If I have missed your call, text, or email recently and haven’t responded I’m sorry. If you feel like I’ve been distant lately, you are probably right. If you’ve been to my house and seen the mess that it is, please understand we are trying. If you’ve seen my car…yikes, what a disaster. The point is I’m waiving the white flag and admitting that we can’t do it all.
BJ decided he wanted to go back to school last fall. He enrolled in December, and not two weeks later I found out I was pregnant with Alexis. He started school in January going one night a week and one online class a week. Going back to school after you have been out for 12 years is tough. Not to mention the fact that you are also working a full time job, and have a 2 year old to entertain by yourself for 3 hours each night. Right around the time Alexis was born, the school changed their policy to have on campus classes two nights a week instead of 1. So now BJ is going to school Mondays and Wednesdays from 6-10 each night. On the nights he isn’t at school he is studying or doing homework at least an hour a day. I am so proud of him for taking the initiative to go back to school. It’s hard for him, but in the end this is going to be such a good thing for our family and for BJ to get into a career that he feels comfortable in. Only another year left hopefully.
You know that saying “if you want to hear god laugh than tell him your plans”, that is exactly how my maternity leave went. I had huge plans for maternity leave. I was going to do tons of projects with Sam, we were going to get out to story hours at the local libraries, we were going to do play dates galore. I was going to nap when the baby and Sam napped at the same time. Ha! Nothing can prepare you for the huge difference in going from a household with one 2 year old to a household with a newborn and a 2 year old. With Sam we had it so easy. She was born in the summer, we took her everywhere with us. She never slept, so it was easy to do whatever we wanted to do when we wanted to do it. With two, it’s scary just to leave the house. What do I need to bring? What if I forget something important? How do I take the girls out of the car? Do I take Sam out first and hope she stays by the car and doesn’t run into the parking lot, or do I take Alexis out first and leave my baby in her car seat sitting in the parking lot next to the car? Needless to say we didn’t get half of what I wanted to done on maternity leave, and I kick myself for it still because I know that will probably be the last time in a long time that I will have two months off to spend exclusively with my girls.
Thank goodness Alexis is an awesome baby. She is the most laid back child. She has been sleeping through the night since she was about a month old. We got so lucky with her. I don’t think I could have handled it if we had another baby who slept like Sam when she was born. Speaking of Sam, what a great big sister she is. She loves her sister dearly, and is very protective of her at daycare. The only issue we deal with is a little jealousy, but I think we are curbing that now. Now if we could get Sam to start sleeping through the night again, I would be a little more sane.
In October I went back to work. I started slow three days a week for two weeks, then picked up my regular schedule 7-5 every day with a half day on Wednesdays. Problem is it is so busy I never want to take my half day and then have to make up for it later. This week was the first week since I’ve been back that I actually took the half day yesterday. So with that schedule (which I set for myself) I am getting up at 5:15 each morning and out the door by 6:30. I am beyond thankful for the daycare provider, Dawn. She is amazing with our kids, and is teaching Sam things we don’t seem to have time to do ourselves (mom guilt…). Sam came home one day spelling her name, she is also counting now. We are blessed to have such an amazing person to care for our children when we are not able to.
Here is where I get into the “it’s hard” part. I’m not looking for pity, just understanding. I know everyone has been here at many points in their life, and I know that we are not that bad off, I just need to put it out somewhere. It’s hard being parents to two kids and to maintain a relationship with your husband. It’s hard to work full time, and go to school. It’s hard to get rid of the guilt that goes along with someone else seeing your kids more hours in a day that you do. It is hard dealing with a two year old. I don’t care who you are, two is a hard age. Of course everyone is telling us 3 is even harder. There are going to be a lot more prayers coming from our house if that’s true. It’s hard to live 5 hours away from most of your family. It’s hard to enjoy yourself when you have to pay a babysitter $8/hour to go out on a date night. It’s hard not to feel like you are taking advantage of your friends when you ask them to babysit for you for the 5th time this month. It’s scary looking for a new job in a field you don’t really know that well yet. It’s scary looking for a new church family, when you don’t want to be looked at as the outsider, and are nervous about introducing yourself to new people.
There are not enough hours in the day to do everything we want to, there are not enough hands in our household to attend to our children’s every need immediately, but we are doing what we can together, as team. We are working on finding a balance. Alexis brought chaos and fulfillment into our household. She filled a void I never knew existed. Sam bring us laughter and joy every day. I love my job, and BJ is really enjoying the things he is learning in school. The fact is that we are doing everything we can to stay above water right now and I wouldn’t want to fight this fight with anyone else but my husband and my family. I’m lucky because he is an amazing husband. He does more in our household than I do, he is an amazing father to my girls and a great loving husband to me. I’m thankful that we have parents who are willing to make the 5 hour drive just to babysit for us. I am thankful that when we are in Michigan we have enough babysitters to go out with friends and do stuff on our own whenever we want.
I know everyone has chaos in their lives and everyone is fighting something. I just see it a whole lot clearer now. I’m more understanding when a friend has to cancel plans on me, or doesn't respond to a phone call or email. I just hope that everyone seeing my many flaws can understand in the same way for me.
