Mommy Guilt of a New Kind

When I was little I remember my Mom was the best room mother. She attended every Halloween, Christmas and Valentine's party my class ever threw. She was a chaperone on every field trip I ever took. I have such great memories of picking apples with my Mom, going to the circus with my Mom, eating pink cupcakes with my Mom. In all these pictures there was also my little brother. See back when I was in elementary school, little siblings were welcomed on these trips and parties. And when my little brother started school, Mom went on his trips and attended his parties as well.

So here we are today and now I have a kindergartener and an infant, just like my Mom, but somehow things are different. First, I don't know how she did it, but my Mom managed her time WAY better than I do. Maybe it is because she didn't have Facebook, Twitter & blogs, but who can say for sure. I've been asked twice now to help with Trinity's class. Once was a lunch server and just today I was asked to be a teacher for Art Adventure week. My problem - no siblings allowed. I can't do it. I tried to get Noah into the daycare that Trinity was in, just part time, maybe 10 hours a week, but no, they don't have any openings until June. June! So, here I sit almost in tears, because as I watched Trinity grow from a infant to a toddler to a preschooler, I was there - always - for every field trip, for every party, for every event, until now.

We had a plan, a plan for an only child. ONE child I could devote all my attention and time to, but then we were surprised by this wonderful gift from God. While I wouldn't change things for anything, I am now plagued with mommy guilt once again. The guilt that my plans of being there for every field trip, every party, every fundraiser, every PSA meeting, every Girl Scout meeting is crushed. I now know that the same fond memories I have of my Mom and snowman cookies, Trinity will not have. Maybe the pain is too fresh, maybe after some time I will come to grips with this too, maybe I am just feeling overwhelmed this week, maybe I am just overreacting, but my heart is breaking & I feel I am not living up to my fullest potential as a Mom today. The guilt is creeping in and I'm not sure how to stop it.

I'm getting my groove back.

One thing about my pregnancies is that they throw my life into chaos. I realize that is probably true for most people, but all I can atest to is my own. I feel like I lose myself because I am unable to function normally. Add to that the fact that just being pregnant this last time was a shock for me I haven't felt like myself in over a year. Noah is now 6 months old and I am just starting to feel like I am getting myself back. So, part of getting myself back on track is to start blogging again.

I am not going to make any promises and I'm not going to pretend that I am blogging for those of you reading this. This blog is for me. It is my place to express my feelings that I may not be comfortable expressing anywhere else. You are welcome to read it, comment on it or ignore it. I appreciate your interest in my life, but these thoughts and words are mine.

Trinity began kindergarten on September 1st. I am not sure when she grew up, but I look back and realize that I took for granted that she would always be little and now she isn't. She loves school and I am so far happy with our choice of sending her to our local Catholic school.

Noah is all boy. He made his appearance into our lives on March 4, 2009. His labor was a little longer than Trinity's, but still short at 6 1/2 hours. He is now just over 6 months and doing well. He is almost 18 lbs and 26 1/2" long at his appointment last week. I find that parenting the second time has some great times and some horrible times. I know that we never thought we'd have a second child, but now we just cannot imagine our lives without this amazing gift from God. He has already managed to climb out of his swing and is a daredevil. He is not a snuggler much to my dismay, but I'll keep him anyway.

We have made much progress on our kitchen remodel. We still have some trim to get up & a little touch up painting, but overall we are close to done. It was one long year of construction. My black concrete counter tops are killer by the way. If you want to see them I have pictures on Facebook, just friend me.

I think this is going to be the end of my return to blogging. I need to get some stuff done before Noah wakes up and we have to go pick up Trinity today from Montessori. She was missing her Montessori friends, so we agreed she could do their after school program one afternoon a week and Tuesdays are her day. She gets to ride the bus from kindergarten to Montessori and boy I think the only thing that could top that is if we actually bought her a pony. I can't wait to hear about her first day.

Have a wonderful day, smile and ask someone how you can help them today. It is amazing how your outlook can change with one question.

Maternity photos

I

Naive, strict, old-fashioned, out of touch - what am I?

I liked how I was raised. I think my parents did a great job and I turned out pretty well. My parents weren't perfect & made plenty of mistakes, but they let me explore my surroundings & gave me a stable foundation in which to build my life. So, I learned from their mistakes, but I try to raise Trinity with the same values I was raised.

However, DH & I seem to be the only ones who subscribe to our parenting style. Not that this bothers me, but I'm wondering if I'm out of touch with how children are raised today. For example, we expect Trinity to have table manners, well actually, manners in general. We follow through with what we say, so if she is misbehaving and we tell her 'x' will happen if she doesn't stop, then 'x' happens. Not sometimes, but every time. We expect her to be quiet during church and not run in stores. She has to hold our hand to cross the street & she only watches age appropriate TV & movies.

