people than animals and I hate to say it but there was far too little use of deodorant for such a hot July afternoon. My need for personal space and fresh air made me feel very claustrophobic at times. We waited through lines at many free exhibits only to find no animals that were willing to venture into public view. Maybe the heat and smell were getting to them as well.
We spent hours walking around lost and desperate to cover the vast expanse of park that separated the exhibits. We missed a lot but did managed to make it to about 3 of the 6 total experience exhibits we had paid for. The gorillas were cool and my kids did get a kick out of the 4D Dora movie we waited half an hour to see. My kids had a good time, but I think the hubby and I will look for a zoo a little smaller and closer to home next time. We had an experience that was ok, but definitely not the "ultimate experience" we paid big bucks for. It goes to show you that sometimes bigger is not better and "free" is anything but.
Well it was an experience alright. Now I truly understand where the expression "that place was a zoo" came from. There were literally more people than animals and I hate to say it but there was far too little use of deodorant for such a hot July afternoon. My need for personal space and fresh air made me feel very claustrophobic at times. We waited through lines at many free exhibits only to find no animals that were willing to venture into public view. Maybe the heat and smell were getting to them as well.
We spent hours walking around lost and desperate to cover the vast expanse of park that separated the exhibits. We missed a lot but did managed to make it to about 3 of the 6 total experience exhibits we had paid for. The gorillas were cool and my kids did get a kick out of the 4D Dora movie we waited half an hour to see. My kids had a good time, but I think the hubby and I will look for a zoo a little smaller and closer to home next time. We had an experience that was ok, but definitely not the "ultimate experience" we paid big bucks for. It goes to show you that sometimes bigger is not better and "free" is anything but.
Friday, July 6, 2012
Making The Most of What I Have
A few months ago I wanted a bigger house in a "better" area. The grass was greener and I wanted it. Now I'm staying at home, raising my kids in a single income family and I'm learning to want exactly what I have. Most people forget what they chose and why they chose it, so they move on to the next want and it keeps going on into forever. So staying at home means cutting costs and choosing to remember and appreciate what I have.
My husband and I bought our 1,800 square foot townhouse when we were 25 and 24 respectively with no help from anyone- something I'm still proud of. Do I wish we had 3 bedrooms instead of 2 of course, but I know there is a whole finished basement with full bath that could easily be an enormous master beenroom with the addition of a closet.
I live in a beautiful mountain town with absolutly bupkiss in the way of big business so the nearest shopping center is like 45 minutes away. Good thing I've discovered tactic #1 Shopping at Home.
No I'm not talking about shopping online. I'm talking about looking around the house for those items I need before I have to go out and buy it. People have been super generous with hand me downs so when the kids need clothes or shoes I shop through my reserves in their bedroom and nearly all the time I find I don't have to buy a single thing. So now I use that rule when it comes to almost everything. Out of handsoap, well I have dishsoap, I have bodywash I don't particularly like, problem solved. I keep small reserves of personal hygiene items I get super cheap because I combine sales with coupons. Out of bodywash, check the cabinet, no need to drive to the store. We're going to the beach this weekend, sure beach toys are cheap at the dollar store but in 10 minutes of looking outside and through their toys I found several beach toys we already bought our kids and beyond saving a few bucks I won't be adding more clutter to my house, which brings me to my next money saving tactic -
#2 Organize your home. Since I find myself with the time, I try to make it my mission to organize one section of my house at a time. I hunted down all the medicine from various locations around my house - on top of my fridge, and under two bathroom counters and organized it in one location and you know what I found, multiples of all types of medicines. It seems like every time someone gets sick the first thing we do is run to the store to get medicine. We would have saved a ton of money if we knew what we actually had at home first. With everything in one spot we know we only have one place to look for medicine and can use up what we have before spending any money on more. So I'm working on organizing more sections of my house. Next up and a bit scary is the junk drawer. The catch all of all lost and miscellaneous items.
If I don't have something and can't borrow it, I employ tactic #3 Figure Out How to Get It For Less. This doesn't just mean clipping coupons, it means only using a coupon when it's an item you'll actually use in the next few months and the item is on sale for a good price and stocking up with enough till it goes on sale again. This is how I never pay more than $1.50 for a bottle of laundry detergent and never pay anything for toothpaste. Then when we use up a bottle or a tube there's another one waiting and I don't have to pay full price. I'm not talking crazy stockpiles just what you can actually use in the next few months. I'm finding that with a little searching you can find coupons for most anything. I even found a coupon for my birth control. Beyond coupons there is always borrowing, bartering, and buying used. Craigslist and Ebay have saved our family money and sometimes we've been able to get new items in the box for half what they cost in the store.
The way I see it if you work hard for your money then you should work just as hard if not harder to keep it. I also believe that if we spend more time wanting what we have then we won't spend money on the next want because it's a treadmill you can't slow down so I've decided that I'm just going to walk my neighborhood instead.
My husband and I bought our 1,800 square foot townhouse when we were 25 and 24 respectively with no help from anyone- something I'm still proud of. Do I wish we had 3 bedrooms instead of 2 of course, but I know there is a whole finished basement with full bath that could easily be an enormous master beenroom with the addition of a closet.
I live in a beautiful mountain town with absolutly bupkiss in the way of big business so the nearest shopping center is like 45 minutes away. Good thing I've discovered tactic #1 Shopping at Home.
No I'm not talking about shopping online. I'm talking about looking around the house for those items I need before I have to go out and buy it. People have been super generous with hand me downs so when the kids need clothes or shoes I shop through my reserves in their bedroom and nearly all the time I find I don't have to buy a single thing. So now I use that rule when it comes to almost everything. Out of handsoap, well I have dishsoap, I have bodywash I don't particularly like, problem solved. I keep small reserves of personal hygiene items I get super cheap because I combine sales with coupons. Out of bodywash, check the cabinet, no need to drive to the store. We're going to the beach this weekend, sure beach toys are cheap at the dollar store but in 10 minutes of looking outside and through their toys I found several beach toys we already bought our kids and beyond saving a few bucks I won't be adding more clutter to my house, which brings me to my next money saving tactic -
#2 Organize your home. Since I find myself with the time, I try to make it my mission to organize one section of my house at a time. I hunted down all the medicine from various locations around my house - on top of my fridge, and under two bathroom counters and organized it in one location and you know what I found, multiples of all types of medicines. It seems like every time someone gets sick the first thing we do is run to the store to get medicine. We would have saved a ton of money if we knew what we actually had at home first. With everything in one spot we know we only have one place to look for medicine and can use up what we have before spending any money on more. So I'm working on organizing more sections of my house. Next up and a bit scary is the junk drawer. The catch all of all lost and miscellaneous items.
If I don't have something and can't borrow it, I employ tactic #3 Figure Out How to Get It For Less. This doesn't just mean clipping coupons, it means only using a coupon when it's an item you'll actually use in the next few months and the item is on sale for a good price and stocking up with enough till it goes on sale again. This is how I never pay more than $1.50 for a bottle of laundry detergent and never pay anything for toothpaste. Then when we use up a bottle or a tube there's another one waiting and I don't have to pay full price. I'm not talking crazy stockpiles just what you can actually use in the next few months. I'm finding that with a little searching you can find coupons for most anything. I even found a coupon for my birth control. Beyond coupons there is always borrowing, bartering, and buying used. Craigslist and Ebay have saved our family money and sometimes we've been able to get new items in the box for half what they cost in the store.
The way I see it if you work hard for your money then you should work just as hard if not harder to keep it. I also believe that if we spend more time wanting what we have then we won't spend money on the next want because it's a treadmill you can't slow down so I've decided that I'm just going to walk my neighborhood instead.
Adventures In Staying Home
So I've been staying at home with my kids for the last two months and it has taught me a LOT about myself. After working for the past ten years and simultaneously raising kids, I suddenly found myself unemployed, well for pay anyhow. With the cost of childcare for two kids and the high cost of gas, it seemed to make more sense to stay at home with my kids and put my frugal nature to the ultimate test.
I find myself simultaneously fighting guilt and enjoying my life in a way I really haven't before. I feel a bit guilty that my husband is now the sole provider for our family, even though I wasn't making all that much before. It's hard to change the mentality of a worker, that feeling that a paycheck is the one and only culmination and validation for work. When people suggest this job or that to me, I feel that stab of guilt all over again. I find myself feeling the way I did right after my daughter was born, the impending sense of doom that I will have to find daycare and lose precious time with my child (now children). Let me tell you something - the guilt that attaches itself to the role of motherhood is a LOT stronger than the guilt I feel for not bringing home my meager paycheck anymore.
Instead being home has given me this amazing sense of peace I didn't have before. I thought I was going to be stir crazy for sure, but there is always something to do. I'm no Donna Reed don't get me wrong. I don't spend my day scouring and cleaning and then beautify myself so my husband comes home to a wife in heels and lipstick. But I think that I'm beginning to redefine work for myself. My job now is to raise my amazing kids to the best of my ability. My house is far from perfect but also far tidier than it was while I was working outside the home. I'm also now fully in charge of all our household bills so I have the unique opportunity to see where every penny of our income is going.
The first week I was home I set up family budget and over the course of my two months at home I have cut a little more than $1,000 from our monthly spending. I've consolidated some of our debt and I'm working hard to push forward with the refinancing of our home which will save us a few hundred dollars a month. Part of this new stay at home gig means that though I'm not bringing in any income it's my job to utilize the income we have in the best possible way. In my next post I'll talk about some of the ways I'm working on that. I am thinking of doing some babysitting and freelance writing if I can to bring in some extra income. Now that I'm home I also see a house just full of stuff we don't use anymore that can be sold for a little extra money.
My daughter starts school in a few short months. I'm looking forward to being able to take her to school her first day and reassure her if she feels nervous. I find myself now reaching out to other stay at home moms for the same type of reassurance. It's a new adventure I'm on as well. Though it is not without sacrifices, our entertainment budget was the first category that went up on the chopping block, my heart tells me that I'm where I'm supposed to be.
Occasionally I still look up jobs online and I try to weigh what they would probably pay me versus the cost of working. Beyond the actual cost of daycare for two kids, gas, work clothes, lunches, eating out or buying convenience foods for dinner because I'm too drained to cook, there is an unspoken price I just cannot bear to pay. My children are still little, 4 and 2 years old, and I know I will blink and their childhoods will slip away. Time is what I can't get back. I lost my dad at 14. I would give anything for one more day. I would pay anything for a do-over. For the time that was wasted, taken for granted and then lost forever. Time with my kids is not something I'm willing to exchange for a paycheck, one that will most likely be used to buy things that I don't need to cover guilt I cannot bury.
A word of advice for those that would like to make a stay at home mom feel like she isn't "really" working- when I ask you for money then and only then can you chip in your two cents about my choice. Until then, my bills are paid, my children are loved, my husband has a wife that doesn't want to murder him for not helping me with the housework and instead appreciates him and supports him, and I am more relaxed than I have been in.. well my whole life. Not that my worrying nature has or ever will go away, but I have made a lot of things happen for myself that I never would have imagined before and my children gave me that gift. They gave me the undying motivation to make it happen, whatever it is that I need to do to make happiness a reality.
I find myself simultaneously fighting guilt and enjoying my life in a way I really haven't before. I feel a bit guilty that my husband is now the sole provider for our family, even though I wasn't making all that much before. It's hard to change the mentality of a worker, that feeling that a paycheck is the one and only culmination and validation for work. When people suggest this job or that to me, I feel that stab of guilt all over again. I find myself feeling the way I did right after my daughter was born, the impending sense of doom that I will have to find daycare and lose precious time with my child (now children). Let me tell you something - the guilt that attaches itself to the role of motherhood is a LOT stronger than the guilt I feel for not bringing home my meager paycheck anymore.
Instead being home has given me this amazing sense of peace I didn't have before. I thought I was going to be stir crazy for sure, but there is always something to do. I'm no Donna Reed don't get me wrong. I don't spend my day scouring and cleaning and then beautify myself so my husband comes home to a wife in heels and lipstick. But I think that I'm beginning to redefine work for myself. My job now is to raise my amazing kids to the best of my ability. My house is far from perfect but also far tidier than it was while I was working outside the home. I'm also now fully in charge of all our household bills so I have the unique opportunity to see where every penny of our income is going.
