I have been emotionally unpredictable lately, and it’s been driving me insane. Today, I cried more often than I didn’t cry. I wrote this to try and get some of my feelings out, so that maybe tomorrow I can wake up with dry eyes. I want to laugh, like Maddie laughed. Soon, I hope.
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Unlike many people, I couldn’t imagine myself in Heather’s shoes when Maddie passed away. Inherently, I knew that the mere thought would crush me to the ground, shatter my heart and rip me to shreds. I didn’t try to see from Heather’s perspective, because the view is hard enough from here. My mind built a brick wall between Maddie’s death and the mortality of my own children, because I refused to make that connection.
But last night, I caught a glimpse behind the wall and it has brought me to my knees. In my first-ever twitter drama, I challenged someone’s view on unvaccinated children. I pointed out that my girl Blythe is deathly allergic to most vaccines, and so we don’t vaccinate. We can’t vaccinate. What choice do we have?
And while I’m not angry and the person has since apologized and explained that her social-media persona is often insensitive, her response is burned into my eyelids:
define “deathly allergic” she’s clearly not dead.
No, clearly she’s not. Thank God and all that is Holy in the world. Thank Modern Medicine and Science and Geeks who spend their free time experimenting in the basement. Thank the Universe, Thank Karma, Thank Fate. Thank Timing and Mother’s Intuition and Doctors who will listen instead of judge. Thank My Lucky Stars, she’s clearly not.
Those seven words acted as a wrecking ball, and for the first time, that brick wall protecting my thoughts came crashing down. I woke up this morning feeling raw, and the first thing I saw was my baby girl’s face smiling up at me. With every laugh, every gentle touch, every word she spoke, the words burned into my mind: Thank God, she’s clearly not.
I held her to me and cried into her hair, wishing I could take her smell and bottle it, keep it in a vial at the hollow of my throat. What would I do without the feel of her soft hair against my cheek? How could I go on, knowing I could never hold her in my arms again? Thank God, she’s clearly not.
Most of the time, in our day-to-day life, I plan ahead for obstacles but keep my deep worries at bay. The thoughts of what might happen if someone got careless have to be put on the top shelf, out of reach, or I would never let her leave the house. I try to let her live as normally as possible, just as Heather and Mike did for Maddie. There’s no sense in trying to keep her in a bubble – what kind of life is that?
But today I look at her and I can’t help but think of all the what-ifs. I think of the near misses and the chances we take every day. I wonder what would happen if the one time I forgot her epi-pen at home turned out to be the one time we really needed it. Today, the wall is gone. Every time I look at my baby girl, I get a tiny glimpse of what it would be like to be in Heather’s shoes and it takes my breath away. Today, all the fears I’ve harbored about Blythe’s future are right there, laid out in front of me. 
I think about how, if something were to happen and she had to be taken to the hospital, they may not have the right tools to help her. How many hospitals keep corn-free IV fluid in stock? How many keep pure pain meds on hand? Or pure antibiotics, or pure anything else? How many doctors would listen to a hysterical mother? Even if she’s trying to explain that ordinary medical products would most likely put her small child into anaphylactic shock?
I don’t want to see the view from Heather’s shoes. Not ever, ever, ever. I don’t want to think about how I would handle it. But today, I do think about it and I cry. I cry for Maddie and for all the what-ifs. I cry for Heather and Mike, and my admiration for them deepens by the second. 
I watch my little girl go about her day, unware of the dangers around her, and I think to myself: Thank God, she’s clearly not.
Category: Parenting
Categories
Co-Parenting
Kirsten, of The Norwindians, really knows how to lay down a well-balanced rant. That’s one of the reasons I love reading her blog – she always seems to play fair, and what’s not to love about that?
You know what doesn’t play fair? The stomach flu, which decided to pay a visit while I have jury duty and my kids are on spring break. Fortunately, I haven’t crapped my pants in court. Yet.
Co-Parenting
Let’s talk about co-parenting. I’m not talking about a divorced couple who must figure out how to split time with their children and parent them through two different households. I’m talking about happily married couples who decide to have a baby or three. Then in theory they share the responsibility of taking care of those children. Are there any couples out there that truly share the nitty gritty work of taking care of the kids?
One of the many reasons I fell in love with my husband was his easy way with children. I knew he would make a great father one day. And I was right… he is a great father. When he’s home. He leaves for work before me or the any of our three kids are up for the day, and usually gets home right as the kids are finishing up dinner. He spends about an hour or so with them and most of that time is spent on our bedtime routine. While his travel has slowed down quite a bit lately, he does have an impressive amount of frequent flier miles racked up.
