My little vacation...

One of the things that didn’t hit me until the end of Baby Bella’s 3^rd month going into her 4^th month was the realization of how much of a full time job being a parent is.  Don’t get me wrong-I know that you have duties to raise a child and support them in different ways for their entire life.  These needs change and develop as your little one does-but I don’t think it quite hits home until after you have been in your 24/7 tornado of your little one being home.  Going into month 4 I found myself longing for a vacation and remembering the times when you wanted to go do something-and you just did.  Now your whole life has changed and regardless on if you stay at home or if you work-your mommy duty doesn’t end because you are tired.  You don’t get to punch out at the end of the day and say “wow that was a long day” and then you change your mind frame out of mommy mode.  There is no such thing as a sick day.

Today was a different sort of day for me, so I thought that I would post about it.  Now keep in mind it is 11:23 in the afternoon on a weekday.  From my previous post our entire little family got sick and yesterday after feeling much better I had a craving for milk-which was a bad idea.  I was awake most of the night from my stomach turning and bad gas.  TMI-I know-but once you become a Mom those things don’t seem to matter anymore.  Something about the labor process kind of kills the privacy factor.  Once you are tossed around by different nurses, opened and prodded like cattle by various people and every body function monitored by staff-you overcome taboo topics that you wouldn’t discuss before.  The USMC does this in a different way with showers-not allowing you to take a shower in the first 24-48 hours of bootcamp and then slinging all these women into a 2 minute shower-all of us naked and running towards water and soap no longer caring that we are nude in front of complete strangers.  Same goes for childbirth.  There is an instant bonding with mothers knowing that each of our situations were different, but being able to relate to one another on a different level.

Back to my point though-I was exhausted.  My dutiful husband woke up and did the morning feeding and diaper change for me before he headed out the door and I was longing for the days when I could sleep in until noon, hang out in my pjs for the day and do absolutely nothing if that is what I wanted.  Those days have long passed for me now.  In a desperate sort of measure to regain sleep, I grabbed my little bundle of joy and put her in the crib with her light show and there she played while I got some more sleep.  Finally at about 8:30 I knew she needed to eat again, so I scooped her up-changed her diaper and fed her.  Then I held her on my tummy while I lay on the couch watching t.v.  After some time I put her in the crib for a nap.  So what is different about this day than most others?  I really did nothing.  I didn’t wake up, make the bed, prepare breakfast for her, clean the floors, start a load of laundry, pick up the house, have play time with Baby Bella, bath time with baby and then put her down for a nap.  Normally when she goes down for her first nap that is my time to prep sewing work, go over financials, talk to my mother on the phone, schedule our calendars and take my shower.  The only thing I did was lay around and then take a shower.  So in a sense I got a little mini vacation this morning-and guess what-the world didn’t fall apart.

I am so go, go , go during the day trying to make sure that I have a very filled day with things that I need to get done.  Bella Baby gets x amount of different play times, reading time, etc, etc and I work on misc items throughout the day.  I needed this morning in order to re-charge.  Yesterday I needed it and did a walk in the evening without baby and dog in tote thanks to my hubby.  As a new mom-I find that little things can really help your mind frame so that you can jump back onto the saddle when needed and handle business.  Let’s face it-any job that is 24/7 has break days where you are off the job.  For example firefighters.  They are a bread of reactionary at a moments notice and don’t get to say-you know, I am really tired right now let’s not go put out a fire!  Parenting is the same thing only you don’t get days off at a time.  Well, I take that back you can with the aid of family and babysitters, etc have time off, but it isn’t part of an every week routine AND at a moments notice you could be back on call if something happens.

I am not going to lie, I find myself gazing at the commercials of getaway vacations and drooling until reality hits that we can’t not only afford it, but our baby is too little for some of those things now.  So, take what you can when you can.  I don’t want to sound like I hate parenting-I don’t.  I love being a mother more than anything in the world and my baby is the greatest gift I could have ever received.  So some might find this post weird or strange that I felt like I got a little mini vaca this morning, but I feel refreshed and ready to take on the day! 

