Tuesday, February 24, 2009

A Statement

Ok...so I feel like I need to respond to my previous post considering the comments I have gotten both in person and in text. I did not intend for it to be sad. I am not sad that I am sad about being a working mom. There are millions of us that do it every day. I was simply sharing my heart about the inner conflict. My statement about the boy being "emotionally scarred" was said in sarcasm. Sense the tone people! (Mostly the mom...she can't help it. You just never stop being a mom I guess. But that is a blog for another day). I do NOT dwell on the sadness I feel. I count my blessings every day. I just love my boy. I love being with him. I love playing with him. And my heart feels sad when I have to be apart from him. This is the only thing that I know for sure in this situation. I am where God wants me and when we are obedient any sadness that is a direct result of that obedience Jesus will always mend.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

There is Sadness Sometimes in My Heart

"No Mommy! No! Need you Mommy!" Is the sound that is left ringing in my ears most workday mornings. This sound usually does not go away until after lunch. I am not quite sure if it is the satisfaction of a full tummy or if it's just that the voice gets dimmer as I am consumed with the activities and work of the day, but nonetheless the voice is there. Being a working mom is something I never thought would be difficult for me. I am not the type of person who likes staying at home, in fact, most of the time I prefer to be out doing things. I am a people person by nature and would choose to be surrounded by people most of the time. This quality can, at times, be frustrating for my husband who (although not completely the opposite) prefers to be at home and would rather spend time with just our family instead of with others. This is not to say that he does not enjoy others' company. He does. Just not in the same "all the time way" that I do. All of this to say that I never thought I would want to be a stay at home mom. It's amazing how much one tiny person can change your entire view of the world around you! And I am still not sure if I would want to be a stay at home mom...this is the dilemma! I feel trapped between two worlds.

It has been in the last year, and for some reason more intense the last few months, the sadness I feel when I have to drop my boy off to be in someone else's care for the day. Last night I laid in bed and had anxiety over the thought of the boy sitting at a table with 15 other kids eating his pb&j or balogne sandwich all alone...at least it feels like he's alone if he's not with me...in a robot like fashion. Here's the thing. I know he gets cared for. I know that he's not in danger. And I also know that I am INCREDIBLY lucky that I get to be right upstairs from him! I don't have to drop him off at 6 in the morning and then make a commute to work, as I know some single moms and fellow working moms have to do for survival. In many ways I am incredibly blessed. But I can't help but wonder if I'm making a mistake. And this makes me sad lately.

On the other hand, there are no words to explain the look of joy on the boy's face when I pick him up from school. The enormous smile that stretches from ear to ear and the shout of delight "MOMMY!" that erupts from his little body. So that is what I try to focus on as I struggle to get the morning cries out of my head. The guilt for leaving him in others' care not only during the week but then again on the weekend while I am there for services feels like a weight on my heart.

So now I have found myself in this place of sadness. I feel sad that I have to leave him and sad that I don't know what to do about it. I don't feel a peace about staying at home full time. And I know I am where God wants me to be...it's quite the dilemma!

I realize the morning cries will eventually stop. But will they stop because he isn't sad anymore? Or will they stop because he will be old enough to resolve in his head that he will be away from mommy and daddy during the day? These are questions I am not sure I want the answers to.

So to my sweet amazing boy...I am sorry if my working causes you emotional scarring one day. You're tough with strong muscles though, so I know you will get through it. I love you so much!

Lovesandboy,

Bekah

Thursday, February 12, 2009

A Friday Night

I knew last Friday would be a blog when I was on my way home from work to discover that my husband had taken the boy to the park. Let me just say, Fridays are our day off so normally it is family day. Sadly, I had a video to finish for services that weekend and had to go to work when the boy was taking a nap. So...on my way home I called my husband to find out what they were up to and they were just heading to the park for some daddy/boy time. On my way home I stopped at the park where I found my husband, boy and dog all playing. I love to watch my husband play with the boy. It makes me love him so much more! I walked up to the slides and the boy shouted with such genuine excitement "mommy!" This, of course, made my night. They were running around, and going down the slide for what I can imagine was at least one million times. In the words of the boy "again? again?" He grabbed my hand when I got there and wanted me to go down the slide with him. This, considering my hips, is not always easy but thankfully the slide seemed to be wider that day. So we went down the slide at least one million more times before it was time to head back home. We loaded up and headed to the house. My husband wanted burgers that night so we made some juicy goodness hamburgers and then settled down to eat.


Dinner time is one of my favorite parts of the day. We sit at the table together, with a begging dog sitting at the feet of my husband and the boy. The dog has quickly learned that droppings are most likely to come from one of the two! That night we ate dinner together as we usually do. Lately the boy has been the entertainer at the dinner table. My favorite is when he crinkles his noise and squints his eyes and says things like "yeah man..." and "cool dude" all the while shaking his head in a jazz-esque fashion. He was in the middle of these entertaining antics when I looked at his plate and noticed that he had stuck chips in his hamburger bun. They were sticking up as if to make a porcupine out of his hamburger. This cracked me up and of course my laughing prompted him to stick more chips into his hamburger.