The first week I was home I set up family budget and over the course of my two months at home I have cut a little more than $1,000 from our monthly spending. I've consolidated some of our debt and I'm working hard to push forward with the refinancing of our home which will save us a few hundred dollars a month. Part of this new stay at home gig means that though I'm not bringing in any income it's my job to utilize the income we have in the best possible way. In my next post I'll talk about some of the ways I'm working on that. I am thinking of doing some babysitting and freelance writing if I can to bring in some extra income. Now that I'm home I also see a house just full of stuff we don't use anymore that can be sold for a little extra money.
My daughter starts school in a few short months. I'm looking forward to being able to take her to school her first day and reassure her if she feels nervous. I find myself now reaching out to other stay at home moms for the same type of reassurance. It's a new adventure I'm on as well. Though it is not without sacrifices, our entertainment budget was the first category that went up on the chopping block, my heart tells me that I'm where I'm supposed to be.
Occasionally I still look up jobs online and I try to weigh what they would probably pay me versus the cost of working. Beyond the actual cost of daycare for two kids, gas, work clothes, lunches, eating out or buying convenience foods for dinner because I'm too drained to cook, there is an unspoken price I just cannot bear to pay. My children are still little, 4 and 2 years old, and I know I will blink and their childhoods will slip away. Time is what I can't get back. I lost my dad at 14. I would give anything for one more day. I would pay anything for a do-over. For the time that was wasted, taken for granted and then lost forever. Time with my kids is not something I'm willing to exchange for a paycheck, one that will most likely be used to buy things that I don't need to cover guilt I cannot bury.
A word of advice for those that would like to make a stay at home mom feel like she isn't "really" working- when I ask you for money then and only then can you chip in your two cents about my choice. Until then, my bills are paid, my children are loved, my husband has a wife that doesn't want to murder him for not helping me with the housework and instead appreciates him and supports him, and I am more relaxed than I have been in.. well my whole life. Not that my worrying nature has or ever will go away, but I have made a lot of things happen for myself that I never would have imagined before and my children gave me that gift. They gave me the undying motivation to make it happen, whatever it is that I need to do to make happiness a reality.
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Failure Breeds Change
So when my perfect job-share arrangement came to a crossroads because of a merger I decided to venture into the unknown and start a daycare with a good friend of mine. To say it's been a challenge would be an understatement. I, along with my partner, have spent thousands of dollars and over a year of our lives preparing to open our daycare and the last five months trying desperately to keep it.
Being a former Marketing professional it's hard not to feel the sting of each failed advertising attempt. The radio ads, newspaper ads, fliers, social media have barely yielded a few kids. I have spent a lot of my personal money trying desperately to make a new career for myself and here I am two steps back. I have taken a leave of absence from the daycare in order to give my partner an opportunity to pay her mortgage for awhile longer and buy us the time to try and make this all work out. But the truth is that neither of us knows will happen.
Again I find myself standing on the precipice of change. It's scary because it's unknown. But I've already decided (with my husband of course) that should things with the daycare not pick up, I'm not going back to work. The daycare expenses and the cost of gas would likely devour any income I'm likely to make. But beyond the practicalities of life, I hear my grandmother's voice echoing across the expanse of my heart, "But why are you going back to work, you wanted that baby so much." I would give anything to hear my grandmother's voice for real, to tell her what's going on and ask for her advice. She taught me that choices are a luxury, and she taught me that I had more choices than I realized.
So I've been home for a week now and it's not what I thought it would be. It's not boring at all. I find that I don't actually hate cooking and cleaning. I hated having to cram everything into the scraps of time I'm given during the course of a work week. Rushing to cook the second I got home from work, filling an entire Saturday doing laundry. These things made me resent what for all working moms is commonly known as the second shift. We work all day, get home and work all night. Moms literally work all the time and so often I just felt rung out like a dish rag. I felt overworked, stressed out, unappreciated, and resentful of my husband for whom the second shift did not apply. That's not to say he doesn't do things around the house (good God I can hear him recanting every time he's taken out the garbage or unloaded the dishwasher). The realm of family and household responsibility has always overwhelmingly been mine. You can understand this when what tasks are done by your husband are often presented with this lovely protest, "But I help you." Yes help implies that it is extra, not necessary, and yes belongs to me. But now the second shift has become a long shift with more fluidity and flexibility.
I absolutely hate cleaning bathrooms, but I cleaned all three of mine from top to bottom this week and it wasn't so bad. I did all the toilets one day, the tub one day, the counters and floors another and it seemed much easier. I've taken my kids to park, the library and have just spent time being with them. I've created our first ever family budget, oh yes I can hear the groans. It should have been done years ago, but it's really opened up my eyes as to what we spend money on. Make no mistake, work has a lot of expenses of its own. Now I'm committed to saving money wherever I can. So as of this moment I don't know if I'm a stay at home mom for now or for the long haul. I'm just trying to enjoy and be open to change, whatever it brings me.
Being a former Marketing professional it's hard not to feel the sting of each failed advertising attempt. The radio ads, newspaper ads, fliers, social media have barely yielded a few kids. I have spent a lot of my personal money trying desperately to make a new career for myself and here I am two steps back. I have taken a leave of absence from the daycare in order to give my partner an opportunity to pay her mortgage for awhile longer and buy us the time to try and make this all work out. But the truth is that neither of us knows will happen.
Again I find myself standing on the precipice of change. It's scary because it's unknown. But I've already decided (with my husband of course) that should things with the daycare not pick up, I'm not going back to work. The daycare expenses and the cost of gas would likely devour any income I'm likely to make. But beyond the practicalities of life, I hear my grandmother's voice echoing across the expanse of my heart, "But why are you going back to work, you wanted that baby so much." I would give anything to hear my grandmother's voice for real, to tell her what's going on and ask for her advice. She taught me that choices are a luxury, and she taught me that I had more choices than I realized.
So I've been home for a week now and it's not what I thought it would be. It's not boring at all. I find that I don't actually hate cooking and cleaning. I hated having to cram everything into the scraps of time I'm given during the course of a work week. Rushing to cook the second I got home from work, filling an entire Saturday doing laundry. These things made me resent what for all working moms is commonly known as the second shift. We work all day, get home and work all night. Moms literally work all the time and so often I just felt rung out like a dish rag. I felt overworked, stressed out, unappreciated, and resentful of my husband for whom the second shift did not apply. That's not to say he doesn't do things around the house (good God I can hear him recanting every time he's taken out the garbage or unloaded the dishwasher). The realm of family and household responsibility has always overwhelmingly been mine. You can understand this when what tasks are done by your husband are often presented with this lovely protest, "But I help you." Yes help implies that it is extra, not necessary, and yes belongs to me. But now the second shift has become a long shift with more fluidity and flexibility.
I absolutely hate cleaning bathrooms, but I cleaned all three of mine from top to bottom this week and it wasn't so bad. I did all the toilets one day, the tub one day, the counters and floors another and it seemed much easier. I've taken my kids to park, the library and have just spent time being with them. I've created our first ever family budget, oh yes I can hear the groans. It should have been done years ago, but it's really opened up my eyes as to what we spend money on. Make no mistake, work has a lot of expenses of its own. Now I'm committed to saving money wherever I can. So as of this moment I don't know if I'm a stay at home mom for now or for the long haul. I'm just trying to enjoy and be open to change, whatever it brings me.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Motherhood Turned Career
I've spoke about my opinion on this subject before, that I think motherhood should be viewed as a career. Now I've actually gone and done it. I'm now co-owner of a daycare with my best friend and it certainly is Motherhood times 10. I now kind of understand what it must be like to have triplets as there are 3 babies to care for every day, plus my two, plus 6 year old twins after-school.
I love that I get to wear jeans and a sweatshirt to work, not to mention the fluffier and funnier looking the socks the better. I'm the anti-fashionista and I like it this way. Sure I spend most days with some degree of snot, spit up or other bodily fluid on me, and sure I got an accidental hand full of poop when one of the babies was carefully concealing a poop splosion, but I just can't help but laugh about it afterward. It's not anything different than I've encountered during my four years as a mom. Even when there are 3 babies crying I have a great friend there to help me laugh off any feelings of being overwhelmed.
I think it's safe to say that I've slipped into my new career quite seamlessly. I went from sitting in my cubicle like veal to feeling fresh air (weather permitting of course), playing games, reading stories, and hanging out with some pretty cool little people, not that I don't miss some of the co-workers I no longer see. As expected, the pay is not all I dreamed it would be, but we're working on it. All the stress that I had before has melted away and I never worry about getting in trouble for talking to my co-worker too much. I don't have to sit through any more awkward annual reviews where I try to play up my awesomeness to people who don't really care all that much about me anyway. Not to mention that every day is take your children to work day.
If anything it's made me a better mother. I've really watched and helped my children acquire new skills. Hannah has started reading and she works on writing her letters every day. She is using scissors well and has found a love for putting puzzles together. My son has found new children to give hugs to and play with besides his big sister. Sure we're on our second nasty cold in two months and both kids got their very first ear infections last week (in both ears), but hopefully their immune systems will be equipped to handle the onslaught of germs they'll encounter when they start school.
I used to think that if I just made more money and had more time off then I'd be happy in my career. But here I am making less money,working 10 plus hours a day and I couldn't be happier. I sleep like a baby at night and I never ever worry about what the new day will hold for me. I know any stress I feel will quickly be replaced with laughter. I can pull my kids in for a snuggle whenever I want. I can snuggle little babies and know with 99 percent certainty that I will never again have baby fever. We do need more kids enrolled because life is still life and there are always bills that need to be paid, but at least know I know that I won't have to pay with my sanity.
I love that I get to wear jeans and a sweatshirt to work, not to mention the fluffier and funnier looking the socks the better. I'm the anti-fashionista and I like it this way. Sure I spend most days with some degree of snot, spit up or other bodily fluid on me, and sure I got an accidental hand full of poop when one of the babies was carefully concealing a poop splosion, but I just can't help but laugh about it afterward. It's not anything different than I've encountered during my four years as a mom. Even when there are 3 babies crying I have a great friend there to help me laugh off any feelings of being overwhelmed.
I think it's safe to say that I've slipped into my new career quite seamlessly. I went from sitting in my cubicle like veal to feeling fresh air (weather permitting of course), playing games, reading stories, and hanging out with some pretty cool little people, not that I don't miss some of the co-workers I no longer see. As expected, the pay is not all I dreamed it would be, but we're working on it. All the stress that I had before has melted away and I never worry about getting in trouble for talking to my co-worker too much. I don't have to sit through any more awkward annual reviews where I try to play up my awesomeness to people who don't really care all that much about me anyway. Not to mention that every day is take your children to work day.
If anything it's made me a better mother. I've really watched and helped my children acquire new skills. Hannah has started reading and she works on writing her letters every day. She is using scissors well and has found a love for putting puzzles together. My son has found new children to give hugs to and play with besides his big sister. Sure we're on our second nasty cold in two months and both kids got their very first ear infections last week (in both ears), but hopefully their immune systems will be equipped to handle the onslaught of germs they'll encounter when they start school.
I used to think that if I just made more money and had more time off then I'd be happy in my career. But here I am making less money,working 10 plus hours a day and I couldn't be happier. I sleep like a baby at night and I never ever worry about what the new day will hold for me. I know any stress I feel will quickly be replaced with laughter. I can pull my kids in for a snuggle whenever I want. I can snuggle little babies and know with 99 percent certainty that I will never again have baby fever. We do need more kids enrolled because life is still life and there are always bills that need to be paid, but at least know I know that I won't have to pay with my sanity.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
The Check Engine Light
We've all see in it at some point in our life. Life is moving along rather uneventfully and then there it is, the God DAMN Check Engine Light. It's yellow glow reminding us that we better be mindful of our car maintenance and better get things looked at right away or else we may find ourselves stranded on the side of the road somewhere. I wonder if how you react to a check engine light reveals something about your character.