I know that I am an extreme person and it would only make sense that I would probably be an extreme parent.  I take being at home very seriously and because of that feel that I need to accomplish x amount of things for myself and my husband each day and that certain things MUST be done with our baby each day if I am going to fill my role properly.  Sometimes I find myself back in bootcamp mode and have to remind myself that my baby is just that-a baby.  She has certain needs that need to be fulfilled during the day, but the world isn’t going to come crumbling down if she didn’t get all the tummy time that I feel that she needs.  The world isn’t going to fall apart if I don’t read to her one day.  This huge responsibility of parent really doesn’t have any boundaries and we are all learning for ourselves, but perhaps the one thing that I should remember is that we are also human.  My baby isn’t going to tell me that because we didn’t do our normal routine this morning that she is disappointed in me.  So today I am cutting myself some slack and taking the day easy.  Tomorrow I can go back to bootcamp Golini and you know what…I am fine with that!

The Epidemic

Well, this is supposed to be true life, so here goes the post about our little epidemic.  Friday night Bella Baby started vomiting and choking in her crib.  Let me tell you that once you have kids and you have to go through something like this, you feel so helpless for you little one.  You are scared because she doesn’t have the resources at this age (almost 5 months now!) to be able to know what is going on.  When she was a newborn and was at the house in her first two weeks Bella Baby had started choking and couldn’t breathe because she was choking on her milk.  The scariest thing in my life!  I was terrified to let her lay down to go to sleep.  All of that was revived Friday night.  We didn’t know what was wrong and after we changed out the crib sheets and she seemed to be okay, we laid her down again-and then she started vomiting and choking again.  This happened several times during the night (it started at about 11:30 in the evening and she stopped vomiting around 3:30 a.m.).  Afraid to lay her down, I sat up on the couch holding her on her tummy, burp cloth under her little face on my chest and there we stayed for the remainder of the morning until it was time to get up.  I checked her temp and it was normal, so I thought maybe she was having an adverse reaction to solid foods that I was giving to her.  By 9 a.m. she seemed to be okay, so we all got up and got ready and headed out to Little E’s baptism.  Little E is our friends baby that was born about 24 hours before Bella Baby..how cool is that?

Anyway, when we got back home, the diarrhea hit.  I picked up my brochure from the doctor and the symptoms were the same as adverse food reaction.  I called my mother and was feeling pretty down on myself.  Remember I went against doctor orders and was feeding Baby Bella any of the Gerber 1^st foods that I wanted and felt that she was okay.  This adverse food reaction diagnoses that I had given to her was making me feel like a horrible mother.  I had pushed her too much, tried to feed her things that her little body wasn’t ready for.  As Baby Bella would look at me and smile, I felt horrible that I had caused her this pain and even though she was smiling, she was cranky and still having pooping problems.  My heart just sank.  Even though she still seemed to be doing better, we decided that I and Bella Baby would stay home for my husband’s cousin’s bday party.  Since she was exploding through her diaper, we just didn’t feel like it would be a good idea and so my husband left and we stayed home.  Now mind you, the worried new mommy was still taking temps with our Bella Baby, all of which came out normal.

Then Sunday-I got hit in the afternoon.  I had been tired in the morning, but just took it to be that I hadn’t been sleeping well because I had been worried about Bella Baby.  That is until I ran to the bathroom and started vomiting.  Now I had the same symptoms as Baby Bella and I realized, it wasn’t an adverse food reaction-she had gotten sick-and now I was sick.  Later in the evening, my husband got sick and so our little house fell apart and everyone except for the dog was miserable.  Then yesterday we found out that this little stomach bug spread to a lot of people that my husband saw Saturday night.  I immediately felt guilty and trying to figure out what happened.

My guess is that Thursday Bella Baby or myself picked up the bug at our first play date at My Gym.  That was the only place that we had gone to that was different.  I went and saw the twins after-and it is possible that the bug was planted then, but I don’t remember touching my friend or the twins-but I have no idea.  My husband was for sure carrying “the bug” when he went to the party Saturday night.  It lasted about 24 hours for us, but have still been monitoring Bella Baby closely because of her age and because of her lack of being able to verbalize anything.

So yesterday since we had all had it, I began the process of detoxing the house just in case we could get hit again for a round 2.  It kills me because on Friday I had found a flea on the dog.  I freaked out and scrubbed the house from top to bottom took the dog in for a flea bath and gave her drops after she got home.  So I had JUST disinfected the house Friday, and now I am doing the whole thing all over again.  Not that I mind a hospital cleaned house, but it is so much work and I still have body aches from being sick.

