everyday life

i know why women want more babies

Posted on by mommyinthemidwest

I’ve pretty much decided that we are not allowed to go in public anymore.  Ever since I started my blog and began posting a lot of pictures here, people just recognize us way too much.  Ha.  Or maybe it’s because EVERY time we go somewhere to have fun, someone (or all of us) end up getting sick. 

It’s been 4 weeks since Theo and I had the stomach virus from hell.  And now Theo has been fighting a junky cough for over a week.  Apparently he was also fighting a sore throat, which would explain a recent eating strike, because last night I started developing one that could pretty much be summed up in three words:  Swallowing.  Razor.  Blades.  Both boys have had weird, persistent rashes.  Dexter has been getting up a lot at night, and when I say “a lot,” I mean 9 times.  NINE times in 8 hours.  I wasn’t home that night but I felt terrible, knowing that my husband was suffering alone while I was at work.  I pretty much started my day at 1:58am on Saturday though, so I think that made up for it.  I can’t wait to get these kids feeling better again.

Dexter decided around Thursday and Friday of last week that now would be a good time to start crawling.  To that, I would say:  Dexter.  Stop it.  This is not a good time to start crawling.  I thought I asked you to wait until the Christmas decorations were tucked back in their boxes in January.  Hell, they’re not even untucked from their boxes yet!

It’s weird.  With Theo, I wanted him to hit every milestone early or right on time and got myself into a panic at times if he wasn’t doing just what every other kid his age was doing.  Or what every book or website said he should be doing.  With Dexter, I just want him to slow down.  Aside from the emotional issues attached to my baby not wanting to stay a baby (again? gah.), there are the logistical issues.  He’s so much smaller at six months than Theo was at nine, when he started crawling.  He has less physical control of himself, you know what I mean?  I remember Theo falling on his face and busting his lip while he was learning to crawl.  And he was THREE whole months older than Dexter is now.  I dunno, it’s probably a dumb thing to worry or think about, but I do. 

Mainly, I just want him to be my snuggly little baby forever.  It’s no mystery why women have one baby after another.  I guess they think eventually one of them might actually stay a baby forever.  Despite the nightmarish sleep issues we’re dealing with right now, babies are so precious.  Dexter was playing with something he shouldn’t last night, so I took it away from him, expecting him to cry.  He didn’t.  He didn’t even know the difference.  He was happy moving on to another toy.  I am not looking forward to the fits and tantrums.  Babies are so sweet and cuddly.  We’re still rocking Dexter to sleep, which I suspect is part of the problem that we’re having with night wakings – he doesn’t know how to go back to sleep on his own when he wakes up between sleep cycles.  But as soon as we start putting him to bed on his own, that’s the end of it.  That’s the end of rocking him to sleep.  Or at least it was with Theo.  And once it was done, there was nothing I wanted more than to steal those moments back. 

Ugh.

There’s a constant battle betwen the good and the bad.  I just keep telling myself, it’s just a phase…it’s just a phase…it’s just a phase…it won’t last forever.  And that’s good and bad.  Bad because this time in our lives is moving at warp speed.

All my life, I dreamed of my wedding day.  All my life, I envisioned what it would be like to be pregnant and to cuddle that sweet newborn baby.  These things are glamorized to little girls, you know?  No one really prepares you for the heartburn, the hemorrhoids, or the fact that these things come and go in the blink of an eye.  My wedding lasted 15 minutes.  And in retrospect, it doesn’t feel like my pregnancies lasted much longer than that.  Or my babies’ itty bitty stages.

I know they are still little.  We are having the time of our lives watching them grow and learn.  I do love having little kids and I absolutely believe that a few years from now, 20 years from now, and 50 years from now, I will look back in disbelief at how far from this time in my life I’ve gotten. 

The point is, part of me feels like sobbing because it’s over.  I got pregnant with Theo in June of 2009 and by May of 2011, in a flash, I was done having babies.  Done feeling them kick inside of me.  Done staring at them for the first time and memorizing every curve of their fresh little bodies.  It is such a blur now.  So, yes.  I understand why women want to keep re-living those moments by having another baby.  While that part of my life is over, at the same time, I know that we’ve just begun and the time of our lives lies ahead of us. 

~C~

i don’t think i could be a stay-at-home-mom

Posted on by mommyinthemidwest
I’ve been back to work now for over three months – just a little longer than my maternity leave lasted.  And here my little Dexter is almost six months old.  I was reading through some old blog posts – specifically the one to Theo on his half birthday – and I can’t believe how time has flown.  I sure didn’t know then that a little over a year later, I’d be looking back at the first six months of my second child’s life. 

Working is okay, I guess.  It’s a balancing act.  I don’t know how well I would do as a full time stay at home mom.  I think I would get bored at times.  I think the kids would definitely get bored at times.  I love our babysitter.  She’s awesome.  We were lucky enough to find her via care.com and she has been unbelievably reliable.  She’s exceeded all of our expectations.  She does crafty crafts with my 5 (almost 6, sad face sad face sad face) month old, for pete’s sake.  I would never have the creativity nor the patience to do half of what she does.  With all that being said, I really miss my kids during the week.  I leave for work after they go to bed at night, their dad takes them to the babysitter before I get home in the morning, and I pick them up around 5pm in the evening.  So I basically get to spend 2.5 or 3 hours with my boys on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nights.