My mini-van's check engine light goes on and off from time to time. I got freaked out when I first saw it. My husband plugged it in and it's a bad sensor. Don't ask me which, cause I don't remember. All I really care to know about the vehicle I'm driving is whether or not it's going to get me home safely today. When my car failed to break down each time it rubbed it's little yellow glow in my face, I learned to dismiss it. But every time I dare to forget about it entirely it pops up and reminds me that I really should care.
Because anyone who knows me knows I love a good metaphor, I'm adopting the Check Engine light as my metaphor of the week. Some people like me are extremely vocal when they're having a tough time, but then there are those for whom a small, quiet glowing warning light is all that exists to indicate to the outside world that something is wrong. In my magical car metaphor, I'm that clunky noise you try to describe to your mechanic in a rather sad explanation of what's wrong, but I worry about the people and mothers especially who never show any outward signs of distress. I hope that someone is paying attention to these women and saying to themselves "I better figure out what's wrong before something worse happens."
We all get so used to asking each other, "How are you?" but hardly anybody really expects a real answer. We wait two seconds for the obligatory "fine" and carry on with our own preoccupations. I'll never forget that there was one person I asked years ago, who dared to give me a real answer. I was walking through the halls of my workplace, busily trying to get accomplished whatever my current task was and I happened to say hello to a co-worker and asked him how he was. As it turned out, his mother was dying and for the next half hour we talked about it. It was a very personal conversation for co-workers and yet I felt somehow that is was natural. Losing my Dad had given me a common vantage point to understand what he was going through, to see the very spot on life's path that those who haven't been there simply cannot.
I'm not sure why he trusted me enough to share his feelings with me, but I have the theory that his check engine light had simply turned on and he had been waiting for someone to notice. In turn he became someone I could talk to when my light blinked on.
I hope that I'm the type of person who cares enough to notice when someone really needs another person to simply care enough to know what's going on in their lives. But the truth is we all get preoccupied with our own lives and let's face it, it's incredibly easy to ignore that small glowing light in others that warns that things are not as great as they might appear. Though I sometimes worry that my over sharing nature might make some people uncomfortable, I know exactly what happens to me when I ignore my light for too long.
It's for this reason that I implore the stoic, the polished and perfected, and the perpetual caretakers to speak up and maybe give someone a chance to really listen beyond the "fine". Of everyone else I make this small and simple request- every once in a while stop and look around you and really take note of the silent, steady glow. There's usually a light on somewhere.
My mini-van's check engine light goes on and off from time to time. I got freaked out when I first saw it. My husband plugged it in and it's a bad sensor. Don't ask me which, cause I don't remember. All I really care to know about the vehicle I'm driving is whether or not it's going to get me home safely today. When my car failed to break down each time it rubbed it's little yellow glow in my face, I learned to dismiss it. But every time I dare to forget about it entirely it pops up and reminds me that I really should care.
Because anyone who knows me knows I love a good metaphor, I'm adopting the Check Engine light as my metaphor of the week. Some people like me are extremely vocal when they're having a tough time, but then there are those for whom a small, quiet glowing warning light is all that exists to indicate to the outside world that something is wrong. In my magical car metaphor, I'm that clunky noise you try to describe to your mechanic in a rather sad explanation of what's wrong, but I worry about the people and mothers especially who never show any outward signs of distress. I hope that someone is paying attention to these women and saying to themselves "I better figure out what's wrong before something worse happens."
We all get so used to asking each other, "How are you?" but hardly anybody really expects a real answer. We wait two seconds for the obligatory "fine" and carry on with our own preoccupations. I'll never forget that there was one person I asked years ago, who dared to give me a real answer. I was walking through the halls of my workplace, busily trying to get accomplished whatever my current task was and I happened to say hello to a co-worker and asked him how he was. As it turned out, his mother was dying and for the next half hour we talked about it. It was a very personal conversation for co-workers and yet I felt somehow that is was natural. Losing my Dad had given me a common vantage point to understand what he was going through, to see the very spot on life's path that those who haven't been there simply cannot.
I'm not sure why he trusted me enough to share his feelings with me, but I have the theory that his check engine light had simply turned on and he had been waiting for someone to notice. In turn he became someone I could talk to when my light blinked on.
I hope that I'm the type of person who cares enough to notice when someone really needs another person to simply care enough to know what's going on in their lives. But the truth is we all get preoccupied with our own lives and let's face it, it's incredibly easy to ignore that small glowing light in others that warns that things are not as great as they might appear. Though I sometimes worry that my over sharing nature might make some people uncomfortable, I know exactly what happens to me when I ignore my light for too long.
It's for this reason that I implore the stoic, the polished and perfected, and the perpetual caretakers to speak up and maybe give someone a chance to really listen beyond the "fine". Of everyone else I make this small and simple request- every once in a while stop and look around you and really take note of the silent, steady glow. There's usually a light on somewhere.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
The UnREAL Reality of Normalcy
I find myself drawn to "reality" shows. I used to watch the multitude of prime time so called "reality" shows, which really just consist of a group of less than grown twenty somethings consuming large amounts of alcohol and sleeping with a lot of strangers. I must admit, most of us watch for the same reasons we slow down to survey the scene of a car wreck. You thank God it didn't happen to you or someone you know and yet for some unknown reason you feel the strong desire to know what happened to the victims and whether or not they will survive.
Will any of us ever survive these "reality" shows? Now that I'm (gulp) officially in my 30s the "booze it up, get it up" shows hold little to no interest for me anymore. There's only so much stupidity to go around and how many times can you really watch someone make a fool of themselves in exactly the same manner. What I watch now are the "unreality" shows that center around families. Call it another attempt to slow down and survey the damage, but I actually think of it as a way to view through an open window the family life of someone else to compare normalcy. We all want to feel normal, whatever the hell that means. We all want to feel like we're doing something right in our marriage, in raising our children.
So I occasionally tune in to some "unreality" shows particularly those involving large families - 19 Kids and Counting, Sister Wives and the like to figure out how the hell one survives more than a dozen kids and multiple spouses. What I get is this sugar coated attempt at normalcy, the very thing which denies my need to feel normal. I tune in because previews hint at conflicts, jealousies, potential problems, and what I get is an artificial dose of isn't my life so very normal considering I have 19 kids or 4 wives. I feel cheated by the whole experience. What viewers like me tune in for is the hope that someone will say, Good God this is fucking hard to deal with. Nobody wants to admit that marriage is hard, raising kids is hard, working, paying bills and just getting through life is hard. Everyone wants to feel normal and so we project our own normalcy onto others. We are all cheating each other.
Take me for instance, if anyone was going to show you the real deal it'd be me. I've long ago, tossed aside any attempt to fake a smile when I want to cry, pretend to be all lovey dovey with my husband when we get into a fight right before company comes over, placate a screaming child with niceties and bribes instead of pulling them out of the restaurant and waiting for the tantrum to be over - theirs or mine, whichever comes first. I wear my misery on my sleeve and my love on my shirt. I am stained through and through with the blood, sweat and tears of life and yet no one is knocking down my door offering to film my family.
I want answers just like everyone else. I want someone to show me how it's done, show me what I'm doing wrong so I can fix it all. I want to know how women voluntarily share their husband with other women and raise other people's children when I have a hard enough time getting my husband to help with chores and raising two children. How do they not feel cheated of time, attention, and help? As for the "look how well we all get along and resolve conflict" I say shut the camera off and wake me when reality calls.
How does a woman who's spent nearly every year of her adult life pregnant, nursing, and raising kids, say that she never yells? Give me a break people. To all my fellow viewers I say don't drink the cool-aide. They just want what we want, to show the world how fucking normal everything is, despite this amazingly different lifestyle they've chosen to live. I want to see the child who throws fits because she's tired of being raised by her siblings instead of her parents. I want to see the wife that wants to fly off the handle but chokes it down because he's got three other women to go to for understanding when he's upset.
I'll admit that I've thought to myself on many occasions, maybe there's something to this idea of having a wife of my own to cook and clean, and yes even take care of my husband when I'm too exhausted after taking care of two kids who haven't napped all day. That has more to do with my underlying theory that "wife" and "mother" really mean slave in some exotic language and nobody has bothered to clue me in yet. I would never, and could never share my husband with anyone, because flaws or not he's mine and if anyone is going to see through my bullshit and still show up than it's going to be him. I cannot imagine having so many children that scheduling in "one on one" time would be necessary. I feel enough guilt trying to juggle two kids and make sure they feel special and loved.
So if anyone out there in TV land is listening, wake me up when you do the show about a mom crying in a ball on the floor because she's overworked, unappreciated, and expected to carry on taking care of everyone else when she has nothing left at the end of the day for herself. I know I cannot possibly be the only mom that feels the cold stone irony of spanking a child because though you've told them a hundred times not to they still insist on standing on the table, counter or dresser and you don't want them to fall and get hurt. You know that you cannot prevent every injury, but you just do not have the energy to contend with a screaming toddler for five hours in the emergency room tonight.
Show me the wife like me who is sick to death of hearing that all the tantrums she throws in an attempt to get "help" (that is another blog post entirely) really are hurtful when I just want to say I'm attempting to make it clear that I am completely crushed by the weight of my responsibility right now and I'd really like you to just step off the dirt that's covering me, and dare I dream, grab that shovel over there and take a little of this off me right now so I can just BREATHE. If you've got any shows like that, I'll tune in faithfully, cause I know that I would love to know how she does it all correctly.
Will any of us ever survive these "reality" shows? Now that I'm (gulp) officially in my 30s the "booze it up, get it up" shows hold little to no interest for me anymore. There's only so much stupidity to go around and how many times can you really watch someone make a fool of themselves in exactly the same manner. What I watch now are the "unreality" shows that center around families. Call it another attempt to slow down and survey the damage, but I actually think of it as a way to view through an open window the family life of someone else to compare normalcy. We all want to feel normal, whatever the hell that means. We all want to feel like we're doing something right in our marriage, in raising our children.
So I occasionally tune in to some "unreality" shows particularly those involving large families - 19 Kids and Counting, Sister Wives and the like to figure out how the hell one survives more than a dozen kids and multiple spouses. What I get is this sugar coated attempt at normalcy, the very thing which denies my need to feel normal. I tune in because previews hint at conflicts, jealousies, potential problems, and what I get is an artificial dose of isn't my life so very normal considering I have 19 kids or 4 wives. I feel cheated by the whole experience. What viewers like me tune in for is the hope that someone will say, Good God this is fucking hard to deal with. Nobody wants to admit that marriage is hard, raising kids is hard, working, paying bills and just getting through life is hard. Everyone wants to feel normal and so we project our own normalcy onto others. We are all cheating each other.
Take me for instance, if anyone was going to show you the real deal it'd be me. I've long ago, tossed aside any attempt to fake a smile when I want to cry, pretend to be all lovey dovey with my husband when we get into a fight right before company comes over, placate a screaming child with niceties and bribes instead of pulling them out of the restaurant and waiting for the tantrum to be over - theirs or mine, whichever comes first. I wear my misery on my sleeve and my love on my shirt. I am stained through and through with the blood, sweat and tears of life and yet no one is knocking down my door offering to film my family.
I want answers just like everyone else. I want someone to show me how it's done, show me what I'm doing wrong so I can fix it all. I want to know how women voluntarily share their husband with other women and raise other people's children when I have a hard enough time getting my husband to help with chores and raising two children. How do they not feel cheated of time, attention, and help? As for the "look how well we all get along and resolve conflict" I say shut the camera off and wake me when reality calls.
How does a woman who's spent nearly every year of her adult life pregnant, nursing, and raising kids, say that she never yells? Give me a break people. To all my fellow viewers I say don't drink the cool-aide. They just want what we want, to show the world how fucking normal everything is, despite this amazingly different lifestyle they've chosen to live. I want to see the child who throws fits because she's tired of being raised by her siblings instead of her parents. I want to see the wife that wants to fly off the handle but chokes it down because he's got three other women to go to for understanding when he's upset.