So here I am sitting thinking about the chaos that has occurred and what the final count is on victims with this whole thing and wondering what happened?  If I had taken Bella Baby into the doctor-they probably would have scolded me for feeding her the foods I have and told me it was an adverse reaction.  So I don’t think that there was any way that I could have known.  I wonder if anyone from the Thursday play date at My Gym had just been sick or if they got sick this weekend like we did.  Then it occurred to me-have all the kids that we met been vaccinated?  I never asked if that was a requirement, but I wasn’t asked-so I am assuming it is not.  Then I started thinking about the twins.  They will get hit at the same time always, how does a mother make sure that her little ones are protected as much as they can be?  You can do what you think is right in your house-but what about everyone else that your children come into contact with?  The twins were a victim of this little bug as well.  Imagine the double clean-up and double crankiness from not feeling well at the SAME TIME!  I shudder at the thought.   As I finally am able to have a cup of coffee this morning, I immediately thought about my stay in Okinawa Japan while I was in the USMC.  I was amazed by the fact that out in public people wore the medicine masks if they were sick, had a cold, etc so that they tried to prevent things from spreading.  Why don’t we do that here in the U.S.?  Okay I know it totally is THE fashion statement, but if it could help someone else not breathe in your germs-isn’t that one of the coolest things that you could do?  I think I have only seen someone do that like twice in the U.S.  Imagine all the times you are at work and someone is sick, coughing and sneezing with a hand up saying-don’t get too close-I’m sick!  I admit that I have never worn a medicine mask-but maybe I should.  Shouldn’t play dates etc share if anything has been going around?  Concern over health should be a primary topic shouldn’t it?  I admit, I am lost on this one.  I never really thought about it much when I would get sick, but now with child-it really makes you think.

Once we realized that Bella Baby wasn’t having an adverse reaction to foods, but was sick-we immediately notified the twins father.  I was thinking of the children because of their immune systems and wasn’t thinking about the rest of the adults.  Maybe our S.O.S. should have gone out to everyone that we had come into contact with.  So now I am trying to figure out how long we need to have our house in “Operation Sterilize” and since I don’t know how long you carry before symptoms and I don’t know how long you carry after symptoms I am thinking for the rest of the week we need to be careful and cleaning-even though I clean house every day as is-needs to be upped to Red Alert status.  

I have to admit, I am upset-feel guilty and just generally lost right now with this whole thing.  I don’t know that looking back we would have done anything different, because Bella Baby being sick was just not something that we would have thought of unless she was running a fever and because she is newly on solid foods.  So, here I am in my bleached smelling apartment on high alert and can’t stop thinking about what went wrong.  I know that this will pass, but the concern of children passing to adults and children passing to children is something honestly I had not put a lot of thought into.  I know I can’t put Bella Baby in a bubble-but wish I could right now.  This is something I am really going to need to think about and perhaps re-think how we do some things…………

The New Mommy Complex

It is funny how being a new mother can change a person.  Your whole life changes and now you have this new bundle of joy/bundles of joy and life that you once knew is over.  One of the most fascinating things that I have noticed is how new mommies interact with people.

I have found myself when talking to people-friends, people that have children, people that don’t, family-etc.  My new area of discussion centers around Baby Bella.  What she is doing, how cute she is-you name it.  I find myself in awe every time I see a child out in public, or in the home environment and watching how the parent/parents interact with their children.  The new mommy likes to know what is going on, when babies did certain milestones and compare notes along the way.  We all seem to have some type of predetermined way that we are doing things with our children (all different from everyone else in subtle ways) and the new mommy can find herself in some really strange situations when it comes to other mothers.

Case in point-I was at My Gym yesterday with Baby Bella.  We talked about bath time while in a circle and as it turns out-no two bath times were alike.  Does that mean that someone’s bath time routine is better that someone elses?  No, it just goes to show that we all do different things and those things work for us.  But what is it about the new Mommy that makes us look at the other ways and go “Well, I like my way better!”

I think it goes to a couple of things.  First let me say that as a new parent you are a PROUD parent.  We would all like to think that because of the trial and error that we go through to make something work-that we have all become experts on that PARTICULAR item.  So now, in a real effort to want to help those that are struggling…we want to share those things that work for us.  The only problem is that the way that we found works for us-but really may never work on someone else’s child.  Even if someone isn’t struggling, but doing something different than the way we are-we want to let them know what we do so that they can do it the same way too?  A friend brought up the fact that new mommies are in-secure since it is a whole new world to us.  Are we trying to validate what it is that we are doing so we don’t feel like the black sheep?

