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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Baby Bump

I can only credit one person for the creation of the "baby bump" - my wonderful husband. Before your mind takes a turn for the dirty - no I"m not talking about the term developed by tabloid magazines to "out" a pregnant star. I'm talking about a special non-verbal "I love you" that our children have learned since infancy.

I couldn't tell you exactly when he came up with it or why, but it has grown into a full fledged tradition, beginning with my daughter Hannah who is now 3 and continued with my son Jayden who is nearly 10 months old. My husband leans his head forward toward toward my children's foreheads and then I guess thanks to "monkey see monkey do" they lean in and together they bump foreheads.

It was like any tradition to sweep quietly into the heart of a family. It has been understood from the moment of creation that it means "I love you." So in a sense my children and I have been "saying" I love you since they developed neck control. My mom and step-dad quickly adopted it as well. My son takes it to a sometimes painful level of enthusiasm - giving multiple bumps to the point of potential concussion. Like his parents he's an all or nothing kind of kid.

Thanks to the creation of the "baby bump" I have learned that sometimes it's what you DON'T say that becomes the most special expression of love. Anyone can say the words "I love you." But the "baby bump" that's all ours. Do you have a special non-verbal tradition with your kids? Feel free to share. That's what we teach our kids right? Use your words and share. Certainly those are the lessons I'd like to instill in my kids - and many adults for that matter.

Triage On The Parenthood Battle Field

If you have more than one child you have now entered the fun triage zone of the parenthood battle field. There comes a day usually early after you bring home baby number two when suddenly both kids are crying at the same time, and here comes the instant triage scenario: You do a mental checklist, trying to come up with an assessment of which child needs you most urgently at that moment. Is one child hurt and the other simply lonely? Is one child hungry and one is tired and cranky?

The mental checklist is long and we mothers go through it at a supremely fast rate. To outsiders it may look like we are playing favorites when we quickly rush to one child's side over another, but what outsiders don't know is that we fight the war of guilt that consumes us all the time. It's all because we had the audacity to have and love more than one child, all the while knowing that we are simply one person with the limitations of being one single person who can not possibly do all things for all children all the time. Then we find ourselves begging our children to wait, be patient, hurry up, quiet down, behave, the list goes on and on. All because once your family goes from "one child" to "one more child" we have inadvertantly given our children the upper hand. Now we are out numbered.

When one child is sick the choice may seem easy. You go to the child who is sick first. But life and motherhood are not so simple. Just because one child may need you a lot more, you still must tend to the other or others. My heart goes out to women who face impossible choices every day, who carry guilt that they can not untangle from their love and devotion.

I guess all we can do is remind them, remind ourselves, to look up from our medical kits and our bandages and our checklists to see that there are other nurses and doctors in this triage tent of ours. That love can come from more places than we can possibly imagine and though the feeling of responsibility seems so overwhelmingly ours alone, it simply is not. Our children get love and guidance from our close and extended family, friends, friends of family, co-workers and neighbors.

I think that because mothers are responsible for our children from the moment of conception a part of us never lets go of the ENORMITY of that responsiblity, but sometimes, just sometimes it's ok to allow ourselves to step back and let someone else take over. It's ENORMOUSLY important for us to relinquish the responsibilty to our spouse, mother, father, sister, brother, friend or anyone who loves us enough to take some of the responsibility off our plate. We, as mothers, can not afford to look up from our checklists one day to see that it is no longer our children on the triage cot, but ourselves.

Live Life Don't Eat It

So a couple of events sparked this post. First, a few weeks ago I was getting a "treat" at Dunkin Donuts - a vanilla coffee coolatta. They have a new "kiddie" size which is perfect for me since I really never finish a "small." So the guy in line behind me comes running after me "What is that?" He is utterly shocked at how "small" my beverage is. Now I have the sizes in quotes because truthfully it was at least 8 ounces of liquid, which to me should be regular size not "kiddie" size.

So I think to myself what was I doing the day all the restaurants decided that small was just too small and they were going to make "small" what "medium or large" used to be and make "medium or large" ginormous? I don't remember the sneaky little trick and I certainly don't remember anyone complaining or even stopping to think about it.