I'll admit that I've thought to myself on many occasions, maybe there's something to this idea of having a wife of my own to cook and clean, and yes even take care of my husband when I'm too exhausted after taking care of two kids who haven't napped all day. That has more to do with my underlying theory that "wife" and "mother" really mean slave in some exotic language and nobody has bothered to clue me in yet. I would never, and could never share my husband with anyone, because flaws or not he's mine and if anyone is going to see through my bullshit and still show up than it's going to be him. I cannot imagine having so many children that scheduling in "one on one" time would be necessary. I feel enough guilt trying to juggle two kids and make sure they feel special and loved.
So if anyone out there in TV land is listening, wake me up when you do the show about a mom crying in a ball on the floor because she's overworked, unappreciated, and expected to carry on taking care of everyone else when she has nothing left at the end of the day for herself. I know I cannot possibly be the only mom that feels the cold stone irony of spanking a child because though you've told them a hundred times not to they still insist on standing on the table, counter or dresser and you don't want them to fall and get hurt. You know that you cannot prevent every injury, but you just do not have the energy to contend with a screaming toddler for five hours in the emergency room tonight.
Show me the wife like me who is sick to death of hearing that all the tantrums she throws in an attempt to get "help" (that is another blog post entirely) really are hurtful when I just want to say I'm attempting to make it clear that I am completely crushed by the weight of my responsibility right now and I'd really like you to just step off the dirt that's covering me, and dare I dream, grab that shovel over there and take a little of this off me right now so I can just BREATHE. If you've got any shows like that, I'll tune in faithfully, cause I know that I would love to know how she does it all correctly.
Monday, September 12, 2011
Redefining Happiness
Ask any mom if they were happy before they had children and I'll bet they say yes. They had freedom, energy, creativity, and their youth was on their side. A few days before my daughter turned four, my mother said to me, "How is it possible that just four years ago you had no children?" That was a lifetime ago I thought. Four years, two kids ago I considered myself to be happy. I was a newly-wed, coping with being a cash poor home owner.
I was happy at the time. But from the moment my first child was born, I decided that happiness was a moving target and in fact, I didn't know just what my capacity for happiness was until I looked into the eyes of this tiny person that I had created. It's safe to say that I had no idea just what I was capable of until I had children.
I never knew just how much I could love another person. Despite losing my dad at a painfully young age, I didn't know until I became a mom just how much I stood to lose in this world. It is that ever painful reminder, that gaping hole that losing a parent creates in ones life, that reminds me nearly every second just what can be lost, without warning and without any regard for what I consider fair. It's the grindstone my emotions are constantly sharpened against. It's the reality we all know but seldom acknowledge, filtering in with painful clarity when a little blurriness is actually necessary to get through the every day routine of life.
When I was in high school, friends would ask me why I was single. That was the high school equivalent of being unhappy. The truth was that I never really cared to be in a relationship. I actually prefered to watch the high school melodrama unfold from the sidelines instead being caught in the web of adolescent romance whose rules and affections moved and changed with a swift breeze. Then in college, while wallowing in homesickness I did something I had never done before. I gave my number and a chance to a boy I had never seen before and didn't know at all. I don't think I could have imagined at 19 that he would be it - my whole notion of love and trust and the model relationship I never saw growing up.
Falling in love with my husband was to that point in my life, the single scariest thing I had ever experienced. It forced me to let go, be out of control, give someone this power over my happiness that I had somehow imagined to be the gesture of a weak person who didn't really think that they alone were all they needed to be happy. Falling in love turned out to be the mirror that I always wished I had. My husband allowed me to see in myself the person I always wished I was, the person I had been all along.
Tonight while driving home, I looked at my kids faces in the rear view mirror and I thought about how everything I believed about happiness now centers around them. They made me realize that I will do whatever it takes to spend as much time with them as I can because they define happiness for me now. The fact that Hannah and Jayden love me, depend on me, and because at this moment in time I can safely say that their happiness depends on me, I have defined happiness as being worthy of them. I owe it to them to pursue my dreams with passion because I have spent too much of my life thinking I didn't deserve to have all my dreams come true. I think that despite all my fears that my imperfections as a mother will somehow change them in a negative way, I know that I am one of the only people on this Earth that gets to make them smile and be the mirror that they need in order to see the amazing people that they are.
Being a mom has made it pretty clear to me, this one amazing truth, that happiness is not something I have the luxury of hoping will happen. I must make it happen.
I was happy at the time. But from the moment my first child was born, I decided that happiness was a moving target and in fact, I didn't know just what my capacity for happiness was until I looked into the eyes of this tiny person that I had created. It's safe to say that I had no idea just what I was capable of until I had children.
I never knew just how much I could love another person. Despite losing my dad at a painfully young age, I didn't know until I became a mom just how much I stood to lose in this world. It is that ever painful reminder, that gaping hole that losing a parent creates in ones life, that reminds me nearly every second just what can be lost, without warning and without any regard for what I consider fair. It's the grindstone my emotions are constantly sharpened against. It's the reality we all know but seldom acknowledge, filtering in with painful clarity when a little blurriness is actually necessary to get through the every day routine of life.
When I was in high school, friends would ask me why I was single. That was the high school equivalent of being unhappy. The truth was that I never really cared to be in a relationship. I actually prefered to watch the high school melodrama unfold from the sidelines instead being caught in the web of adolescent romance whose rules and affections moved and changed with a swift breeze. Then in college, while wallowing in homesickness I did something I had never done before. I gave my number and a chance to a boy I had never seen before and didn't know at all. I don't think I could have imagined at 19 that he would be it - my whole notion of love and trust and the model relationship I never saw growing up.
Falling in love with my husband was to that point in my life, the single scariest thing I had ever experienced. It forced me to let go, be out of control, give someone this power over my happiness that I had somehow imagined to be the gesture of a weak person who didn't really think that they alone were all they needed to be happy. Falling in love turned out to be the mirror that I always wished I had. My husband allowed me to see in myself the person I always wished I was, the person I had been all along.
Tonight while driving home, I looked at my kids faces in the rear view mirror and I thought about how everything I believed about happiness now centers around them. They made me realize that I will do whatever it takes to spend as much time with them as I can because they define happiness for me now. The fact that Hannah and Jayden love me, depend on me, and because at this moment in time I can safely say that their happiness depends on me, I have defined happiness as being worthy of them. I owe it to them to pursue my dreams with passion because I have spent too much of my life thinking I didn't deserve to have all my dreams come true. I think that despite all my fears that my imperfections as a mother will somehow change them in a negative way, I know that I am one of the only people on this Earth that gets to make them smile and be the mirror that they need in order to see the amazing people that they are.
Being a mom has made it pretty clear to me, this one amazing truth, that happiness is not something I have the luxury of hoping will happen. I must make it happen.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Top 10 Things Kids Do Better Than Grown Ups
I'm feeling a bit frustrated by the adult world at the moment so I've decided to compile a list of what kids do better than us adults. I'm speaking primarily of toddlers and preschoolers for this particular post. Maybe we can all take a lesson or two from them.
1. Their shit may stink, but at least it's easy to clean up. Well for the most part anyway. Unlike the shit adults deal with which never seems to go away.
2. Their games are always intended to be fun. Unlike the games adults play to manipulate other adults into doing what they want.
3. They say what they mean. Even when they don't quite have the verbal skills to express it precisely, there is very little guessing at their intentions. Even when you must litterally guess, you only have to go through the list of basic neccessities to figure it out: food, sleep, drink, medical attention, entertainment.
4. They do not have to hold back their love. It's full on, whole heart, no need for all or nothing because it's always ALL their love.
5. They do not worry about abstract problems that don't exist in real time or affect them directly. They do not wonder what the world would be like if animal crackers did not exist or what would happen to their poop if potties had not been invented.
6. They take true JOY in life. A walk in the park, a favorite story, cuddling on the couch with mommy, playing with a friend, bathing in our birthday cake icing. NOBODY enjoys life's simple pleasures like a child.
7. While they may feel possessive about a toy, they eventually remember there are many other toys to play with. I watched my daughter and nephew have a blast playing with clothes pins the other day. Fun is wherever you are, because you make it yourself. Adults hold tight to their possessions as an outward symbol of their status in this world, but you know what they say "you can't take it with you..."
8. They do not yet feel compelled to fit ALL that they are into the small box the world intends to stuff you into. Cowboy boots with a ballerina tutu, sure looks great.
9. They have no FEAR of failure. They simply do or don't do things, but they don't worry about potentially doing something wrong, sometimes to the extreme of being paralyzed into doing nothing at all.
10. The BEST thing kids do better than adults, they REMIND US on a daily basis, that once upon a time WE WERE THE BEST VERSION OF OURSELVES, long before we became self-involved, fear driven, jaded, and apethetic. THEY ARE THE BEST PART OF US.
The saying goes, "You can't teach an old dog new tricks." BUT maybe if we wise up one day, we can UNLEARN all the NEW BAD HABITS, look to our children and find the inspiration to be BETTER, do BETTER...Find happiness in every moment life is willing to offer up...because NONE of know when that offer is going to be taken off the table.
Got a reason not on the list, please share it.
1. Their shit may stink, but at least it's easy to clean up. Well for the most part anyway. Unlike the shit adults deal with which never seems to go away.
2. Their games are always intended to be fun. Unlike the games adults play to manipulate other adults into doing what they want.
3. They say what they mean. Even when they don't quite have the verbal skills to express it precisely, there is very little guessing at their intentions. Even when you must litterally guess, you only have to go through the list of basic neccessities to figure it out: food, sleep, drink, medical attention, entertainment.
4. They do not have to hold back their love. It's full on, whole heart, no need for all or nothing because it's always ALL their love.
5. They do not worry about abstract problems that don't exist in real time or affect them directly. They do not wonder what the world would be like if animal crackers did not exist or what would happen to their poop if potties had not been invented.
6. They take true JOY in life. A walk in the park, a favorite story, cuddling on the couch with mommy, playing with a friend, bathing in our birthday cake icing. NOBODY enjoys life's simple pleasures like a child.
7. While they may feel possessive about a toy, they eventually remember there are many other toys to play with. I watched my daughter and nephew have a blast playing with clothes pins the other day. Fun is wherever you are, because you make it yourself. Adults hold tight to their possessions as an outward symbol of their status in this world, but you know what they say "you can't take it with you..."
8. They do not yet feel compelled to fit ALL that they are into the small box the world intends to stuff you into. Cowboy boots with a ballerina tutu, sure looks great.
9. They have no FEAR of failure. They simply do or don't do things, but they don't worry about potentially doing something wrong, sometimes to the extreme of being paralyzed into doing nothing at all.
10. The BEST thing kids do better than adults, they REMIND US on a daily basis, that once upon a time WE WERE THE BEST VERSION OF OURSELVES, long before we became self-involved, fear driven, jaded, and apethetic. THEY ARE THE BEST PART OF US.
The saying goes, "You can't teach an old dog new tricks." BUT maybe if we wise up one day, we can UNLEARN all the NEW BAD HABITS, look to our children and find the inspiration to be BETTER, do BETTER...Find happiness in every moment life is willing to offer up...because NONE of know when that offer is going to be taken off the table.
Got a reason not on the list, please share it.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
The Difference Between Broke and Broken
Ok, so I pride myself on being frugal and money is always tight, but this week I've hit a new low. I had a negative balance in my checking account, zero in my savings, and bout two more weeks to live on what...air and love till pay day. I try to tell myself that my new low is for some people, their every day and I wonder how they do it. I know I can use my credit card till my next pay check even though the very thought of it makes my stomach queasy. Chalk it up to my unexpected car accident in March, which thankfully only took my car out of commission. Now I had the expense of getting another used car, and doing all the running around for the last week, taking my husband to work, dropping the kids off at my mom's, taking my step dad to work, running errands. Let's just say it cost me a pretty penny in gas.
It's sooo freaking easy to feel stressed, scared, and even hopeless at times. I have been crabby with my family because of the stress and I hate that because they are truly the only thing that get my through these tough times. As my oh so eloquent husband puts it - "I simply need more to focus on in my life than him so that I don't take all my stress out on him." It's a bit rough, but that's my husband. We are exactly ourselves with each other, on good days and bad, like it or not. There has to be a buffer between life's emergencies, tragedies, stresses, and losses and that buffer is family. Through their eyes we filter out the bad things and instead see the hope that lies beyond everything else. I guess we just need to remember to clean the filter every so often otherwise people's feelings get stuck in the grime of life.