In a phone conversation that I was having with a friend that does not have children, I found myself talking about how “advanced” I felt Baby Bella was, which of course has only been fueled by my doctor’s visits as well saying that she is a couple of months ahead of the power curve with motor skills and muscle development.  In the conversation, my friend kind of laughed and said “yeah….”  Then it came up later in the conversation that she said “Really, every parent is proud-and every parent thinks that their baby is doing well in everything.  Have you ever heard someone say-my baby is so far behind in everything, or my baby seems to be as dumb as a rock?!”  Now someone that has a sick child with whatever disability, etc-may have conversations when they are concerned that their child will reach their milestones-but for the baby that is just a healthy baby with no issues-you don’t ever hear about anything other than how great they are.  After the phone conversation I took a step back and realized that yes-I myself had become the bragging mother.  Has that stopped me from being proud of my little one and talking about her in high regard?  No it hasn’t.  However, what I have found is that I leave most of those conversations with my husband.  When with other children and new mommies I find myself trying to be more supportive of how they are doing things and appreciating our differences.  For the new mother though-you can often find yourself with foot in mouth moments.  

For the new mommy there is nothing wrong with being proud of your child.  Perhaps something that we could all be conscious of is that instead of stating what we think other people should do-we should ask a crucial question before we start our conversation of what we do and that is “Does that work for you?”  If it does work for them, then do we really need to share how we do things?  Now if a mother is frustrated and seeking guidance-perhaps we should share our pitfalls and what works, but chances are this frustrated mother has tried the same things we did.  So what can we do?  I think the answer is listen.

All of us had different childhoods, we had different up-bringings, rules, and even the way that we interact with our parents will be different from the way that someone else does.  It would be of no surprise that the things we thought worked for us we try to incorporate into our own children-and the things that we didn’t think work we try to stay away from, but even those things could end up being a part of how we bring up our children.

Case in point, my parents swore they would never spank a child.  They tried really hard to uphold this, but after an afternoon where I had picked up a broken antenna and started chasing after a neighbors kid with it trying to hit them with it-my parents felt like the only way to teach me the severity of what I was doing was to give me a spank.  Now let me state that my parents didn’t beat me and a social worker should have come to the house.  It was really no more than a soft little swat on the bottom-but it was enough to make me know it was wrong-and I never did that again.  Does it mean that they were wrong to break their rule on no spanking?  Could it have been handled another way?  Really, none of that matters.  They were trying to raise a child-knowing that someday this child would be in society as an adult and needed to know that hurting others physically had consequences.

A friend of mine gives her children choices and options of them choosing to get the task done.  The first time I saw this, I was in awe of her patience and tone as she spoke to her children.  The choices/options never are to do something different than what they are supposed to do-but give them a choice on how they want to get there.  For instance, we were going on a walk and one of her twins didn’t want to get into the wagon.  She didn’t say “okay would you rather go inside and play, or do you want to stay outside and play in the yard?”  Instead it was “Do you want to skip, run, or hop to the wagon?”  In amazement the little girl was thinking about what her mother was saying, and in the end we went on a wagon ride.  The mom said “I don’t care at the end of the day how she gets into the wagon, just as long as she does it-and I don’t want to fight her about it.”  This way of doing things is totally opposite of how I was raised-but I see the value in it and it could be something that I try when Baby Bella gets older.  I think that any way that you can have your children do what they are supposed to do-without a fight/tears etc only makes for a better day for mommy and children.  Going back to my point though, because I was raised with “No means no!” doesn’t mean that another way, like my friend is a wrong way because it is different.  We can all think we will do things a certain way, but until we are there who knows what will happen.  Plus she is in a whole other ballgame because she has 2 kids the same age-so it is a very different life than a 1 child mommy.  I give her mad props for staying sane and getting what she needs done!

Should you dictate how proud you are of your child and your accomplishments with them?  No, be proud-you deserve it!  Perhaps though we could be a little more humble and a little more supportive of each-other.  Please note that I count myself in this.  Instead of putting in our two cents unless asked we can just say “That’s great!”  Children advance at all different levels and times on different things.  When someone says “my baby just rolled over!”, perhaps we should just say-that is great!  Instead of, how cute-my baby did that at x time.  Do you remember how excited you were when this happened to you and your baby?  Why would you inadvertently take that away from another mother.  I will state AGAIN that raising children is not a competition, they are not here to validate that you are a good parent.  Be confident for you and your child.  If your child isn’t doing something that another child is doing, or anything else, it doesn’t mean that there is anything wrong.  Your baby is your baby.  Be proud of your baby and be proud of the work that you do with your child.  Own it, be proud of it, but lets not try to force everyone else to what we are doing, and rejoice in others efforts instead of getting into the “well my baby does/did this……..”

