Stay at Home Momming

I could say we had little supervision as kids (David and I), but the more accurate statement is that we frequently had no supervision.

So when Steve and I discussed kids, I said that it was important to me to not work full time. Steve hadn't really thought about it, but it sounded fine to him. It was so theoretical at the time.

Once I was pregnant with Samuel, that morphed into us deciding that I should take a year off work (with the idea that I would probably return to work fulltime after that). It didn't hurt that I hated my job, and so taking a year off sounded like an extra good idea.

The first year of parenthood was a rough one, in which I alternately desperately wished that I was working so that I could leave the care of my child to someone else (who I figured would probably do a better job parenting than I was), and felt terribly guilty each time I left Samuel and wasn't the sole person responsible for all of his needs. I enrolled at San Jose State fulltime to go about obtaining a Master's degree in Educational Counseling. That's right, I had an infant with "colic" and decided that the best thing to do would be to take 5 graduate school (night) courses a semester.

Things got easier after we hit the 12 month mark, and most days were downright enjoyable by 18 months. I went back to work one day a week that school year, but mostly hated it. Finding the appropriate daycare was stressful. Paying for daycare was stressful (me and my money issues). Leaving Samuel was stressful. Only being at a school site one day a week felt useless. I didn't return to that position the next school year. Plus, Shira was born.

I still had a bunch of intern hours left, so when Samuel was two, and Shira was a few months old, I returned to a school site, for a couple of hours two days a week. Daycare was a little less stressful, I decided we could afford the couple of hours a week, and being on site two days was not as useless as just one.

Throughout these first three years of parenthood, I continued to look for jobs, sometimes toying with the idea of returning full time, sometimes part time, but I was always looking. I was a stay at home mom because that is what I thought I should do for my kids, and because I was afraid to do anything else, for a variety of reasons, but there was always a significant part of me that was looking for a way out of my stay at home momness.

I worried that I wasn't holding up my end of the family money train. I worried that others thought I wasn't contributing to society. I worried that I would never be able to get another job. I frequently felt like I wasn't a real person because I didn't go to work on a daily basis. I missed feeling like I was doing something important to other people. I was afraid of losing the identity of being a teacher; an identity that was important to me and I felt gave me value as a person. Probably my biggest stress of all was worrying about how I would fill each day. How would I keep from being bored silly, and how would I keep my kid(s) occupied without them depending on me for amusement/entertainment every millisecond of the day? And how would I keep from being lonely? The lonely fear was especially intense toward the end of the first six months of parenthood, when a lot of "stay at home moms" suddenly became "moms whose maternity leave was ending" and again when friends would move away for various reasons, and especially when one particular stay at home mom moved across the country (damn those Phd husbands).

But here it is the beginning of August, Samuel is three, Shira is one, I have entered my fourth year of "stay at home momming" and for the first time, I find that I have no interest in looking for teaching or counseling positions. I have been reading Facebook posts from former colleagues about how they will be returning to school, and for the first time since I became a teacher, I am not returning to school in any capacity. And for the first time, I have no desire to.

I like being home with my kids. No, I love spending each day with Samuel and Shira. We're certainly not at home much, so that description doesn't really fit, and I don't just like it, there is nothing else I would rather be doing. I used to feel like I was holding my breath until I could send Samuel and Shira to preschool full time and I could return to work without guilt. Now I am trying to figure out how I can rationalize NOT going back to work way past kindergarten. Even crazier? I don't give a crap about what anyone thinks about it. (Well, you know, except my awesome husband).

Summer

What is it about going out to the local school playground in the evening after dinner to play, that just screams summer? We allowed Samuel to take a nap today, had a somewhat early dinner, and since we were freed from our criminally early bedtime, headed across the street to the school with Samuel's bike and soccer ball.Still trying to convince Samuel that he can pump.Whenever Shira sees a swing, she points frantically, lets out a high pitched scream, and bounces up and down in your arms until you take her to it and swing her. She doesn't care whether it's a baby swing or not. All she knows is, if there's a swing, she better get a piece of it.Basketball with a soccer ball. They're all purpose. Mountains of wood chips must be ascended.

And who is this big kid?

Everyone's doing it, or not.

Yesterday during bedtime:

Samuel: Do all my friends nurse?
Me: Um, no. Just the kids and their mommies who want to keep nursing still nurse.
Samuel: (silence)
Me: (list of friends who still nurse)
Samuel: (silence)

I wish I would have asked him what he was thinking at that point, but I expected him to continue the conversation and he didn't. Is this the beginning of peer awareness to be followed shortly by peer pressure?