So the second thing to spark this post is a show I watched yes, big sigh, on Oprah yesterday all about diabetes. My mom has diabetes so I watched determined to educate myself and find one maybe just one fact that I could share with her that would give her as Oprah says "An AH HA Moment." I shared that "a single serving of soda contains 10 teaspoons of sugar in it" to my diabetic mother who lives off a diet that falls into the following categories: SODA, SNACKS, WHITE CARBS (bread, pasta, rice, bagels, etc.), and last but not least FATTY MEATS. My mother, as could be predicted, sloughed off the comment with a nod of her head. She wanted to know about as badly as she wants to admit to herself that she does have some control over her body and her health.

So I ask, when did people (not all but some) decide that they'd rather eat away their life instead of live it? I find myself falling into the same pattern of thought as everyone else, but I see my mother's poor health and her unwillingness to accept any responsibility in the matter as my wake up call. I found myself on a late night trip to Wal-Mart for medicine one night promising my daughter a "treat" if she's good because I know it's getting late and she's getting cranky. I immediately thought ok I'll grab her a candy bar at check out and I almost said it outloud before I thought hey when did "treat" become only food and usually junk food at that. So instead I promised her a new story book for bed time. So she didn't get the temporary sugar high and instead got a book which we've been reading every night since.

It's no wonder we have so many health problems in this country. Our entire lives are at least 90 percent virtual. We don't walk the mall -we shop in our PJs in front of the computer, we don't go out with friends- we post factoids about our lives on Facebook or text our friends because God forbid we actually be dragged into a conversation. We don't experience life, we view it and for some, hell for most, we eat it. Every birthday celebration has to include cake right? We "treat" ourselves with chocolate or chips when we're upset, stressed, happy, fill in the blank and we do it. We medicate ourselves with food and then wake up one day to find that our body has had enough and starts letting us know in painful ways.

Everyone does it, not excluding me, I take responsibility. I wish more people would just take a second thought before promising a "treat" to their kids or "treating" themselves with food. Maybe your kids would be just as happy if you took them to the park, played a game with them, read them a story. Maybe before "treating" ourselves with food we could take a yoga class, read a book, take a trip, call a friend, or one of a thousand other possibilities. I'm not writing all this to be judgmental. I just want people to think for a second - What is my life worth?

Life is fragile and fleeting. Believe me I don't think my dad sat down in his twenties one day and said, yeah I'm middle aged, but by dying at 45 from abusing alcohol that's exactly what his twenties were- the middle of a life cut way to short by his choices. You know who pays for those choices, me and everyone else he left behind. So too will be the case with my mom. I don't think I'll ever get my mom to see her life as the valuable thing it is.

In a world of disposable everything I think that quality of life is becoming disposable too. Is one "treat" going to hurt you- of course not. Are you going to have health problems because you enjoy sitting down to a favorite meal with your family - No, but a lifetime spent eating life and not living it equals a poor quality of life down the road. And guess what -it's those we leave behind that pay the price. So my mantra now is Live Life Don't Eat it.

There is no "ME" in MOMMY

If you ask yourself at least once a day, "Am I doing the right thing?," "Am I failing my children?," "Am I a horrible mother?" LISTEN UP - you're perfectly normal. What I find most intriguing about motherhood is that rarely does a woman truly ask herself, "What about me?"

The first thing to go when you become a parent is simply "you." Short of changing your identity by joining wittness protection, you are in short a completely different "you" once you have children. If you're like me, you view your pre-child life kinda like a good old familiar movie you remember watching over and over. You know the lines by heart, but ultimately you are a spectator viewing your own past. I'm not saying it's a bad thing. It's just different.

I wish I could say that having children makes you completely selfless. That you are devoted 100% of the time to your child(ren)'s utter happiness, but this is real life and not the hallmark channel. There are days, especially when your feeling sick, tired, rundown, unappreciated, overwhelmed where you want to scream, "WHAT ABOUT ME???" You wonder, sometimes outloud, where's my help? Where's my vacation?" Hell most days I'd settle for getting in the car by myself and going anywhere, hearing silence and not being so utterly tired that I can appreciate it for more than the few minutes it takes to drag my ass to bed.