So as I'm clipping coupons, thinking about side jobs, and reluctantly re-evaluating future plans, I think about what it is that keeps being broke from making one feel so.... well broken. It has got to be family. There is nothing else that can pull me out of my own head like taking care of my two little ones and of course my husband. He keeps his worries close to the vest, not on his sleeve like me. Gotta be especially wary of that. I just try to give what I can. Right now that doesn't include much of anything that can be bought. I have to hope that love and perseverance is enough to make it two more weeks, another year, ten years - one hurdle at a time, one step at a time, one filter change at a time.
It's sooo freaking easy to feel stressed, scared, and even hopeless at times. I have been crabby with my family because of the stress and I hate that because they are truly the only thing that get my through these tough times. As my oh so eloquent husband puts it - "I simply need more to focus on in my life than him so that I don't take all my stress out on him." It's a bit rough, but that's my husband. We are exactly ourselves with each other, on good days and bad, like it or not. There has to be a buffer between life's emergencies, tragedies, stresses, and losses and that buffer is family. Through their eyes we filter out the bad things and instead see the hope that lies beyond everything else. I guess we just need to remember to clean the filter every so often otherwise people's feelings get stuck in the grime of life.
So as I'm clipping coupons, thinking about side jobs, and reluctantly re-evaluating future plans, I think about what it is that keeps being broke from making one feel so.... well broken. It has got to be family. There is nothing else that can pull me out of my own head like taking care of my two little ones and of course my husband. He keeps his worries close to the vest, not on his sleeve like me. Gotta be especially wary of that. I just try to give what I can. Right now that doesn't include much of anything that can be bought. I have to hope that love and perseverance is enough to make it two more weeks, another year, ten years - one hurdle at a time, one step at a time, one filter change at a time.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Is The Grass Really Greener on The Other Side?
Ok, since I translate my life into motherhood here's another lesson I'd like to teach my kids and since my love of words and metaphors is overwhelming me right now I just have to go with it: If you think the grass is always greener on the other side, it's because you've stopped tending your own lawn. You will always think that someone has something bigger and better than what you have and the bottom line is if you want to really be happy in life than stop envying what others have and focus on what you have.
Here's what I've learned in my 30 years so far. When you start paying so close attention to what others have you start measuring and translating your life and your happiness in terms of what it is not. Does anyone ever find happiness by trying to gage what one does not have that others do?
I can honestly say that my life has not been a bed of roses. I've been through some dark and trying times, but I'd like to think that I have learned how to see through these periods in life to the brighter side that lies beyond. At some point, I hope my children do as I did and ask themselves this key question - What is it that I truly need to make me happy? I hope they think long and hard about this question. I hope to be the buzzer that sounds in their head if what comes to mind is a possession or a dollar amount. If this is what jumps to their minds, then unfortunately the grass will always be greener on the other side. There will always be someone whose possessions and income are more enviable.
Three years ago, I was an individual. The only person I had to dream for was me. Now I'm a mom. If you don't have kids, I'm not sure you understand what it means to have your whole life change in ways you never expected. It made me really re-evaluate what I wanted out of life. I don't know if I really wanted to move up the corporate ladder, rub shoulders with those in positions I coveted and make allies among the other "young professionals" whose goals were the same. Every time I get approached by these "young professional" organizations now to join and participate in whatever "career development" program they're offering I kind of smile inside. It's not because I don't agree with what they are doing. It's because they don't see it in me. Sometimes I think everything about me is so clear. I'm the living cliche of someone who wears their heart on their sleeve so I sometimes forget that not everything I am is so transparent.
I'm a mom I tell them. Then I get this blank stare. I say this by way of explanation, as in I don't have time for extra curricular activities. I have a job and I have a family so that leaves um virtually no time for anything else. At this juncture in my life, I don't know if I will ever want to be on the career development, upwardly mobile path. I know that's what people think I'm supposed to want. But that's where my handy dandy philosophy comes in, I CHOOSE what I want and three years ago I CHOSE to become a mom. After I lost my first baby, I realized that it's a choice people sometimes take for granted. As if it is always there; an easy option that will be waiting for them whenever they decide the time is right. I'm not saying its a bad thing to be career oriented, to be ambitious, but I would just like to make sure that my children stop, take a second and ask themselves "What is it that I need to make me happy?"
I have asked myself this question on several occasions. The answer keeps coming back the same. I need my family to make me happy. When my daughter was born, I couldn't bare the thought of leaving her in daycare and then I got a call that would actually start me on a new path. It was my grandmother who inadvertently and painfully reminded me of the many more options I have in my life than she did. So I sat down and asked the question and thus hatched my job share plan. I work part-time now and yes my bank account is pretty sad on any given day and yes I haven't had my hair cut in at least six months, but I have seen my kids first steps, heard their first words, and even on days where the temper tantrums of my three-year-old infuriate me and my son is being so needy that I can't get a square inch of air to call my own, I don't feel anything but happiness when I think of my life. I have what I need and that makes me happy. Would I like to go on a fancy vacation this year, buy a bigger house, have more money in my bank account? ABSOLUTELY. But I know that I am NOT willing to have time with my family be the sacrifice I make for it. That is just me. That was the answer to my question. I hope they know that they, along with my husband, are what I need to be happy.
I hope that one day they know that the grass is only greener on the other side if you've stopped tending your own lawn. So Hannah and Jayden if you read this one day, do your mom a favor. After you've thought long and hard about what you need to make you happy, get up and go get it. You will be amazed, trust me, at how very possible your dreams are.
Here's what I've learned in my 30 years so far. When you start paying so close attention to what others have you start measuring and translating your life and your happiness in terms of what it is not. Does anyone ever find happiness by trying to gage what one does not have that others do?
I can honestly say that my life has not been a bed of roses. I've been through some dark and trying times, but I'd like to think that I have learned how to see through these periods in life to the brighter side that lies beyond. At some point, I hope my children do as I did and ask themselves this key question - What is it that I truly need to make me happy? I hope they think long and hard about this question. I hope to be the buzzer that sounds in their head if what comes to mind is a possession or a dollar amount. If this is what jumps to their minds, then unfortunately the grass will always be greener on the other side. There will always be someone whose possessions and income are more enviable.
Three years ago, I was an individual. The only person I had to dream for was me. Now I'm a mom. If you don't have kids, I'm not sure you understand what it means to have your whole life change in ways you never expected. It made me really re-evaluate what I wanted out of life. I don't know if I really wanted to move up the corporate ladder, rub shoulders with those in positions I coveted and make allies among the other "young professionals" whose goals were the same. Every time I get approached by these "young professional" organizations now to join and participate in whatever "career development" program they're offering I kind of smile inside. It's not because I don't agree with what they are doing. It's because they don't see it in me. Sometimes I think everything about me is so clear. I'm the living cliche of someone who wears their heart on their sleeve so I sometimes forget that not everything I am is so transparent.
I'm a mom I tell them. Then I get this blank stare. I say this by way of explanation, as in I don't have time for extra curricular activities. I have a job and I have a family so that leaves um virtually no time for anything else. At this juncture in my life, I don't know if I will ever want to be on the career development, upwardly mobile path. I know that's what people think I'm supposed to want. But that's where my handy dandy philosophy comes in, I CHOOSE what I want and three years ago I CHOSE to become a mom. After I lost my first baby, I realized that it's a choice people sometimes take for granted. As if it is always there; an easy option that will be waiting for them whenever they decide the time is right. I'm not saying its a bad thing to be career oriented, to be ambitious, but I would just like to make sure that my children stop, take a second and ask themselves "What is it that I need to make me happy?"
I have asked myself this question on several occasions. The answer keeps coming back the same. I need my family to make me happy. When my daughter was born, I couldn't bare the thought of leaving her in daycare and then I got a call that would actually start me on a new path. It was my grandmother who inadvertently and painfully reminded me of the many more options I have in my life than she did. So I sat down and asked the question and thus hatched my job share plan. I work part-time now and yes my bank account is pretty sad on any given day and yes I haven't had my hair cut in at least six months, but I have seen my kids first steps, heard their first words, and even on days where the temper tantrums of my three-year-old infuriate me and my son is being so needy that I can't get a square inch of air to call my own, I don't feel anything but happiness when I think of my life. I have what I need and that makes me happy. Would I like to go on a fancy vacation this year, buy a bigger house, have more money in my bank account? ABSOLUTELY. But I know that I am NOT willing to have time with my family be the sacrifice I make for it. That is just me. That was the answer to my question. I hope they know that they, along with my husband, are what I need to be happy.
I hope that one day they know that the grass is only greener on the other side if you've stopped tending your own lawn. So Hannah and Jayden if you read this one day, do your mom a favor. After you've thought long and hard about what you need to make you happy, get up and go get it. You will be amazed, trust me, at how very possible your dreams are.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
No Spotlight In Love
Ok, so I really have no idea why, but the series finale of Medium really had a surprising impact on me. For those of you that don't watch the show, it's about a Medium who can see and talk to dead people and she helps solve murder cases for the District Attorney's office. While the show centers pretty clearly on the main character and her supernatural abilities, it's also about Allison's family; her husband and three daughters. So if you watch the show and haven't seen the series finale, read no further. The way they ended the show was that her husband Joe dies in a plane crash and Allison so clearly can't deal with it that she invents an entire dream where he amazingly survived the crash and is living in Mexico with amnesia and can't remember who he is or where he's from. Then Joe's spirit comes to her and sadly informs her that it was just a dream and in fact he didn't survive the crash. The show fast forwards to her as an old lady passing away in a nursing home and seeing Joe again and they are young and in love and will now be together for eternity.
I really don't know why, but I was so saddened by her loss and because it's TV they really got to skip over the bulk of the grief, but it made me think of my own marriage. Blame the estrogen if you want, blame sentimentality or blame love itself if you want, but in the moments after the show I wondered how I would pick up the pieces of my life if something were to happen to my husband. There would be no fast forward to move me in time past the crater forged through the center of my life. There would be a sharing of the secret pain of the fatherless club, my children would be forced to join. How could I deal with any of that? Though I'm only 30, I have spent 12 years of my life loving one person. I look at him and he is at one moment the boy I fell in love with, spotting him across campus in his ball cap and baggy jeans and feeling my heart race, and also the husband and father I have watched him become.
When I had my surgery last year, I tried my best to muster forth my "if should something should happen to me" speech while my husband and I pulled up the hospital drive. I had a knot in my throat the size of a golf ball as I let myself for a minute imagine for my family a life without me, but my husband predictably waved the scenario away as a matter of fact. It was not necessary. I knew it probably wasn't as well, but I also know the pain of hearing unexpected news, recounting final conversations, knowing there will never be reply or answers ever again. What is harder, in my opinion, is being the one left behind to pick up the pieces, to carry on when all you want to do is pull the remainder of your life over your head, hide and perhaps fast forward to a better point in time. Pretty much what the show conveyed.
So here's what I'll take from this show. Despite the fact that we are the main characters in our own lives, we can't forget that we cannot live in the spotlight if we are to share our lives with someone. I hope my children will one day understand this. Children live in the spotlight for a long long time, through adolescence and into their young adult lives. But one day, love will find them as it did for me. Ready or not, it will move in and change their lives as they knew them. I think people say they fall in love because it's passive. Nobody ever says they jumped into love, because frankly love is so powerful and scary that nobody would willingly jump into that void. Ironically enough, I think it's amazing that so many of us of take the leap into parenthood. We know it will be scary, we know it will be hard, but I think we also know that the love is more certain. Loving our children is innate, like a switch that gets turned on involuntarily. For me, it's like the pregnancy test was the switch, loving my child was that easy. Pee on a stick and instant love for another human being. Don't we wish all love was that easy?