Getting into my groove and product reviews

So-as with everything there is an adjustment period.  My new though process on routines has really been helping me out.  I was clueless that once you have a child organization is crucial and vital to the flow of your family life.  I have done countless searches for tools to help me make sure I am on top of everything and all I have found are countless schedules and task lists.  By the time it is all said and done-I would need a binder!  So I am still trying to work everything out.  My newest creation is a daily schedule sheet that is posted on the refrigerator.  It has work out time/events for Mike, Isabella and Myself; Isabella's eating schedule; dinner; tv shows for me and Mike and a notes section for last minute things that come up.

Solid feedings were something that I had been excited about starting since Isabella was born.  Don't ask me why-but it was something that I was looking forward too.  Now that we have started solid foods-man was I in for a shock.  I didn't realize that they had to LEARN to eat.  So my already huge laundry duties for the family have now doubled, and cleaning time has increased.  So you figure Isabella has about 3 changes of clothes a day.  Her morning clothes after bath time-then she spits up on them and is drenched, so on to outfit number 2-which the same thing happens later and now pj's.  Since her food is solid now with her bottles, the spit-up now comes in an array of colors-and although we never used bibs before with bottle feedings very much-they are REALLY necessary now.  So once you add in burp cloths, a couple of changes of clothes, blankets she plays/spits up on, high chair cover that gets food all over it, her bounce a bout chair cover, bibs, changing table cover she now has her own load of laundry!  Plus our washer is small, so in one day I am doing 3-4 loads of laundry!  Plus I wasn't prepared for the screaming that would come when trying to feed her rice or oatmeal..she hates them!  I have even tried to put fruit in the cereals, and still no go.  We have given her sqash, sweet potatoes, carrots, apples, bananas, peaches, green beans and peas.  I am scared to go toward the meats...I can't even imagine what those are going to smell like.  EWWW!  Also, nobody prepared me for our new diaper blow outs.  Now poop is starting to look like poop in color.  It has been green because of the iron in the formula for a really long time now, which almost made it not so bad...like it wasn't really poop.  However now she is transitioning to brown and the diapers are heavier..it is just gross and it is blowing out onto her clothes.  I swear when we change diapers now, it is like trying to perform surgery so that it doesn't get all over everything.

Some wonderful laundry items that I use are - color catcher sheets-(now no more separating of colors), the cheapest free and clear detergent we can find, and for stains - the magic wand which you can purchase at drycleanersupply.com.  This magic wand stick is awesome-we used it at the shop and works on everything including blood!  I will say, that if you want your whites to stay white-the color catcher sheet doesn't really do the job that well, but at least they won't turn pink.  These days that is all that matters.

So now that we are moved in, starting to get used to the area and falling into a groove with Mike working-I am finding that I am more productive with my days.  So now I am looking into activities to do with Baby Bella.  I signed up for a free class with Gymboree on the 28th of this month and am trying to get into a free class at My Gym.  Once I go and get the final cost for everything, hopefully it will be something that we can add into our day, good for Baby Bella and will allow me to meet other mommies.  I will report my findings/costs of both places on one of my blogs.

It is amazing to watch Baby Bella try new things.  She is now sitting up higher (getting out of tripod mode) but can only do it for a couple of seconds now.  When she is on her tummy she will reach with her arms for balls/toys and try to grab them and pull them to her.  She loves watching herself in her Lamaze Toy Mirror now, which she never really payed attention to before.  One of the things that is difficult is doing the same things over and over-she loves it, but Mommy gets REALLY bored.  lol. 

We have a really busy week this week, and it feels great!  I am hoping that the weather stays nice for when Baby Bella wakes up so that we can go for a walk.

Oh and before I forget - product reviews:
DIAPERS:
So we had tried a bunch of diapers when she was a newborn and settled on the Huggies Little Snugglers.  They are awesome and do a great job, but they are super expensive (I have searched everywhere for better prices and used coupons)  Since we are on a tighter budget, we switched to Targets brand up and up for her.  They work really well, the only thing I miss is the little snugglers had a pouch on the back side top of the diaper that helped with blow outs up her back that the up and up diapers didn't have.  But other than that, they do the job.  The huggies averaged about $0.26 a diaper and the up and up diapers average $0.15 a diaper, that is without them being on sale or having a target coupon-which you can use a code or print online.  FYI the diapers at the dollar store were HORRIBLE that we had bought.