House Pics

For those interested in an update on the house - we've been in process for 5 weeks, living elsewhere for 4 weeks, are over (in theory) 25% done (timewise), and they will be finishing the framing next week.

There have been a couple of bumps in the road, some expected - we had to take the chimney out (or pay a bunch extra to lengthen it and bring it up to code);Some unexpected - the company that makes our floors no longer exists, so we are going to have different (nicer) flooring in the new part of the house (extra cost picked up by Peter, our handy dandy contractor) and they framed the front window incorrectly, so rather than reframe it, we are going to put a new window in (yay! I hated that old one).

For the most part, however, things are going as planned and everything looks great so far.

Our windows have already arrived and will be going in soon. We ordered our front door a couple of days ago and that will be in at the beginning of August.

My biggest concern - the size of the backyard, still causes me anxiety on and off. It will definitely be smaller (duh). But it looks like it will still be plenty of room for us. And living in the duplex, which is in quite a nice neighborhood, still serves to remind me how much more I love the location of our house, and how this was the right choice for us.

I thought I would mind the extra 7 minutes to walk anywhere, but it turns out the bigger downside of our current location is the traffic on the street and the less friendly neighbors. I have really gotten used to knowing every single person on our block, and never hearing any street noise. I won't get into how one day I had no fewer than 4 people stop and come up to our front door to find out if I knew that my naked three year old was playing in the front yard. Apparently that is considered a CPS offense around here. Oh how I miss our tight knit neighbors.

Alright - on to the promised pictures!

Demolished kitchen, dining room, looking into Samuel's and Shira's room, and the extra bedroom behind that.
Goodbye hideous bathroom. I won't miss you. I can't believe I won't have to use you anymore.I also won't miss our wall heater - the only source of heat in the house. Yep, that's what that smaller hole next to the doorway was. Broken thermostat still hanging off the wall, though.Where did our house go? Into this dumpster.The foundation forms. Ready for the concrete.Most of the exterior framing on the new part of the house done. Haven't taken pics of the interior framing and roof yet.

Live Earth Farm Day

We attended a "Wee Ones" day at Live Earth Farm last fall and had a great time picking apples and making apple cider, but hadn't managed to get back to the farm until a couple of days ago.We kicked the day off with sampling in the blackberry fields. I think you can see how they both felt about that.
Followed by a jaunt in the chicken pen. Samuel was able to pet a chicken, to his delight, and Shira was enchanted to hear the roosters "cockadoodledoo".We stopped by a little pond to catch itty bitty frogs.Samuel picked a bunch of garlic for us to take home, and Shira ate some raw. Yum.
We cleaned out our mouths in the strawberry field next. Then joined the sheep in their pasture. Unfortunately, they were behaving sheepishly, and we didn't get the opportunity to get very close to them.Samuel and Shira enjoyed some swinging before I packed them back in the car and they both passed out on the way home. And still were pleasant when they woke up, and went to bed on time. That fresh farm air must be magic.

Standing Practice

Shira is now cruising like a champ, though she still prefers to crawl. At the park last week, she decided there was a big enough audience to make it worthwhile for her to practice standing.Much to her delight, Shira got ovations from multiple moms, nannies, and kids at Mitchell Park, not to mention the round of applause she gave herself at the end of each bout of standing.

Goodbye Diapers?!?

It has been almost a month since I have blogged, and I am sure there are lots of pictures I could post and things I could talk about, but I'm feeling far to lazy to do such a thing.

The biggest excitement around here today was Samuel waking up in the morning completely dry. Yesterday he told me that he didn't want to wear diapers to bed anymore. Steve was skeptical, as Samuel's diaper is usually quite wet when he comes into our room in the morning. But now that we aren't quite as sleep deprived as we have been in the past, I felt it was only right that we honor Samuel's request for a dry run ;).

We got him out of bed to pee at 10pm when we headed to sleep, but he didn't need to go. When Shira woke up at 1am (ugh! she's sick again! how is that possible in July? then again, I think it may be teething. after all, she is almost 13 months and still toothless, but I digress...), I took Samuel to the bathroom again, at which he tinkled a tiny tiny bit.

And when he got up in the morning? Dry, Dry, Dry! Woohoo!

So do I try not getting him up at all tonight?

We may have to thank Woodie Guthrie for this new development. Samuel has recently become obsessed with his "Dry bed" song. It apparently appeals particularly to his 3 year old sense of humor, especially the part when the boy says his bed must be dry because the dog didn't pee in it...

Anyway, I will happily listen to that song 50 times everyday (and I probably will have to) for the next few months, if it means goodbye to night time diapers.

Thanks Woodie!