It is the TV & movie rule that seems to be criticized the most. My SIL sees nothing wrong with letting her 3 1/2 year old watch Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix. My good friend lets her 7 year old watch Star Wars, Doctor Who, Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, etc. I won't even allow Trinity to watch Hannah Montana, because I think high school issues are meant for an older demographic than an almost 5 year old. I don't think the humor in shows like "Back in the Barnyard" & SpongeBob are appropriate for her age either.

So, am I just old-fashioned, out of touch or too strict? I know that I am comfortable with my parenting style & I have no plans to change anything, but I am interested in knowing if I am the only parent who feels this way.

I survived Vegas, pretty much.

Vegas was a blast, for the most part. The flights were fine. I met some new cool people & I got about a months worth of walking in. I slept very little & it caught up with me Saturday night. The rest of the girls went out clubbing Saturday evening, but I went back to the condo after dinner, because I knew I had overextended myself on Friday. Well, after everyone left I got ready for bed, and after lying down I started violently vomiting. I think in the end I slept less than the girls, because I was so unbelievably ill. I managed to get through the flight home without being sick, and I even slept a little. Once I got home, it was another story. I am so grateful for the PICC line, because I think it is the only thing that saved me from a hospital stay. I slept from 3pm on Sunday until 7am Monday waking for an hour to attempt dinner (& promptly throw it back up). I feel much better today and ate an apple for breakfast & some lunch. I can tell I'm still dehydrated, so I may do three bags of fluid today to get myself totally back to normal.

When I'm feeling a bit more normal, I will post some Vegas pictures. We had so much fun!

I'm going to Vegas

I've had this trip planned for several months, but it has always seemed so far away and now I'm leaving in less than a week. How did that happen? Where did the time go?

DH's cousin is getting married, so I sort of put the idea in her head that she needed a Vegas bachelorette party. Okay, maybe I just needed to go to a Vegas bachelorette party, but that was before I got knocked up. Obviously my initial plan of partying like a single girl in Vegas isn't going to happen now & I'm okay with that, but I'm still looking forward to the trip. I adore DH's cousin & her sister (who is also coming). DH's sister lives in a suburb of Vegas, so I get to see my niece (& my SIL & BIL) which I am excited about. I don't know the other girls going, but I'm sure they are tons of fun. We plan on going to the 'Thunder from Down Under' show on Friday night and one of my favorite Italian restaurants on Saturday. I know I will have to pull out of a couple of the activities, but hopefully everyone understands.

Of course I've been in a panic for two days because my SIL is one of the most stylish people I know & so is DH's cousin. I have no clothes that fit or are appropriate for Vegas nightlife. I guess I will survive or I'll just go naked. That's okay in Vegas right?

I will post all about it after the trip as I'm trying to get by without dragging the laptop with me. I really want to travel as light as possible.

Our daughter's first solo adventure

Sunday started as any other Sunday - up early, breakfast, church, Home Depot, lunch, nap, etc. Little did we know that our evening was going to be far from routine. First, we discovered our upper cabinets had to come out in one piece, so we had to call in favors for people to rush over and help us remove them. We are trying to reuse our cabinets, so we wanted to take them out gently. Second, I developed a clot in my PICC catheter so I had to run to the emergency room to have it de-clotted. Right before I headed to the ER Trinity asked if she could play outside, but since I was leaving and DH was in the kitchen, I said 'no'. DH then yells from the kitchen that he let her do it on Saturday while I was at work. *sigh* Okay, I caved and said fine assuming DH & Trinity had worked out some kind of arrangement. I'm waiting in the ER, which is pretty busy, when DH comes rushing in, looks around and runs out again. Uh, what the hell, I am thinking. So I have a friend of mine who is keeping me company when it dawns on me that Trinity must be missing. I can think of no other reason for his behavior. She leaves to help him search and I'm stuck in the stupid waiting room of the ER unable to do anything.

Turns out in the end that Trinity had asked if she could push her baby in her stroller on the sidewalk. DH had said yes, assuming she meant the sidewalk in front of our house. However, she decided to take her baby for a walk on the sidewalk on the busy street at the end of our block. Then, she apparently decided it would be fun to visit the park. The park is about 1/2 a mile from our house and involves crossing one of the top 5 busiest streets in our town. DH found her and she spent the rest of the evening sitting in the recliner. She is also unable to play outside for a few days at all and after that she must be supervised. She also had her TV priviledges taken away for last night and today until bed.