WIPES:

We always use sensitive/non fragrance wipes.  We tried the target brand, but our best cost one that we found that we liked are from wal-mart.  They are the sensitive Parents Choice.  You can get a 704 count box for $10.97 which comes out to around $0.15 each.  To give you an idea the up and up brand comes out to about $0.19 each.  Why I like the parents choice are for two reasons-One the wipes are super thick so you need less of them to get the job done, and two each of the packages in the box come with a plastic snap lid where you pull the wipes from.  Let's face it the ones with the adhesive tape that comes with the up and up brand is a pain, and can cause the top wipe to dry out.

FORMULA:
We used Enfamil when Baby Bella was off breast feeding for fussiness and gas.  What we didn't realize was that she didn't have any of this, so the formula was bad for her.    We tried Similac-which Baby Bella didn't like at all, and finally settled on Gerber Smart Start.  The only thing is that it is so expensive.  A 20 ounce can cost you about $20.00.  The grocery store has the 20% more container for the same price.  However, the up and up brand from target is a 40 oz for $20.00 and is a huge savings.  At the age Isabella is now she goes through 1 can of 20 ounce formula in less than a week.  It all starts to add up.  The up and up brand is also cheaper than the walmart Parent's Choice formula-not by much but about a penny an ounce.

The stay at home survival guide-review

So as I posted I am reading this ebook by Melissa Stanton called “The Stay At Home Survival Guide.”  I would love to say that it is a great book, full of useful information and new ideas/tips to use-but I can’t even finish it.

The whole premise of the book seems to be advocating stay at home mothers (SAHMS), while validating why women should do it and dismissing how moms that are not stay at home just don’t get it and that society puts women in this-damn if you do, damn if you don’t when it comes to stay at home mothering.  It also talks about the spouses of stay at home moms and says what you should expect your husband to do since you are a stay at home mom.  Almost every chapter talks about non-stay at home moms-giving unrealistic raising techniques when it comes to children because the people that are saying x and z are not stay at home parents.

PPLLEEAASSEE!

Before I really get onto my soap box, let me start with this.  Mother is a very loose term.  At least to me it is.  A mother to me is anyone that cares for, provides financial support, emotional support and tries to the best of her ability to raise a child.  Just because you gave birth to a child, doesn’t mean that you are a provider to a child, and just because you didn’t give birth to a child doesn’t mean that you are not a Mom-and father’s of course fall into this same category. 

THE SOAPBOX:

Her book, chapter after chapter tries to validate with stories from other SAHM’s why it is better than someone who doesn’t.    Women that are embarrassed by the fact that when asked what they do, they find other ways to say that they are SAHM without saying it.  She talks of all these women that are smart, educated, financially secured housing for the family, etc, etc and how they “stepped down”.  Then goes into detail why the people that are not SAHM’s can’t possibly understand realistic standards when raising children.  Give me a break!  Then on top of it, you have these women that are upset with their partners for not helping out with more with things such as housework.  That there are alpha vs beta moms-in other words the ones that have it all together SAHM vs the slacker SAHM.

Last time I checked you didn’t need an MBA to be able to change a diaper.  Not only that, but who is to say that just because you are a SAHM that you are a better mommy than someone who isn’t????  Who made that determining factor?  Let me find that person and slap them in the face.  Be proud of the decisions that you are able to make, and for the one’s that don’t have a choice to be a SAHM or not-know that you are doing the best that you can.  For those that had a choice in being a SAHM or not, and are not being a SAHM for whatever reason-then you too are also doing the best you can.  Can’t we all get along????? 

Instead of it being a survival guide it was more like a bash fest.  I found myself beyond irritated.  Every role in your house is an important one, and I am sorry just because you are a SAHM does not mean that you love your child more.  For God’s sake-it isn’t a contest!  We are talking about your children!  Just like with any job, there will be things that you enjoy/don’t enjoy about it and being a SAHM .  BUT if you are working and raising a little one, it just means that you have TWO jobs!  Wouldn’t anyone understand that 1 job is more than enough and 2 can be overwhelming?  Then you add in that everyone and their brother says to breast feed for an eternity, but if you are working do you think you get the extra maternity leave for that????  Last time I checked the answer was no.  Instead you get a quiet room, in the workplace where everyone knows that you are pumping away behind the closed door.  Yeah…let me think-that doesn’t feel ackward at all.  RIGHT! 

