The Pregnant Pause

31 May 2012 3 Comments

by Natalie in Dealing with Death, Pregnant After a Loss

I know of six different women who live within a half a mile from my home who are pregnant – and that’s not counting me. Not only is there something in my neighborhood’s water, it feels like dozens of my Facebook friends are expecting.

So needless to say I have heard a lot of excited “I’m-going-to-have-a-baby!” type announcements in the past several months.

The problem is, when someone tells me the news there’s an awkward pregnant pause.

Not because there’s a silent break that may lead to the “birth” of a grand announcement, like the pregnant-pause definition suggests, but because when someone tells me they are pregnant, I literally pause.

I have absolutely nothing to say. No words of encouragement or support. No, “I am so happy for you,” and “That is so exciting” phrases seem sincere.

And somehow phrases like, “Good luck,” “I hope your baby is OK,” and “Seriously?” don’t seem situational appropriate.

I feel horrible and yet I don’t know how to change. I’m afraid I have become the sharp pin that bursts every excited mother-to-be’s bubble.

But how can I be thrilled about something that brought me such horrible pain and sorrow? I cross my fingers and pray each day that no one I know will have pregnancy complications. But it still scares me to death.

I guess I am still working through my grief and the anxiety it has forced into my life.

I’m hoping that a safe delivery of my unborn son this summer will reclaim my enthusiasm in childbearing.

Until then, I am sure I’ll give birth to a lot more pauses.

Cleaning Revolution

24 May 2012 1 Comment

by Natalie in Failed Housewife, Parenting Battles, What's a mom to do? Tags: , ,

My husband says I am finally at his parenting level.

I have had a major revelation when it comes to picking up the toys around our house. A revelation he swears he had before our oldest son was even born.

I just rolled my eyes at him and told him he could pick up all of our toys if he is so superior. But since he is gone 80 percent of each day at work, that isn’t very realistic.

So, I am glad I have stumbled upon parenting genius.

I think I have finally figured out how to get my boys to help clean up their toys! I have realized something so simple, something that you, like my husband, have probably done from day one.

I am now making my children put away one set of toys before moving on to the next. A novel idea I know, but it is working wonders for my pick-up-all-the-toys-all-the-time anxiety.

I used to let my boys dump out whatever they wanted. Sometimes, OK a lot of the times, I would follow them around like I was part of the help picking up what they dumped or dropped. But my efforts were futile. They would storm through the house making mountains of mess that none of us felt like picking up at bedtime. We were tired, overwhelmed and unmotivated.

We live by storage bins at our house. We have a bin for Legos, trucks, Tinker Toys, dinosaurs, super heroes, etc.

The new routine is that they have to pick up their toys and put them in their bin when they are done with them, BEFORE moving to the next bin of toys. If they want to play super heroes then that’s fine with me. As long as all of the other bins are picked up and put away.

I have an 81-year-old neighbor who I visit on a regular basis who told me several years ago that she taught her kids to pick up and put away one thing before moving to the next.

I shrugged her master parenting skills off thinking that they were outdated and unhelpful. Boy was I wrong. I wish I would listen to people.

I haven’t exactly told my kids that we have a new pick-up-one-thing-before-starting-on-the-next rule. I’ve just been enforcing that kind of behavior and they are following naturally.

The best part is they are motivated to put stuff away because they want to get something else out. It’s amazing!

Like I said, many of you have probably already been living like this for a long time. So I want to know what other tricks you have for soliciting your children’s cleaning help. This mom could use all the help she can get!

Restless Mom Syndrome

17 May 2012 8 Comments

by Natalie in Failed Housewife, Trying to be a Better Mom, What's a mom to do? Tags: , ,

I can’t wait for the day when I can sit down for more than one minute without feeling guilty. Because for some reason I have it stuck in my stay-at-home-mom mind that if I sit down for longer than it takes to tie my shoes, I am doing something wrong; some child or some chore is being neglected.

In fact as I am sitting typing this blog post I am feeling a little guilty that I am not playing with my boys who are setting up super hero/villain clusters throughout my living room in preparation of a giant battle.

They haven’t noticed I am not playing with them, so why should I care?

The truth is, I miss being OK with sitting and chilling. I miss things like watching hours of television just for “fun” or sitting on a blanket in my back yard soaking up the sun.

What happened to me?

Now I sit down to watch TV and can’t make it more than a half hour before I notice something in the room that I need to pick up or clean. I go outside to enjoy nature and end up sweeping up the patio or raking the flowerbeds.

Why can’t I stop?

I used to have hobbies – doing puzzles, cross stitching, playing the piano, to name a few. And heaven knows I LOVED getting lost in a good book.

But these days I don’t even dare open the cover to a new novel. I am afraid I will be hooked and therefore neglect all of my “mothering” responsibilities as I waste my time reading for pleasure.  You should have seen me (and my house) a year ago when I read the Hunger Games Series. We were a mess!

It’s not healthy for me to think I can’t take time for myself. I’ve got to find a better balance in my life – A cure for my restless mom syndrome.

Most of the time I think, “I’ll sit and relax when I get everything done.” NEWSFLASH: I will NEVER be able to get everything done. The sooner I realize that the sooner I can relax.