I really don't know why, but I was so saddened by her loss and because it's TV they really got to skip over the bulk of the grief, but it made me think of my own marriage. Blame the estrogen if you want, blame sentimentality or blame love itself if you want, but in the moments after the show I wondered how I would pick up the pieces of my life if something were to happen to my husband. There would be no fast forward to move me in time past the crater forged through the center of my life. There would be a sharing of the secret pain of the fatherless club, my children would be forced to join. How could I deal with any of that? Though I'm only 30, I have spent 12 years of my life loving one person. I look at him and he is at one moment the boy I fell in love with, spotting him across campus in his ball cap and baggy jeans and feeling my heart race, and also the husband and father I have watched him become.
When I had my surgery last year, I tried my best to muster forth my "if should something should happen to me" speech while my husband and I pulled up the hospital drive. I had a knot in my throat the size of a golf ball as I let myself for a minute imagine for my family a life without me, but my husband predictably waved the scenario away as a matter of fact. It was not necessary. I knew it probably wasn't as well, but I also know the pain of hearing unexpected news, recounting final conversations, knowing there will never be reply or answers ever again. What is harder, in my opinion, is being the one left behind to pick up the pieces, to carry on when all you want to do is pull the remainder of your life over your head, hide and perhaps fast forward to a better point in time. Pretty much what the show conveyed.
So here's what I'll take from this show. Despite the fact that we are the main characters in our own lives, we can't forget that we cannot live in the spotlight if we are to share our lives with someone. I hope my children will one day understand this. Children live in the spotlight for a long long time, through adolescence and into their young adult lives. But one day, love will find them as it did for me. Ready or not, it will move in and change their lives as they knew them. I think people say they fall in love because it's passive. Nobody ever says they jumped into love, because frankly love is so powerful and scary that nobody would willingly jump into that void. Ironically enough, I think it's amazing that so many of us of take the leap into parenthood. We know it will be scary, we know it will be hard, but I think we also know that the love is more certain. Loving our children is innate, like a switch that gets turned on involuntarily. For me, it's like the pregnancy test was the switch, loving my child was that easy. Pee on a stick and instant love for another human being. Don't we wish all love was that easy?
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Is it really the THOUGHT that counts?
Here's what I remember about the first Christmas I learned what LOVE really meant. I can't remember exactly how old I was, maybe 7 or 8, and per usual I was at my grandma's house for Christmas Eve. Since my parents separated when I was 5, spending Christmas Eve with him at my grandma's house and Christmas at home with my mom was the norm.
We were all opening gifts. Aunts, Uncles, grandma, dad, and us kids were sitting around the tree. The kids were fists of fury; paper flying everywhere. I noticed that my cousin had gotten this singing teddy bear that I thought was just SO cool from my grandma and I remember thinking, "WOW" she must really love him very much. It was no doubt true, but I put the thought aside for a moment and opened a gift from my dad. It was a Rainbow Bright doll. Unfortunately for my dad, I wasn't really into Rainbow Bright at the time. I immediately thought, "he doesn't love me very much if he doesn't even know what I like."
Poor, poor divorced parents. The ones without custody are like onlookers on the other side of the glass. They know their children, but they sometimes miss the details just for lack of being with their kids everyday. It must be a heartbreaking thing, to only see your child on weekends and holidays. I cannot imagine what that must be like. Even though I joke that I would gladly take a day off from my children, I'm not sure I could stitch together enough pieces of me to make myself a whole person with the holes they would leave without their laughter, crazy dancing on the carpet, splashing in the tub, and yes the chaos of wrestling, shoving, and doing it themselves without any help from mommy.
So I do what all small children do when they are completely disappointed, I throw myself full tilt into a melt down; tears, storming out of the room and the icing on the cake of all tantrums I will not explain what has me so upset. So I'm sitting in my grandmother's basement trying to piece together the connective strings I have learned in my short time on Earth. Love equals things. Better things equal more love. So less things or lesser quality things must equal less love, right? So that means that my dad doesn't love me nearly as much as my grandma loves my cousin because she gave him a way cool singing teddy bear and my dad gives me a Rainbow Bright doll that I didn't even want.
I want to cry at my childhood innocence and stupidity. Blame our consumer culture if you want, but these are the sad lessons we as children learn through the actions of the adults in our lives. My dad comes down and asks me what is wrong and I don't remember what I said. Though I was saddened by his "lack of love" for me, I still didn't want to hurt his feelings by telling him the way I really felt. Eventually, I confess that I'm not a big Rainbow Bright fan. He seems a bit hurt, but instead of being angry with me he assures me I have other presents to unwrap and I might find something else I like.
After a little while of talking, he convinces me to go back upstairs and finish opening my presents. One of the very next presents I unwrap is Rainbow Bright's horse. It had a big star on its forehead, which I thought was pretty cool at the time. Now I'm happy. Now she has a pet and this makes her better than what she was alone. So I assure my dad that I'm happy with his presents. I'll never know if he believed me or not or how badly I hurt his feelings by throwing a fit and almost ruining what I didn't know then would be one of too few holidays in our painfully short time together on this Earth. But I learned something, despite my age; it didn't matter so much what he had gotten me. He loved me and had wanted to make me happy with a gift and I used that gift to measure something for which there is no Earthly measure - the love a parent has for their child.
Despite my regret during this poorly timed growing experience, I'm eternally grateful that I learned that love can't be measured by anything, least of all a gift you can buy at the store. Some people still walk this Earth, trying to measure it this way. I think it's because it makes them uncomfortable - the enormity and the responsibility of love. We try to break it down into smaller bite sizes pieces we can analyze and hold, and study with a microscope. It makes us feel that much safer to put it into our pockets then to know it spans the entirety of every breath we take, every moment our heart beats, and the limitless sky we sleep beneath. So on this Christmas day, when I myself have become the parent, I think of my Dad and I try to breathe without him. I pray that he can hear my heart beat, because he helped design its rhythm. I will sleep under the sky- the majestic, infinite sky that he watches me from and I know, without hesitation, just how much he loved me.
We were all opening gifts. Aunts, Uncles, grandma, dad, and us kids were sitting around the tree. The kids were fists of fury; paper flying everywhere. I noticed that my cousin had gotten this singing teddy bear that I thought was just SO cool from my grandma and I remember thinking, "WOW" she must really love him very much. It was no doubt true, but I put the thought aside for a moment and opened a gift from my dad. It was a Rainbow Bright doll. Unfortunately for my dad, I wasn't really into Rainbow Bright at the time. I immediately thought, "he doesn't love me very much if he doesn't even know what I like."
Poor, poor divorced parents. The ones without custody are like onlookers on the other side of the glass. They know their children, but they sometimes miss the details just for lack of being with their kids everyday. It must be a heartbreaking thing, to only see your child on weekends and holidays. I cannot imagine what that must be like. Even though I joke that I would gladly take a day off from my children, I'm not sure I could stitch together enough pieces of me to make myself a whole person with the holes they would leave without their laughter, crazy dancing on the carpet, splashing in the tub, and yes the chaos of wrestling, shoving, and doing it themselves without any help from mommy.
So I do what all small children do when they are completely disappointed, I throw myself full tilt into a melt down; tears, storming out of the room and the icing on the cake of all tantrums I will not explain what has me so upset. So I'm sitting in my grandmother's basement trying to piece together the connective strings I have learned in my short time on Earth. Love equals things. Better things equal more love. So less things or lesser quality things must equal less love, right? So that means that my dad doesn't love me nearly as much as my grandma loves my cousin because she gave him a way cool singing teddy bear and my dad gives me a Rainbow Bright doll that I didn't even want.
I want to cry at my childhood innocence and stupidity. Blame our consumer culture if you want, but these are the sad lessons we as children learn through the actions of the adults in our lives. My dad comes down and asks me what is wrong and I don't remember what I said. Though I was saddened by his "lack of love" for me, I still didn't want to hurt his feelings by telling him the way I really felt. Eventually, I confess that I'm not a big Rainbow Bright fan. He seems a bit hurt, but instead of being angry with me he assures me I have other presents to unwrap and I might find something else I like.
After a little while of talking, he convinces me to go back upstairs and finish opening my presents. One of the very next presents I unwrap is Rainbow Bright's horse. It had a big star on its forehead, which I thought was pretty cool at the time. Now I'm happy. Now she has a pet and this makes her better than what she was alone. So I assure my dad that I'm happy with his presents. I'll never know if he believed me or not or how badly I hurt his feelings by throwing a fit and almost ruining what I didn't know then would be one of too few holidays in our painfully short time together on this Earth. But I learned something, despite my age; it didn't matter so much what he had gotten me. He loved me and had wanted to make me happy with a gift and I used that gift to measure something for which there is no Earthly measure - the love a parent has for their child.
Despite my regret during this poorly timed growing experience, I'm eternally grateful that I learned that love can't be measured by anything, least of all a gift you can buy at the store. Some people still walk this Earth, trying to measure it this way. I think it's because it makes them uncomfortable - the enormity and the responsibility of love. We try to break it down into smaller bite sizes pieces we can analyze and hold, and study with a microscope. It makes us feel that much safer to put it into our pockets then to know it spans the entirety of every breath we take, every moment our heart beats, and the limitless sky we sleep beneath. So on this Christmas day, when I myself have become the parent, I think of my Dad and I try to breathe without him. I pray that he can hear my heart beat, because he helped design its rhythm. I will sleep under the sky- the majestic, infinite sky that he watches me from and I know, without hesitation, just how much he loved me.
Friday, November 19, 2010
The Ultimate Unfairness of Fair
We try to teach our children to play fair with others because as our reasons demonstrate it's in their own best interests to do so. Would you want someone to take your toy from you? Would you want to play with someone who will not wait their turn? Would you want to play a game with someone who doesn't follow the rules? Who will want to play with you if you don't play fair? Well ideally, the answer would be no one. We teach them about fairness supposedly because it is in their best interests, but the reality is that they will grow up and go out into a world that is ultimately UNFAIR.
We tell them to do their best and that will be enough. We try to brace them for the reality that "you can't win them all." But what we don't tell them is that when they grow up, they will be living and competing in a world full of adults that simply didn't learn this lesson as a child or who simply disregarded the archaic idea that it was in their best interests to be fair. What to do? What to do? One day when we get frustrated enough we will tell them "Life is NOT FAIR. AND there is NOTHING we can do about it."
I have lived through plenty of loss, lies, betrayals, and broken promises to be the walking Poster Girl for UNFAIRNESS. I lost my dad at fourteen before I even had a chance to push him off the pedestal. I've worked for years for a promotion that was promised to me and ultimately denied and after fianlly quitting was doled out to a stranger free of charge. I work hard and at every pass am made to feel that my best is not good enough because mistakes carry more weight than good ideas and intentions.
For me, I have no choice but to be the good girl that I am. Somewhere way back in my past it must have been burned into my brain, or else we are born hardwired with the personality we have. In any case, being UNFAIR simply doesn't register as the thing to do. I'm not saying I'm perfect, oh I'm so the Poster Girl for UNPERFECTION as well if such a word existed. I have been angry, frustrated, disappointed and saddened by the UNFAIRNESS of life, but knowing my children will meet it head on one day scares me. Some part of me wonders if my training in FAIRNESS will leave them completely unprepared to survive in an UNFAIR world.
Should I be teaching them the truth; that people who put their needs first, who take short cuts, who simply don't care whose feelings get hurt or don't look back to see whose lives are left drowning in their wake are the ones who succeed in the UNFAIR "real" world? Am I dooming them to failure? The short answer is most definitely YES. But here comes my hard wiring again - I simply can't show them a roadmap that I don't have. I will probably never know what it means to have SUCCESS by life's standards. I have no grandiose notions of acquiring enough money not to give a crap about how I spend it or having strangers know my name and thinking that they perhaps know me too. Happiness for me, survival for me, depends on drowning these notions. These notions are simply not compatible with my brain.
I fear for my children like all parents do. We want to protect them from anything bad. We want them to be safe and happy and healthy and we tell ourselves that if we can just accomplish this holy trinity of parenting then life will be fine. It will open to them all the opportunities we never had. It will give them the happiness we dream for them. But the cynical me will always think in the back of my brain that life isn't going to GIVE them anything. They will simply have to TAKE IT for themselves. But my brain starts to overload at this juncture in thought because is TAKING what they want ULTIMATELY UNFAIR?