So not only do we have society standards on how we are supposed to be mother’s, but we also have females grading females on motherly tasks-dictating categories for mothering abilities and judgment?  Why?  At the end of the day you need to be able to know that you did the best you could that day.  In some regards I think being a SAHM is easier  in some regards than someone that is trying to work and do all the things that the SAHM mom does on top of that.  Think about it, school activities…day time, doctors appointments..day time, play groups..day time, parent teacher conferences..day time and the list goes on and on.  Not only do working mothers have to take time off-which could be unpaid, but at the END of their long day at work-then they have to try to squeeze in all the things that they want to do with their children in the evenings and weekend.  Regardless if you work or not, being a mother is a full time job with no punch out time.  Instead of us judging each other-shouldn’t we be supporting each other?

Being a mother all unto itself is such a difficult role with such a huge responsibility..let’s face it-this little person/persons you have are going to go out into society at some point as adults.  No pressure right?  And I am sorry, but you can be the “best mother in the world” and still raise a serial killer.  No one wants to think that their child might have issues like that, but it happens.  We do what we can, in ways that we think is right-but there is little control over the final product.  Yes, I do believe that environment is a factor, but I also believe that your children are just who your children are.  If you are shy, you are going to be shy, outgoing-the same way.  As parents we try to offset these things, but again we can’t control it-or we would be raising robots.

I just couldn’t understand in reading this book why women would skirt the issue of them saying that they are SAHM’s.  To me it just sounded like they were ashamed.  COME ON!  I am sure nine times out of ten if you asked a male what he thought about someone being a SAHM he would say..good for them with no inclination on if it was a good decision or a bad one.  So why are the women judging???  I am a SAHM and proud of that.  Will I always be a SAHM?  I can’t answer that.  Do I miss working in a work environment-yes.  For me though (and this was a decision between my husband and I) this is what I am doing now.  There are a million factors into why we chose this for now-but do I think it is the best solution for everyone?  No I don’t.  Am I 100% sure that we made the right decision-no.

For the SAHM’s I get that everyone has their reasons for doing what they are doing.  I applaud your efforts and your dedication-so I am not trying to take away from the SAHM at all…I am one of you!  But let the record show that as proud as I am in what I am doing, I am also proud of any mother that is taking an interest in raising a child-regardless of what her choices are-and especially if we don’t decide to do the same things.  There are different parenting methods, different children and different mothers…can’t we all come together?

Maybe the jealousy factor is the reason.  If you are going off the deep end about your spouse being vacant when needed..well you might have a larger problem.  If I wasn’t such a control freak, then I would be able to bring an additional income to the family so that we would be better financially and actually buy a house sooner than expected for our little one.  Am I really the best person to be teaching life skills, motor skills, learning skills to my child?  I don’t know.  All I do know is that I am doing the best that I can, in a way that works for our family.  I wouldn’t want to live in anyone else’s shoes.  If I had the money would I hire a housekeeper or a nanny?  I have nooooo idea.  I can tell you that as a SAHM, your day revolves around the needs of your child with the expectation that everything else is going to get done to.  It is a lot of work and an endless stress-but there are joys from it.  I get to see the love of my life every day, all day (sorry hubby!!!).  Whatever disaster may break, or cranky day may arrive-I wouldn’t change it for the world.  Am I bored out of my mind most days??  YES!  Which is why I am still doing work for my mom, still trying to get my clothing line off the ground, making things to sell, and lets face it – writing these blogs!  Does it make me a bad mom that I don’t enjoy every second of every day because I am a SAHM – NO! and for the mother that is working to provide for her family in a different way than the SAHM-does it mean that she enjoys every second of her day at work-NO.  Does it mean that she made a bad choice for working if she had the option-NO and NO.

So for the record, I think every MOMMY regardless of SAHM or not is doing the best they can-and being a mom is hard enough, let’s support each other, help each other and not judge each other!  We are all human doing the best we can-and no one knows what the right answer is.  We should learn from each other-not feel guilty about our decisions because of someone else’s judgments!

Being a parent is hard enough-why the extra drama??

SOOOOOOOOOOO no I would not recommend reading this book! Lol.