I’ve read some great articles recently from moms who talk about “living in the moment” and “cutting yourself some slack.” I love reading other women’s advice on how to deal with being a mom. But for some reason I only remember what they say for a few days. Then I go back to guilting myself into running around like the energizer bunny never stopping, never resting.

I’m worried that some day my battery will run out.

Heaven help me realize that I don’t always need to vacuum the floors and wash all our clothes before leaving on vacation. The beds don’t always need to be made before we leave for school in the morning.  And the dishes don’t need to be washed before I head to bed at night.

How do you make time for yourself and what do you do with that time? How do you let yourself relax?

I Quit!

10 May 2012 3 Comments

by Natalie in About Me, Failed Housewife, Trying to be a Better Mom Tags: , ,

Tomorrow I will embark on the second retirement of my professional career. I am quitting my job as a digital/social media specialist for MarketStar.

Why, you may ask, am I quitting a part-time job that pays me really well to work at home from my living room couch? Because despite my every effort to minimize the impact my job has had on my family, it has made a difference in our lives. Mostly mine.

If any mom tells you that starting a job — even if it is part-time from home — had no impact on them or their family, they are either lying or superwoman.

I’m not saying starting a job creates a negative impact, but it definitely changes things.

You can’t possibly toss another juggling ball up in the air without the risk of dropping one or two others you are already juggling. You may want to juggle them all, but won’t have the focus to do so.

For me tossing the work-at-home ball into the air caused me to drop two others — the sleep and personal-time balls.

I have worked hard during the past 15 months to get up long before my children to put half of my daily work hours in before they woke up. That meant they didn’t even know I was working. It also meant I had to go to bed early or fight to stay awake during the afternoon hours — especially during the past 7 months.

I would put my other two to two and a half hours of work in during the afternoon while my oldest was at school and my three-year-old napped. That also meant that they didn’t know I was working. But it left me with virtually no personal time to do anything I wanted like reading, crafting, watching TV or even cleaning.

Not to mention the fact that when you have to get a babysitter one or two times a week for work (even though I worked at home there were meetings and events I was required to attend in-person) who wants to get another sitter for girls-night-out or date night?

Sounds selfish right? It probably is.

I’m burned out so I am throwing in the towel. Summer vacation is quickly approaching and my three-year-old no longer wants to take naps. It’s an ideal time to quit.

I like my job. It is easy and rewarding. I have always enjoyed working, but finding and squeezing in an extra four hours of professional work each day so I can bring in some extra bucks has turned out not to be worth it for me.

It has caused me to focus on things I don’t want to.

Besides I am sure my life will complicate when I bring home a new little baby this summer. I want to be able to give him, and my older two boys, my best. I have always wanted to stay at home with my little kids and I don’t want to take them for granted.

I am sure there will be times when I regret my decision to leave — like the first Friday I don’t get a pay check, or the first afternoon that I am bored out of my mind wondering what to do with myself. But for now I just feel lucky I have the option to quit. Some moms don’t.

But either way, in my opinion, everyone has to decide for themselves which balls they are willing to juggle and which ones they might have to let drop.

Toy Taking Drama

03 May 2012 2 Comments

by Natalie in Parenting Battles, What's a mom to do?

We lost our Lego Harry Potter. 

I was seriously upset.

Legos have become one of my favorite things to do with my boys. But during the three weeks that we couldn’t find the two-inch tall yellow-headed figured with the lightning-bolted forehead, messy hair and dark-rimmed glasses, I couldn’t even suggest we play with the building blocks because my 3-year-old would have a melt down.

It was horrible. But honestly, we would never have lost the little guy if my son didn’t have to take something with him every single place we go.

He took it in the van on the way to a local store and somehow he got lost on the way back into the house.

If I can’t break my children of the habit of bringing something with them everywhere we go, I think I am going to lose my mind.

Why do my children insist on taking something with them every single time we go somewhere?

Now I’m not talking about bringing a toy with us on vacation or taking something comforting to a scary place like the doctor or dentist’s office.  I’m talking about bringing something with when we run to the bank or grabbing a toy to tote with us as we stroll around the block.

Seriously? We are going to be gone for less than half an hour. Do they have to take something with?

No matter where we go or what we do, my children think they need to bring a toy.

I guess it’s partially my fault. When they were little and I felt bad for leaving them at a babysitter’s house I would bribe them into wanting to go by letting them bring a favorite toy. It helped with the separation anxiety. But now I think I have ruined my children.

I’ve got to stop them.

Luckily the school sent home a paper at the first of the year saying there were no toys allowed in class. That doesn’t mean we don’t have an occasional breakdown when my 5-year-old tries to sneak toys to Kindergarten.

He threw a whopper of a fit in the elementary school parking lot the day I caught him hiding his new laser gun in his pocket. There was kicking, screaming and biting.

But thanks to the no-toy rule at school at least my oldest has learned that he can’t take something with him ALL the time. Now, time to train the youngest.

Luckily we found Lego Harry in our Tupperware full of toy guns. I don’t know how he made it in there, but I was super happy to see him.

But I am tired of getting home from running errands empty handed and having to call each of the stores we ran to, asking them to check their lost-and-found stacks for our crap.

We have a couple of rules about taking toys. Like no weapon toys at church or the hospital. But I am seriously going to add a bunch of new ones. Starting with a no-Legos-outside-of-the-house rule.