As a very introspective person, motherhood has been like riding a rollercoaster blindfolded. I always prided myself in knowing exactly who I am and what I'm capable of. But I have found myself, even hearing myself as I'm doing it screaming at a toddler, begging a baby not to cry, cursing a husband for working late even though I know it's for the benefit of our family but because I need help and god damn it there is no freaking end to my day. Parenthood doesn't have a pause button, a rewind, there is no do over so this is where the worry comes in "Am I failing my children?" "Am I balancing work and family or will the scale always be tipped?" God the worry doesn't stop. I simpy have to hope that we all escape parenthood and childhood without any permanent scaring. But I have decided at least for myself that there is no Right Way to be a parent. There is simply what you do and what you don't do and as long as you can appreciate that and the fact that you can't always control the outcome and for the most part you're ok with the direction you take, then you ARE a good parent and you ARE a good person.

I may wonder sometimes "Will there ever come a day where I have more than a 20 minute shower to call my ALONE TIME?," but while walking around my empty house after returning from urgent care a few weeks ago, I was a little freaked out by how ALONE I really was. I simply didn't remember what to do without children to take care of. So I cleaned, not my favorite past time by any stretch of the imagination, but I was used to feeling useful, needed, depended upon and completely loved nearly every second of the day and the temporary silence was utterly deafening. So I have traded in "ME" for "MOMMY." It's not to say there is no more me, there is just a new ME, a forever changed version of ME. Sometimes I may look back, but never with regret.

Toddlers, Tiredness and Tantrums Oh My!

So ironically I think observing my toddler has taught me a lot about life. Tiredness can completely dictate how you behave. Courtesy of my two month old son and my two year old daughter tiredness is a permanent state of being for me.

Toddlers have an almost inability to communicate what they need. They can usually summon the verbal skills to ask for a snack but you pretty much never hear them ask for a nap. Sounds a lot like the adult world to me. We always seem to find a way to want more and more but a lot of the time we have no idea what we actually need and even if we do we rarely muster the verbal skills to actually ask for it.

I've watched my mother her whole adult life work fodr the same small employer without health benefits, a retirement plan or hell even a raise. I had no idea until a few years ago that what I learned by her not asking for what she needed was that I had no idea how to ask for what I need either. Her inability to feel worthy of things and her lack of faith in asking others - that they might actually comply and happily, taught me to feel the same unworthiness.

When I had my daughter two years ago I cried every night of my maternity leave dreading the day when I had to go back to work full time and leave her in daycare. Then slowly I began to hatch my plan. I decided what it was that I needed to be happy. I needed to work part-time and still be able to raise my daughter without feeling like I was missing her life. Work had me stressed out already so I thought a little less pressure would do me good. I decided that I could do without half my salary if I was just going to give it to a daycare anyway. So I asked my mom if she would watch my daughter every day for a half day while I worked and shockingly I even asked my boss to let me work part-time by hiring another part-time person to work the other part of my job.

To this day I don't know how I summoned the courage or why he agreed, but I've been a much happier person ever since. Now as I approach the end of my maternity leave and have to leave my son in my mother's care I know I can face it. I can verbalize it...I'm happy. I can help provide financially for my family and keep my job skills current and I can still feel like I'm raising my kids with the help of someone I truly trust. Who knew that just by asking for what you want...you just might get it.

What Surgery Has Taught Me

So I just had my galbladder removed three days ago and here's what I learned. Hospitals really suck at customer service, but more importantly families don't. After waiting from 11:30 am - the scheduled time of my surgery until 5:30 pm when they finally got around to talking to me about my surgery I realized that to these people I was a procedure - not a person. A procedure that could be bumped and there was no need to actually talk to me and tell me what was going on.



I could focus on the horrible experience I had or focus on what I learned. My family really stepped up to help me. My mom waiting at home with my screaming 2 month old who didn't know where mommy and subsequently mommy's milk went and with my two year old in all her new found defiance. My husband watching movies with me on his ipod touch so I wouldn't notice how long it was all taking. So here's what I learned. I'm a lucky person to have people who love me and whom I love. Surgery for me was new and it was not just a procedure for me. I was scared but more importantly I wasn't alone and for that I'm grateful. I also learned that it takes three grown adults to do what I normally do alone which I kinda suspected all along.