On Thursday mornings after work, I’ve been sending them to the babysitter so I can rest and/or catch up on chores and errands.  It’s Thursdays I have the most trouble with.  Technically, I could take a two or three hour nap and go get them.  But by the time I could go get them, Theo would be taking a nap.  And what’s the point of going to get Dexter if I’m just going to have to turn around and go back for Theo a couple of hours later?  The thing is though, that I have horrible guilt about sending them to the babysitter on Thursdays.  I always feel like I need to explain what I am doing every Thursday so it’s justified that I am not going to be spending every waking second with my kids. 

Hey, I have to go to the grocery and the bank today.

Hey, I have company coming this weekend so I need to clean the whole house.

Hey, it’s our anniversary so I’m going to get a haircut and try to find a last minute gift.

Hey, we have an appointment with our financial advisor today.

What I really should say is this:

Hey, I’m freaking tired, I haven’t slept in 2 days, there are cat furballs under my coffee table the size of your head and they’re driving me crazy.  I don’t have the energy or the patience to chase Theo around or make cotton ball snowmen with Dexter today.  Additionally, I just wanna lay on the couch and watch DVR for two hours because I never, ever get a chance to do so otherwise. 

I guess I just wonder if the babysitter or the other moms think I’m a crap mom because I choose to send my kids when, yeah, technically…they could be home with me for that half a day.

I realize now that I have virtually no me-time.  Aside from Thursdays, I have no me-time.  I’m busy with the kids from the time I wake up in the afternoon until I leave for work through the week.  On the weekends, by the time they go to bed, I’m exhausted and I fall asleep on the couch before I can make it through one 30 minute sitcom. 

So I’ve been taking advantage of the fact that we pay for Thursdays whether they go or not, and I’ve been sending them to the babysitter while I do something else (or nothing at all).  That right there makes me wonder if I’m the opposite of stay-at-home-mom material.  Even pondering that out loud makes me feel like crap.

I know I need the time to myself, so why do I feel so guilty?  While I was on maternity leave with Dexter, I continued sending Theo to the babysitter 3 days a week because it was just too much trying to take care of my newly toddling toddler and my newborn baby.  There were so many times I thought to myself I was glad to be a working mom who had a babysitter to send my older kid to, because if I was a SAHM, that wouldn’t even be an option.  How do SAHMs ever get time to themselves?  I guess after the babies go to bed….??  Or maybe there actually comes a time when kids play by themselves long enough for a mom to relax for a few?  Nah, that doesn’t seem possible.

feeling guilty,
~C~

imperfect parenting.

Posted on by mommyinthemidwest
There are nights when everything just goes wrong.  Nights when I just want to pull my hair out (example:  this Tuesday).  Theo didn’t get a good nap that day.  Dexter has been a little fussy, I think he’s working on teeth.  He won’t let me sit him down to fix dinner, fold the laundry, or do the dishes without crying.  He’s tired but he won’t take a nap.  Theo throws food on the floor and smears mashed potatoes all over the table.  And in his hair.  And inside his ears.  It isn’t wasn’t even bath night (but it is now).

He sees the wagon in the garage and when he realizes we won’t be going for a walk around the neighborhood (or as we refer to it at home – putting him in that red thing and doing that one thing around the you-know-what), he collapses into a pile of wet noodles on the floor (or ground. or garage floor).  And proceeds to scream and flop around like a fish out of water until he eventually hits his head on the leg of a table or a big plastic toy he left in the middle of the hallway.  He has that reaction to 4 or 5 other life-changing catastrophes that don’t go his way.  You know, like having to get out of the bathtub after splashing 90% of the water out (on me).  And then he arches his back and twists and turns when we put him on the changing table for jammies, making it nearly impossible to accomplish anything at all. 

AND THEN he decides to throw his cup.  Causing the lid to pop off.  Causing oh, I don’t know, 7 ounces of milk to splatter all over the door, walls, (cloth) laundry hamper, and into every crook, nanny, groove, and crevice of his changing table drawer fronts.  And I think MAN, am I glad we got the one with all that beautiful detail.  And naturally, he does this at bedtime.  And naturally, it takes about 20 minutes to clean it all up.  Of course he finds it amusing to see me on my hands and knees sopping up the mess with towels and subsequently wiping down the floor with baby wipes.  Of course I’m mad.  Or maybe just tired.  Or just completely over the whole stupid night.  And of course he screams bloody murder when I turn off the light and shut the door behind me without looking at him or kissing him goodnight. 

And of course…

Before I take two steps down the hall, I feel guilty and get that knot in my chest.  So I turn right back around.  I open the door and pick him up.  I hug him tight to my chest and close my tear-filled eyes as he rests his tear-stained cheek on my shoulder.  He stops crying and I whisper I love you, baby.  I’m so sorry. I think he is too. 

I dry both of our faces and kiss his forehead.  I tuck him in and rub his back.  I tell him everything is going to be okay, promise that I’m not mad at him, and say tomorrow will be a better day.  The kind of day when everything goes just right.  And it does.

happy 5 months old today, sweet boy!
Every day I think I could not love them more.  But every day I do.

~C~