So here’s the thing. We do not co-parent. We do not share the daily parenting tasks 50/50. I stay at home with our twin girls and little boy. I don’t long to go back to work (yet), house wifery suits me just fine. But it does sometimes irk me that 99% of the kids’ needs are met by me.
Even on the weekends when we’re all at home, if the kids need something, they come to me. I often find myself saying, “you know you can ask your dad to get you a snack.” It would be really nice if one Saturday afternoon my husband said, “hey, it’s about lunch time, how about I fix some grilled cheese for the kids?” Or perhaps, “I’ll put the laundry away and get the kids dressed, why don’t you sit down and catch up on some reading.”
Not to say that my husband doesn’t pitch in. If I have my book club or something else to attend in the evening, it’s never a problem. Assuming he’s in town. I do make it pretty easy for him by already preparing dinner for the kids and putting them in their pj’s. If I didn’t do those things, he’d manage just fine. So it’s partly my fault. Sometimes I silently fume when we’re heading out the door with the family and he has the car running while I’m running around making sure everyone has a jacket, water, the right shoes, snacks if we need them and everything else we might possibly need. He just puts his shoes on and starts the car.
We were at my niece’s birthday party the other day and the difference between the moms and the dads really struck me. There was a basketball game on TV and most of the dads were inside watching while the moms were outside doling out snacks and watching the kids. It was the moms who supervised cupcake eating, face painting and gathered the kids and their belongings when it was time to leave. My sister told me after everyone left, her husband complimented her on throwing a great party. He had no idea what went into planning an executing the shindig. He asked her that morning what time the party started. Sound familiar to anyone but me?
I’m sure there are lots of exceptions, but as I look around and observe our friends I rarely see couple who truly shares parenting responsibilities 50/50. For the most part, I’m fine with the division of labor in our house. I really don’t have any desire to tackle home improvement projects, balance the checkbook or do our taxes… things my husband excels at doing. If I speak up and ask for help, he is more than willing to jump in. What bothers me is the assumption that I’ll do it all no matter what.
A few weeks ago my husband met a friend for lunch on a weekday and said he would be home in time to pick up our twins from school. I knew the girls would love it since he rarely drops them off or picks them up at school. Turns out he got engrossed in conversation with his friend and didn’t come home until over an hour after school was out. He missed pick up. Of course, I picked them up, but I was angry. I was angry because when I have lunch with my friends I can’t just get caught up in conversation and assume my spouse will pick up the kids. If he wants to stop at the gym on the way home from work or get his haircut, he just does it. If I want to go for a run in the evening or to a meeting, I have to make sure he’ll be home.
I’ve come to accept the fact that this is just the way things are. I don’t resent my husband or the fact that I stay home with our children. I wouldn’t trade places with him. I really wouldn’t. It all just makes me wonder if we are the exception. Do other families out there truly share parenting 50/50? And if so, how do you do it??
Categories
SAHM Envy
I hope all of you are enjoying the guest posts as much as I am! It’s almost worth sitting on this jury. Almost. One of the nicest bloggers around is filling in for me today. Kari, of I Left My Heart at Preschool confesses her feelings on a pretty hot topic: SAHM Envy. I’d love to hear your thoughts, and even better: tell us what makes you envious.
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SAHM Envy
When Andrea asked me to guest post, I thought it would be a great opportunity to blog about something that I have wanted to write about on my blog. The reason I’ve hesitate to post this, is because some of my co-workers read my blog – and this is just not something that I want to share with them. I’m proud of my blog and I enjoy knowing people read it, but the fact that my audience includes friends, family and co-workers, sometimes limits my ability to write completely freely. So thanks Andrea!
I have two girls who are 3 and 5 years old, and I work full time at a financial firm that is located about an hour away from our house. Honestly, before I had kids, I never really considered the question of whether or not I wanted to continue working after having kids. It was always seemed like a given in my mind. Maybe it’s because of the fact that, from a very young age my Mom stressed to my sister and me, the importance of getting a college degree and having a career. Although my Mom stayed home with us when we were babies, she worked after we started school. She had a degree and a career in nursing. Which was a very good thing, because after our Dad died of cancer when I was eleven years old, my Mom was able to get a better job that allowed us to live in a nice house in a nice neighborhood.
By the time my husband and I were ready to start a family, we owned our own home in a part of the San Francisco Bay Area that we love – but we were in no way set up to live as a one-income family. So, staying home or going back to work was not a decision I had to make. Choosing the right child care definitely was. After my first experience sending my baby to child care, I quickly learned that having just the right care situation for my baby, made a huge difference in my ability to focus at all at work. After a couple false starts, I thankfully found a wonderful, small, in-home care that I love. I sometimes feel like they get more out of being there, than if they were home with me all day long.