We tell them to do their best and that will be enough. We try to brace them for the reality that "you can't win them all." But what we don't tell them is that when they grow up, they will be living and competing in a world full of adults that simply didn't learn this lesson as a child or who simply disregarded the archaic idea that it was in their best interests to be fair. What to do? What to do? One day when we get frustrated enough we will tell them "Life is NOT FAIR. AND there is NOTHING we can do about it."
I have lived through plenty of loss, lies, betrayals, and broken promises to be the walking Poster Girl for UNFAIRNESS. I lost my dad at fourteen before I even had a chance to push him off the pedestal. I've worked for years for a promotion that was promised to me and ultimately denied and after fianlly quitting was doled out to a stranger free of charge. I work hard and at every pass am made to feel that my best is not good enough because mistakes carry more weight than good ideas and intentions.
For me, I have no choice but to be the good girl that I am. Somewhere way back in my past it must have been burned into my brain, or else we are born hardwired with the personality we have. In any case, being UNFAIR simply doesn't register as the thing to do. I'm not saying I'm perfect, oh I'm so the Poster Girl for UNPERFECTION as well if such a word existed. I have been angry, frustrated, disappointed and saddened by the UNFAIRNESS of life, but knowing my children will meet it head on one day scares me. Some part of me wonders if my training in FAIRNESS will leave them completely unprepared to survive in an UNFAIR world.
Should I be teaching them the truth; that people who put their needs first, who take short cuts, who simply don't care whose feelings get hurt or don't look back to see whose lives are left drowning in their wake are the ones who succeed in the UNFAIR "real" world? Am I dooming them to failure? The short answer is most definitely YES. But here comes my hard wiring again - I simply can't show them a roadmap that I don't have. I will probably never know what it means to have SUCCESS by life's standards. I have no grandiose notions of acquiring enough money not to give a crap about how I spend it or having strangers know my name and thinking that they perhaps know me too. Happiness for me, survival for me, depends on drowning these notions. These notions are simply not compatible with my brain.
I fear for my children like all parents do. We want to protect them from anything bad. We want them to be safe and happy and healthy and we tell ourselves that if we can just accomplish this holy trinity of parenting then life will be fine. It will open to them all the opportunities we never had. It will give them the happiness we dream for them. But the cynical me will always think in the back of my brain that life isn't going to GIVE them anything. They will simply have to TAKE IT for themselves. But my brain starts to overload at this juncture in thought because is TAKING what they want ULTIMATELY UNFAIR?
Monday, November 8, 2010
Will Work For Daycare
Today a very clear and distinct vision of my life came into comical view. I stand on the side of the road with a dirty rough cut piece of cardboard in my hands with the words WILL WORK FOR DAYCARE written in magic marker. (Side note: Anyone have any idea what is so magical about a magic marker? Will I get what I write as long as it's written in magic marker? Totally wish that were the case.) So in my vision I am like that jobless person who stands by the side of the road, desperate for work, so desperate they will work for food. There is something especially captivating about these people. They don't ask for handouts; they ask for help and it's really hard not to really SEE them. So too am I, standing on the side of my career path if you will, asking for help - WILL WORK FOR DAYCARE.
Since my mother is currently in the hospital with a broken ankle, I'm left in limbo with childcare. I work part-time (3 days a week) so you'd think that there would be some monetary break for less than full-time childcare. But I have not ONE but TWO children. Here is where the real exponential cost of having more than one child comes into play. The cost of one more plate at the table, the cost of one more pack of diapers, an additional toy, none of them really level your budget like the cost of daycare. For the first time since I was pregnant with my three-year-old daughter, I've starting pricing out daycare. I'm hoping my need for it is for the next month to three months while my mom recovers.
I priced out a local daycare center, you know the kind, full of amenities like feeding your child, reading, singing, playing, changing them (the things moms do automatically, for free, but perhaps without the formal agenda). It would cost me, not one of my two monthly paychecks, but basically one and a half of them. After the cost of gas, I would be left working to pay for my children to be cared for by strangers. Sigh.... So I thought, let's ask anyone who might know anyone who might be able to watch them in their home. So I talked to a stay-at-home mome who watches children in her home. Yes, it's a decidedly cheaper option, but still regretably expensive when you consider my budget for childcare was $0 and there is really no extra money in sight. Believe me (and if you don't just ask one of my friends) I am one of the most frugal people on Earth.
I don't know for the life of me how working families pay for childcare these days. I understand how important it is to have someone you trust caring for your children when you're not around, ESPECIALLY if you have ones far too little to tell you if something bad happened or they were ignored or...let's step off that bad path at the turn here. I get it, but I also know from working in a daycare for my whopping two days (yes it was that stressful and oh yes I was already getting a fresh cold) that you pay people WAY TOO LITTLE money and put them in a room filled with more children then they can responsibly care for and even the caregiver with the best of intentions can't care for your children the way they would like to.
It's so beyond frustrating. I keep thinking, this is NOT what I signed up for when I had children. When I hatched my brilliant job-share plan, I did it with the belief that a stranger would not be raising my child. I would raise my children and my mother who loves them would care for them, if not exactly like I would than equally as well. So for now, they are being looked after by other family members for as long as my welcome and wallet aren't worn out. I'm grateful for the help, but I am woefully worn out from stressing about money and childcare and work. I realize there are a lot more women with less resources and options than myself and I wonder how they do it. For weeks I have felt frustration, shame, failure, and guilt. I go to my job and my day is punctuated with moments of utter sadness. I know I'm rowing against a current I cannot possibly overtake.
In college, when things got bad I came up with my very first Erinism as I now call my quotes, my snippets of life philosophy. It was meant to keep me going when I wanted to give up. I wrote it down and hung it on my wall. "It's a hard lesson to learn that sometimes your best is not good enough, and a harder lesson to keep going when it's not." I guess it's about that time to write it down once again and hang it, preferably at height level, where I might be inclined to bang my head if it weren't there offering me a more positive option.
Since my mother is currently in the hospital with a broken ankle, I'm left in limbo with childcare. I work part-time (3 days a week) so you'd think that there would be some monetary break for less than full-time childcare. But I have not ONE but TWO children. Here is where the real exponential cost of having more than one child comes into play. The cost of one more plate at the table, the cost of one more pack of diapers, an additional toy, none of them really level your budget like the cost of daycare. For the first time since I was pregnant with my three-year-old daughter, I've starting pricing out daycare. I'm hoping my need for it is for the next month to three months while my mom recovers.
I priced out a local daycare center, you know the kind, full of amenities like feeding your child, reading, singing, playing, changing them (the things moms do automatically, for free, but perhaps without the formal agenda). It would cost me, not one of my two monthly paychecks, but basically one and a half of them. After the cost of gas, I would be left working to pay for my children to be cared for by strangers. Sigh.... So I thought, let's ask anyone who might know anyone who might be able to watch them in their home. So I talked to a stay-at-home mome who watches children in her home. Yes, it's a decidedly cheaper option, but still regretably expensive when you consider my budget for childcare was $0 and there is really no extra money in sight. Believe me (and if you don't just ask one of my friends) I am one of the most frugal people on Earth.
I don't know for the life of me how working families pay for childcare these days. I understand how important it is to have someone you trust caring for your children when you're not around, ESPECIALLY if you have ones far too little to tell you if something bad happened or they were ignored or...let's step off that bad path at the turn here. I get it, but I also know from working in a daycare for my whopping two days (yes it was that stressful and oh yes I was already getting a fresh cold) that you pay people WAY TOO LITTLE money and put them in a room filled with more children then they can responsibly care for and even the caregiver with the best of intentions can't care for your children the way they would like to.
It's so beyond frustrating. I keep thinking, this is NOT what I signed up for when I had children. When I hatched my brilliant job-share plan, I did it with the belief that a stranger would not be raising my child. I would raise my children and my mother who loves them would care for them, if not exactly like I would than equally as well. So for now, they are being looked after by other family members for as long as my welcome and wallet aren't worn out. I'm grateful for the help, but I am woefully worn out from stressing about money and childcare and work. I realize there are a lot more women with less resources and options than myself and I wonder how they do it. For weeks I have felt frustration, shame, failure, and guilt. I go to my job and my day is punctuated with moments of utter sadness. I know I'm rowing against a current I cannot possibly overtake.
In college, when things got bad I came up with my very first Erinism as I now call my quotes, my snippets of life philosophy. It was meant to keep me going when I wanted to give up. I wrote it down and hung it on my wall. "It's a hard lesson to learn that sometimes your best is not good enough, and a harder lesson to keep going when it's not." I guess it's about that time to write it down once again and hang it, preferably at height level, where I might be inclined to bang my head if it weren't there offering me a more positive option.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
The Mommy Track
Work and Motherhood should be synonymous, but for some odd reason they are not. When talking about outside paid employment, motherhood is viewed as sort of a detour on the road to career advancement - a maternity leave during which you bond with your baby then promptly enroll them in daycare and mother them on nights and weekends. Well that is the way it used to be thought of anyway.
It's so rare to find a stay at home mom these days. They are going extinct at a rapid rate. Society tells us that we simply cannot afford to care for our children "full-time" and besides women are independent and career oriented and should want to reach for the brass ring with the same zeal as our husbands. But what happens when you trade in the brass ring, for dare I say it, a teething ring?
When I was pregnant with my daughter I expected to return to work full-time and enroll her in daycare, as most moms now do. I was totally fine as long as I operated under the assumption that I simply had no other choice in the matter. I was fine with my assumption oh until about three days after my daughter was born. I called my grandmother to tell her the good news and she asked me if I was going to return to work. When I said yes, she asked me, "but why you wanted that baby so much?" That is one of the few moments I can point to in my life and say see this is where it all changed. She wasn't saying it to be mean or criticize my choice, she simply saw choices that I did not.
She was an immigrant to this country from war-torn Germany. She raised three kids alone for the better part of their childhood. She worked damn hard on farms, in factories, and for wages that may have made my first job after college look like I had made it to "the good life." Work was life for my grandmother. Motherhood was life too and the two things were not in fact separate ideas. I did a paper for college about her work history and in every answer to my questions about work, she infused paid work with family work. Without knowing it, she was saying that for women, the realm of work is not one thing, paid employment or work in the home, it's both simultaneously.
So after crying for weeks about a question I hadn't expected to shake me to my core, I started thinking about what would really make me happy. I talked with my husband, then my mom, then finally my boss. I did something up until this very moment in my life I found so very daunting, I asked for what I needed to make me happy. I wanted to work part-time so I could spend time with my child and still contribute financially to my household. I arranged with my boss to turn my full-time job into a job-share so that I could work part-time. My mom agreed to watch my child (and later my two children) while I was at work. And as a happy consequence I made a great friend in the co-worker and mother who was able to work the other part of my job.
I was lucky that it worked out. I have been happy and now all my stitching of my ideal life is starting to slowly unravel one stitch at a time. All the knots that hold together my work/motherhood life are coming undone.
My job is undergoing a major transition and there is a possibility I could be laid off. My mother broke her foot and is in the hospital and afterwards will need months of rehabilitation and help herself. It's like I'm back to that very moment when my grandmother questioned what I was going to do about work and motherhood. The difference is, she recently passed away and she can not ask, so I guess I have to ask myself again - What's it going to take to make me happy?
I look for jobs online that require me to work full-time. I think of how much more we would struggle if I stayed at home. I look at my children and think of what it took to bring them into this world. I know now, thanks to my grandmother, that I do in fact have choices, but she never said they would be easy ones to make. I can think of just one thing that would make me happy. Just one. Again it hinges on the cooperation of others, it hinges on timing, it hinges on a future that I can not see or touch in this moment in time and like anyone else would be, I'm scared. So I cling to today. I take help when it is offered and say thank you instead of struggling in silence. I try to think of getting through today and tomorrow and try not to assume anything more about the future than that.
There is an old saying that if you have a job or a career and choose any other path besides full-time employment or choose to leave at the end of the day instead of living for your job, you are in fact on the "mommy track." It's a term that was meant to put down women who choose to stand up and say that my family is just as important as my job. I even had a professor in college who tried to discourage me when I told him I didn't plan to go on to grad school by saying, "What are you going to do then, stay home and have babies?"