I'd love to be able to say 'I told you so.', but DH was so freaked by the whole incident I just don't have the heart. The bigger problem I see is that while she understood she was in trouble, she doesn't actually seem to think she did anything wrong. I have to admit that this worries me. We have always told her she cannot cross the street without an adult and we still enforce holding our hands when crossing streets, driveways & parking lots. When asked about why she thought it was okay to cross the street, her response was "But I thought I was old enough to cross by myself."

Call me crazy, but I see lots of gray hair in my future.

I'm finally back

I have been feeling pretty miserable lately & typing does not help. I've had a PICC line for almost 2 weeks and it has helped. I am able to give myself IV treatments at home or at the studio. So it helps me stay hydrated and I still get to be productive - woohoo!

Trinity is back at Montessori and doing well. I have kept her teachers apprised of what is going on at home, so if she has any behavioral issues or anything at school, her teachers know what is going on. So far everything is good. She is such a trooper through all this chaos of me being sick. We heard the baby's heartbeat for the first time in the ER. Trinity was with & she thought it was pretty cool. We are letting her come to the 20 week ultrasound and she is excited for that.

Today is construction (destruction) day 1. We are gutting our kitchen. We've hated our kitchen since we moved into this house 8 years ago, but there have been so many other projects that needed to get done, so the kitchen got dropped to the bottom of the to do list. Well, now it has made its way to the top. On top of gutting the kitchen and completely changing the layout, we are replacing all the plumbing and moving the laundry room from the basement to the second floor where all the bedrooms are. We are also going to gut the upstairs bathroom, but that will be more of a winter/spring project. DH is doing most of the work himself. This is good and bad. He is very talented and able to do the work, however, he isn't always the most motivated. We have several projects in various stages of 'doneness' around the house. We've picked out the new flooring and paint. I have an idea of what I want for lighting, we are keeping our existing appliances, since they are only a couple years old. DH & I still have to agree on cabinet hardware, a faucet & sink. We have it narrowed down to either a concrete countertop or we found this awesome granite tile today that I want most desperately. DH is crunching numbers to see which is in our budget.

So, lots of stuff going on. I am starting to get more energy, so hopefully I will get caught up at the studio and be able to post more often. I feel like I've been neglecting all of my friends. I hope to be better. And hopefully next time I will have pictures of my torn up kitchen.

Exaggeration versus Lying

Trinity loves pretend play. She loves to dress up as a ballerina and dance around the house or put on a cowboy hat & boots and pretend she's in a rodeo. She pretends to be a singer, a basketball player, a volleyball player, a princess, the list is quite endless. While in the pretend mode, she will often say she is giving dance lessons or teaching someone what she is doing. She loves to put on concerts and parades. While I love seeing her be creative and using her imagination I've begun to worry lately. Sometimes her pretend play leaks into reality. We will be out at Home Depot or the grocery store & she will be dancing around and someone will ask her if she is in dance & she'll state emphatically "Oh yes, I love taking my dance lessons." Except she has never taken a dance lesson in her life. Or while she is watching Michael Phelps win multiple gold medals state "I am a better swimmer than he is. I could beat him." She has been taking swim lessons for a month & has yet to swim without their flotation devices. She also claims in public that she is a wonderful horse rider and she takes singing/guitar/piano lessons. She has ridden a horse once at a fair where it went in a circle & she has never taken a music lesson in her short life. I know that part of this is her age (she's 4 1/2), but at what point do I correct her and tell her that actually what she is doing is lying. I don't want to embarrass her in public, but I also don't want people getting the wrong information. How much of this is normal and how much should I be concerned about? I'd love to get opinions from all of you. Thanks.

Pop/Soda/Soft drinks/Carbonated beverages

I'm not sure what you call them in your area of the globe, but I'm talking about Coke, Pepsi & all the in between carbonated, sweetened and most of the time caffeinated beverages that most people consume. I dislike these drinks overall and generally consume them on rare occasions. People find this odd, because I also dislike water, but that is a post for another day. Why am I blogging about my dislike of soft drinks? Because for some reason it seems the only beverage that does not make me queasy right now. WTF??? I would think this would be bad enough, but no, it gets worse (at least in my mind). When I have a soft drink I tend to be a Pepsi or Pepsi product drinker or an A & W root beer fan (I make an exception for root beer floats - yum!). I don't think there is a nastier product on the market than Mountain Dew and Coke & any diet products come a very close second. Why am I telling you this, because for some reason my beverage of choice at the moment is Cherry Coke. I gravitate towards it at restaurants, when we do eat out these days I choose restaurants that I know serve Cherry Coke - basically, I am a Cherry Coke addict. I am hoping this phase does not last long, because I don't think I can handle the long term affects on my body. And, please no comments on how I shouldn't be drinking caffeine while pregnant, because I've gotten the okay from my doctor and right now we are just concerned about getting any fluids at all in me.