Sometimes.
Other times, I really wish I was home with my kids instead of working. Maybe if I had a job that I truly loved, I might not feel that pull to be home quite as much. I’ve worked for my firm for fifteen years, but believe it or not – I sort of fell into that career. It wasn’t at all what I aspired to do when I was in college. The best parts about my job are the people that I work with, the independence, and the paycheck. The work itself? Eh. I could take it or leave it. And often, I wish I could leave it.
When my husband travels for his job, it’s quite the juggling act. Taking both kids to two different schools, then driving back and forth to the City for work, then home to make dinner, clean everything, pick up the house, get the kids bathed and ready for bed, make lunches for the next day and usually work some more after the kids go to bed. But oh, how I love being able to actually bring them in to their classrooms in the morning and see what the teachers have planned for the day. How I love to pick them up at the end of the day, and hear all about what Scott the Storyteller read to them or what artwork they created, at the peak of their excitement. Normally, by the time I get home, they are already settled in at home and ready for dinner. When I ask what they did for the day at the dinner table, the answer is usually “nothin’”.
Every now and then, I get to take a day off during the week, when we’re not going on any little trips or running around anywhere. I pack some snacks and take my kids to the Zoo or the Discovery Museum or maybe just to a park. I see other Moms or groups of Moms with their kids, and I think about how lucky they are to be able to spend this kind of time with their kids every day. Don’t get me wrong, I am not under any kind of false impression that staying home is “easier” than working. Both are work, and I believe that staying home with my kids would actually be a much harder job, emotionally and physically.
Here’s the thing. I would love that job so much more than the work I actually get paid for. I love grocery shopping, and attempting to find the best prices. I love planning meals and feeding my family. I love organizing my kid’s clothes, shoes and toys. I love thinking of fun crafts and activities I can do with my kids. I love creating a warm and lovely home for us to live in. In my heart, it’s a job I adore. I just wish that my other job didn’t get in the way so often.
A happy medium would be if I could reduce my hours at work, and be able to spend more time at the job I really love. I was really close to being able to do just that. Right before the economy went to crap and we couldn’t afford to reduce my paycheck. I still have hope though. Once Seesa goes to Kindergarten next year, and Milly moves full time to the Preschool in our neighborhood, which is less expensive than the in-home care she’s going to now; we may be able to find a way to afford for me to reduce my hours.
In the meantime, I’ll keep cherishing the time I do have with my girls. Even though it means that I often skip out on “Mommy Time” opportunities on the weekends, because it means time away from my girls. Even though I can’t accept volunteer opportunities that I’d like to get involved in because it cuts into my kid time. Even though I can’t write in my blog or read other’s blogs as often as I’d like.
The trade off is something that I wouldn’t give up for the world.
Categories
Finding the Magic
It didn’t take long for my sunny optimism to find a cloud to hide behind. It’s a good thing the fabulous Sophie, of Our Life, Inzaburbs offered to write a guest post for me today or I’d be whining again about being on a jury. Nearly half way through! See, I found a silver lining.
I begged Sophie to write a post about homeschooling, a subject I find fascinating in a rubber-necking-as-I-drive-past-an-accident sort of way. As in, I’m glad it’s not me over there, but I still want to know all the gory details. Read on, and have your assumptions about homeschooling challenged!
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I like Andrea. I always read her blog.
So, I was very pleased when she asked for guest posters. And I suddenly felt the call to submit something. Which I have never done before because let’s face it, most people guest post so that they can put something out there which they hope their loved ones will never see. You know, write about their heiney without involving great-grandma.
I can’t do that. As in the case of Andrea’s Anonymous Bitch Fest Guest Poster, my extended family knows how to google. They really do. For example, my sister-in-law found my blog back when I had three readers and those three readers were all my parents checking me out three times a day . She is either an amazing Googler or she was very very desperate to read what I had to say.
That means you won’t find anything about my heiney on these pages. But I wasn’t really sure what to write. Andrea’s family runs a plumbing business and I was going to talk about how I once seriously thought about becoming a plumber.
It’s true! I did! I am good at fixing toilets. I have fixed every toilet in this house at least twice!
… I am good at fixing toilets temporarily.
So what? I would get a lot of repeat customers.
But then Andrea asked me to talk about homeschooling.
Groan. Way to kill the fun, Andrea! Here we go then.
Homeschooling.
(Disclaimer: I had a lot of trouble writing this. I was trying to keep it general but kept finding myself veering off into the personal. So, if you are curious about anything at all, ask away!)