I was in my early twenties and didn't have a voice then. But I do now. I'm proud to be on the "mommy track." Not everyone gets the privilege to be a mother. But I will be blessed the rest of my life. So while others are pushing their career up the track of success one piece of paper and project at a time, I take the track that meanders, that takes the short hill instead of the mountain. I enjoy the view of my life as it sprawls out before me. I know how this goes; this track is just a different segment of the same roller coaster. The difference is, I fill my car with my family and my hopes for them, not just myself. It goes slower because there is more to pull. It takes the hill over the mountain because what is an exhilarating rush of adrenaline to some, to others is just a rush of fear. I don't know what's going to happen next any more than the next person, but I know one thing that perhaps others may not. I choose to define success on my terms and I know I have more power than even I realize. I can only hope that other women know that too.
It's so rare to find a stay at home mom these days. They are going extinct at a rapid rate. Society tells us that we simply cannot afford to care for our children "full-time" and besides women are independent and career oriented and should want to reach for the brass ring with the same zeal as our husbands. But what happens when you trade in the brass ring, for dare I say it, a teething ring?
When I was pregnant with my daughter I expected to return to work full-time and enroll her in daycare, as most moms now do. I was totally fine as long as I operated under the assumption that I simply had no other choice in the matter. I was fine with my assumption oh until about three days after my daughter was born. I called my grandmother to tell her the good news and she asked me if I was going to return to work. When I said yes, she asked me, "but why you wanted that baby so much?" That is one of the few moments I can point to in my life and say see this is where it all changed. She wasn't saying it to be mean or criticize my choice, she simply saw choices that I did not.
She was an immigrant to this country from war-torn Germany. She raised three kids alone for the better part of their childhood. She worked damn hard on farms, in factories, and for wages that may have made my first job after college look like I had made it to "the good life." Work was life for my grandmother. Motherhood was life too and the two things were not in fact separate ideas. I did a paper for college about her work history and in every answer to my questions about work, she infused paid work with family work. Without knowing it, she was saying that for women, the realm of work is not one thing, paid employment or work in the home, it's both simultaneously.
So after crying for weeks about a question I hadn't expected to shake me to my core, I started thinking about what would really make me happy. I talked with my husband, then my mom, then finally my boss. I did something up until this very moment in my life I found so very daunting, I asked for what I needed to make me happy. I wanted to work part-time so I could spend time with my child and still contribute financially to my household. I arranged with my boss to turn my full-time job into a job-share so that I could work part-time. My mom agreed to watch my child (and later my two children) while I was at work. And as a happy consequence I made a great friend in the co-worker and mother who was able to work the other part of my job.
I was lucky that it worked out. I have been happy and now all my stitching of my ideal life is starting to slowly unravel one stitch at a time. All the knots that hold together my work/motherhood life are coming undone.
My job is undergoing a major transition and there is a possibility I could be laid off. My mother broke her foot and is in the hospital and afterwards will need months of rehabilitation and help herself. It's like I'm back to that very moment when my grandmother questioned what I was going to do about work and motherhood. The difference is, she recently passed away and she can not ask, so I guess I have to ask myself again - What's it going to take to make me happy?
I look for jobs online that require me to work full-time. I think of how much more we would struggle if I stayed at home. I look at my children and think of what it took to bring them into this world. I know now, thanks to my grandmother, that I do in fact have choices, but she never said they would be easy ones to make. I can think of just one thing that would make me happy. Just one. Again it hinges on the cooperation of others, it hinges on timing, it hinges on a future that I can not see or touch in this moment in time and like anyone else would be, I'm scared. So I cling to today. I take help when it is offered and say thank you instead of struggling in silence. I try to think of getting through today and tomorrow and try not to assume anything more about the future than that.
There is an old saying that if you have a job or a career and choose any other path besides full-time employment or choose to leave at the end of the day instead of living for your job, you are in fact on the "mommy track." It's a term that was meant to put down women who choose to stand up and say that my family is just as important as my job. I even had a professor in college who tried to discourage me when I told him I didn't plan to go on to grad school by saying, "What are you going to do then, stay home and have babies?"
I was in my early twenties and didn't have a voice then. But I do now. I'm proud to be on the "mommy track." Not everyone gets the privilege to be a mother. But I will be blessed the rest of my life. So while others are pushing their career up the track of success one piece of paper and project at a time, I take the track that meanders, that takes the short hill instead of the mountain. I enjoy the view of my life as it sprawls out before me. I know how this goes; this track is just a different segment of the same roller coaster. The difference is, I fill my car with my family and my hopes for them, not just myself. It goes slower because there is more to pull. It takes the hill over the mountain because what is an exhilarating rush of adrenaline to some, to others is just a rush of fear. I don't know what's going to happen next any more than the next person, but I know one thing that perhaps others may not. I choose to define success on my terms and I know I have more power than even I realize. I can only hope that other women know that too.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
You're Hot Then You're Cold
I'm not sure Katie Perry had a toddler in mind when she sang "You're Hot Then You're Cold. You're Yes then You're No" but it most certainly fits Toddlerhood to a T. Some days I catch small glimpses of the sweet baby girl I remember. When she looks deep into my eyes and says, "Mommy you have Hannahs in your eyes." When the I love yous and hugs come without provocation or the desire to help mommy with household chores because she wants to be like me, those are the moments I try to hold onto when the screaming, demanding, frustrating little DIVA emerges ready to push her baby brother, tattle on whatever parent yelled at her to stop throwing things in the house for the thousandth time, or stomp her feet to prove her stubborness.
I can't help but look at her during these tantrums and think "Who Are You?" She bursts into tears the second she hears "no" and it's hard to hold onto my resolve when she's crying repeating "I'm sorry mommy" from the timeout spot, but when it gets tough I try to remember that she doesn't really have the verbal skills to explain what she thinks or feels all the time. She doesn't really know why she breaks a rule and when I ask her if she knows why she was in timeout she only reiterates that "mommy put me in time out." As someone who prides herself on her passion for words, I can only imagine how frustrating that must be.
So Who are you little Hannah? You are EXACTLY my daughter that's who. I know to some I may look like I run hot and cold too. My emotions red and raw on my sleeve at times, even I can't find the words when I need them the most. I think the hardest part of toddlerhood is not knowing whether its discipline or understanding they need at any given moment. During the same day I find myself on the verge of a very real tantrum of my own because every small request of my 3 year old is met with the resistance of an army. Then later that day I find myself snuggling with her, smelling her hair and praying that it is my love she will remember, not this nagging, complaining mom I am twisted into sometimes.
I have no idea if I'm in for more of the same when my son hits this age, but I will probably be better at weathering the storm by then. I feel a little sorry for her. Because she came first, she has all the trial and error of my new parenting skills bestowed upon her. I'm hoping that one day I will wake up at the end of this phase of her life when the sweet rainbow disposition I feel in love with in babyhood is the only remaining proof of these stormy terrible 3s. As long as I don't sleep too long and end up in the teen years, where I'm sure we'll be revisiting "the hot and the cold the yes and the no."
I can't help but look at her during these tantrums and think "Who Are You?" She bursts into tears the second she hears "no" and it's hard to hold onto my resolve when she's crying repeating "I'm sorry mommy" from the timeout spot, but when it gets tough I try to remember that she doesn't really have the verbal skills to explain what she thinks or feels all the time. She doesn't really know why she breaks a rule and when I ask her if she knows why she was in timeout she only reiterates that "mommy put me in time out." As someone who prides herself on her passion for words, I can only imagine how frustrating that must be.
So Who are you little Hannah? You are EXACTLY my daughter that's who. I know to some I may look like I run hot and cold too. My emotions red and raw on my sleeve at times, even I can't find the words when I need them the most. I think the hardest part of toddlerhood is not knowing whether its discipline or understanding they need at any given moment. During the same day I find myself on the verge of a very real tantrum of my own because every small request of my 3 year old is met with the resistance of an army. Then later that day I find myself snuggling with her, smelling her hair and praying that it is my love she will remember, not this nagging, complaining mom I am twisted into sometimes.
I have no idea if I'm in for more of the same when my son hits this age, but I will probably be better at weathering the storm by then. I feel a little sorry for her. Because she came first, she has all the trial and error of my new parenting skills bestowed upon her. I'm hoping that one day I will wake up at the end of this phase of her life when the sweet rainbow disposition I feel in love with in babyhood is the only remaining proof of these stormy terrible 3s. As long as I don't sleep too long and end up in the teen years, where I'm sure we'll be revisiting "the hot and the cold the yes and the no."
Monday, October 11, 2010
The Keeper of Childhood
Many things come to mind when I think about my childhood, but there is one person that actually holds all these memories in the pockets of her gardening frock - my grandmother. While searching through my old writing samples from college one thing became evident to me - my granmother and her house hold the key to my childhood. Perhaps because it was the only lock that never EVER changed.
I remember nearly all the details of my grandmother's house, including the secret hiding spot in the yard. My grandmother's face, her thick German accent, her ever present love is what created "childhood" for me. Her life was hard, but she was soft and kind. She survived World War II in Germany with no food, no permanent home and a toddler and an infant and she did it alone. I cannot imagine surviving in the face of these daunting obstacles. Her strenghth is astounding to me.
Last week, I came face to face with the end of my childhood. I flew down to South Carolina to say goodbye to my dying grandmother. It's hard to look at what life has left her with, stripped of her autonomy, mobility, and her health, but then I looked closer. When she was awake, she was alert and funny and brave. She was not lost; childhood was not lost. I spoke to her yesterday and she seems to be rallying. Her voice sounded full of life again. She tells me not to be sad or fearful of death because there is just no sense in getting upset about the natural progression of life. I truly don't think she has a single regret about her life. It's really not hard to admire someone like that.
The person who gave me the freedom to love and hope, dream and also fail - that is my grandmother. That is my childhood wrapped in that warm and somewhat shy smile. I'm not sure at any moment whether there will be a next time to say goodbye, but now I will try to hold onto her wisdom when the time comes. I will not lose her just as my childhood cannot be lost because it existed. I am the person I am because of her. I will always be hiding in the fort in the front yard, watching her weed her garden, drinking deep the smells of her kitchen. I will always remain a version of my past the same way I, as her granddaughter, will live as the continuation of her life. I am damn priviledged to carry her blood in my veins.
So here's to grandparents, who hold childhood in constant freeze frame and remind us that while life keeps ushering us forward, it is truly a gift to remember where we all started.
I remember nearly all the details of my grandmother's house, including the secret hiding spot in the yard. My grandmother's face, her thick German accent, her ever present love is what created "childhood" for me. Her life was hard, but she was soft and kind. She survived World War II in Germany with no food, no permanent home and a toddler and an infant and she did it alone. I cannot imagine surviving in the face of these daunting obstacles. Her strenghth is astounding to me.
Last week, I came face to face with the end of my childhood. I flew down to South Carolina to say goodbye to my dying grandmother. It's hard to look at what life has left her with, stripped of her autonomy, mobility, and her health, but then I looked closer. When she was awake, she was alert and funny and brave. She was not lost; childhood was not lost. I spoke to her yesterday and she seems to be rallying. Her voice sounded full of life again. She tells me not to be sad or fearful of death because there is just no sense in getting upset about the natural progression of life. I truly don't think she has a single regret about her life. It's really not hard to admire someone like that.
The person who gave me the freedom to love and hope, dream and also fail - that is my grandmother. That is my childhood wrapped in that warm and somewhat shy smile. I'm not sure at any moment whether there will be a next time to say goodbye, but now I will try to hold onto her wisdom when the time comes. I will not lose her just as my childhood cannot be lost because it existed. I am the person I am because of her. I will always be hiding in the fort in the front yard, watching her weed her garden, drinking deep the smells of her kitchen. I will always remain a version of my past the same way I, as her granddaughter, will live as the continuation of her life. I am damn priviledged to carry her blood in my veins.
So here's to grandparents, who hold childhood in constant freeze frame and remind us that while life keeps ushering us forward, it is truly a gift to remember where we all started.
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