Many people (actually all the Moms I know) tell me they could never home school. It seems like an enormous, monstrous thing to do to yourself as a parent. Right when you finally get the opportunity to outsource your childcare to the state, for free! (and feel virtuous doing it!) you decide instead to devote yourself to a life of servitude and lesson plans. And anyway, isn’t home schooling for hippies and the religious right?
I know this, because this is how I thought too. I came to home schooling very, very reluctantly.
It’s true, it is a lifestyle which can be frustrating. But do you know what is even harder? The daily stress of dealing with a child who is just not getting on with school. In the end, it came down to me or him. As a parent, which would you choose?
Yes, I have lost some freedom. I don’t get to go on extended shopping trips, have lunch with the girls, or work uninterrupted for hours. My time is no longer fully my own. On a bad day, I like to wail to my husband that I am a Mom 24/7 and it is ne-e-ever going to e-e-end!
But then, let’s look at the flipside. The whole family has gained freedom. Freedom from stress in the morning of dragging a reluctant child to the school bus, harrassed siblings in tow (you know how when you start yelling at one you somehow end up yelling at the others?). Freedom from forced homework sessions, and from distressing, frustrating meetings and phone calls with teachers. Freedom from early bedtimes and early rising and packing school bags and remembering library books and this weeks fundraising money and …
(Also, freedom to take swimming lessons in an empty pool and go to museums without having to push through hordes of day campers in their multicolored t-shirts, and park right next to the store instead of at the other end of the carpark. Ah. Those are the best freedoms 
).
So, here we are, at home. The woman who, had we had a high school yearbook, might have been voted “Least Likely to Become a Teacher” and the child no teacher could apparently teach.
It’s lucky I am not a teacher then.
Our homeschooling style is what is often called “relaxed”. We do not work in a classroom environment, with lesson plans and schedules and tests. In fact, we don’t even use a curriculum, although I do consult books such as “What Your First Grader Should Know” to ensure we are covering all the bases. We work for an hour or two every morning, on spelling and math. Sometimes I teach a concept, using the whiteboard. Sometimes we work with manipulatives, like legos and coins and clocks. Sometimes we make charts. Often we use worksheets. They are not fancy worksheets, the books from the supermarket or drugstore do the trick.
And all the other stuff – the reading and history and geography and art and music and sport? We were doing all that anyway, thanks to books and educational TV and Google Earth and those big rolls of paper from IKEA. And maybe, so are you.
School isn’t necessarily a magical place where miracles happen.
Magic can also happen at home.
Categories
Perfection
I look back at my first year of motherhood and laugh. Sometimes it’s a chuckle, but most of the time it’s more of a maniacal cackle.
I tried so hard to be perfect, but that goal was always just out of reach. I was tremendously overwhelmed, and that’s what makes me laugh the most. Back then, I had one, easy child who slept an average of 16 hours per day, no job, no social schedule to keep, nothing. Despite that, my to-do list was a mile long and on top of that, I had set some pretty lofty goals for my infant daughter. Basically, I made life a million times harder than it had to be.
Sleep on a schedule? Check. Completely nutritious meals, with no exceptions? Check. Absolutely no television at any time? Check. Exclusively breastfed? Erm, not quite, but I tried. No baby-sitters except during nap time? Check. Vacuum every speck of dust from the house, every day, even if it takes four hours with the baby strapped in the Bjorn? Check.
Really, what the hell was I thinking?
I long to regain all the time I wasted. I cringe at the amount of pressure I put on myself to reach a completely unattainable goal. I’m saddened by the amount of time I spent crying because I felt like a failure at motherhood. It turns out, I’m completely and utterly normal. And thank God for that.
I bought a book yesterday at Target, based solely on the fact that I laughed out loud at the title:
It’s entirely true: I was a really good mom before I had kids. I was also a great nanny, god mom and aunt. I had an amazing amount of energy, unwavering patience, and always made good, educated decisions when it came to the kids I was with. I was also full of practical advice for their moms. I thank them now for not punching me in the face.
Then my first child was born, and it all went to hell in a hand basket. Not at first, mind you. Those first 6 months of motherhood were magical, and I’m not even the kind of person that uses words like “magical”.
How, exactly, did I get from there to here? How many buckets of tears have I cried, trying to find the balance between the mother I dreamed I’d be and the mother I hope I am, leaving room for the mother I am on a day-to-day basis?
Despite the fact that I still worry about the choices I make as a parent, I let go of being the perfect mom a long time ago. Sure, sometimes it creeps up on me when I’m in a certain mode of getting things done. But if my kids are able to look back from adulthood and say I was a pretty good mom, most of the time, I’ll be happy with that.
And hot damn, if life isn’t a whole lot nicer when a dirty floor doesn’t make me a bad mother.
* If anyone would like to have this book when I’m done, let me know! I’m loving it so far. *