About half way through the meal the boy took a ginormous bite. He was chewing and chewing and chewing. And then I saw the look of panic in his eyes. He started to gag and my husband and I panicked. I grabbed some napkins, my husband ran to get a towel and then it happened. He spewed throw up all over the kitchen table and all over himself. It's so funny how food reversed sends people into such a tizzy. At first our audible levels started to escalate and then we just started laughing. What else are you going to do? So we cleaned up the reversed food (it just sounds nicer than throw up) and the boy and then sat back at the table. My husband and I looked at each other and then at our half eaten formerly delicious looking hamburgers and knew our meal was over. Who can finish eating after an event like that?

It was an event filled evening but the boy was fine and all was well by the time he went to bed.

I do NOT love throw up.

Lovesandboy,
Bekah

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

The Beep

This morning the boy and I were getting ready to head out the door for the day and we heard a beep in the house. I am still not sure from where the beep originated, but nonetheless there was a beep. I looked at the boy and said "what was that?" And without missing a beat he smiled and said "snacks ready." I started laughing and then he started laughing and it instantly became one of those moments I hope I never forget.

Lovesandboy,
Bekah

Friday, February 6, 2009

You Make Me Feel Like Dancing

Our family is frequent watchers of the Wiggles. Not only do they have Australian accents but the show is filled with 20 minutes of singing and dancing! Who doesn't like that? Such fine entertainment! My favorite part of the show though, has nothing to do with the Wiggles, but instead the look of pure enjoyment on the boy's face.  We usually watch The Wiggles in the morning while we have breakfast together. It entertains the boy while my husband and I are still waking up. The boy has been getting up at 7 am from the time he was 2 months old. Although I appreciate the consistency, I do miss the days of sleeping in sometimes. So the Wiggles have become our life line. Our way of having a moment for our brain and body to be in awake mode at the same time. Just because I am out of bed, doesn't mean I am awake! 

Back to my favorite part of the show,  "the look of pure enjoyment on the boy's face" as I stated before. He sits on the couch eating his fried, sunshine, omelet or scrambled eggs (the style varies from day to day but there are almost always eggs on the menu for breakie...as they say in England) and enjoys the singing and dancing with a sleepy smiley expression on his face. At some point he gets off the couch and dances with glee to the songs he likes best. And then he comes and says "mommy dance, up" And so I get up and we dance together. At this point I am usually wide awake and feeling good. My husband, on the other hand, needs exactly one hour and one pot of coffee to be fully awake so most of the earlier morning play time is up to me. I am ok with this because my husband quietly makes breakie, the boys lunch and takes time to read his Bible. He stays in his zone and the boy and I watch the Wiggles and dance. There are times, however, that I don't feel like dancing in the morning,  but I do it anyway because of that look on the boy's face that screams "play with me mommy!" He grabs my hand and I know that my moments like this with him won't last for much longer.  I have recently been really trying to focus on the now and not the "if he was only a little bit older we could do more" moments. My boy will only be little for such a short time and I will never get year #2 back. The year of potty training, tantrums, singing and dancing.  There will come a time when The Wiggles are for babies and dancing with his mom is embarrassing, so I choose to embrace this time and hold on to it with everything that I am.  So when he grabs my hand in the morning and we are both in our jammies with egg breath...he makes me feel like dancing. 

Lovesandboy,
Bekah

Monday, February 2, 2009

Let's Talk About Sam's Club

Sam's Club is a phenomenon that I so appreciate these days. We like to do basic grocery shopping at the Sam's Club. It seems mildly silly seeing as everything comes in restaurant size quantities and there are only 3 of us in our family, but nonetheless we continue to go there every paycheck to buy things that we need and some things that we don't need. We ALWAYS go as a family and this is the part I like best. We try to plan our shopping extravaganza (doesn't that sound so much more excting than grocery shopping? BORING!) around lunch or dinner time because our whole family can have a delicious meal for exactly $4.50...drinks included! We sit in the cafeteria style dining area on the hard white plastic pinic tables and try to enjoy some time as a family before or after the GROCERY EXTRAVAGANZA! The boy sits there so nicely for about 30 seconds and then he wants to get down and run around. He is fascinated with the claw game and wants to play every time we are there. Let's talk about that game for a minute...they charge like $3 (which is almost more than our dinner cost) for a game that almost never rewards its enthusiasts with a prize, and on the off chance that it does, it is a totally cheeseball stuffed animal that I am sure was purchased at an online mass quantity warehouse, much like the one we are trying to enjoy dinner in, for 30 cents! So...we tell him no and of course he is upset because he doesn't understand the "I can go to the dollar tree and buy you a better stuffed animal, not that you need it because you have a million toys sitting at home, and also does money grow on trees?" concept. So...after dinner we wander around the Sam's Club discovering new and exciting items that seem to overwhelm us with joy. It is especially joyous when those new and exciting items are food and they are sampling it. It's just good clean fun people!

Milk, eggs (2 18 packs), bread, cheese (3 different varieties) and pull ups are always on the list. Not only are these items cheaper, but we go through them so quickly that we need the bulk! The rest of our cart is filled with whatever else we deem necessary during that shopping extravaganza. One important tip...we never shop while hungry. Hunger, we have experienced, is especially dangerous at the mega stores. We run up and down the aisles and chase each other while people look at us like we are totally nuts and how dare we! But we don't care. We have fun. My husband almost always finds a big bin of giant overstuffed animals to throw the boy into where he stays so quietly until I come around the corner to "find him." He laughs, and then his laughing makes us laugh and then we continue on our way to finish the extravaganza ignoring the looks from the stangers around us.

I like Sam's Club better than Costco for one reason and one reason only. Sam's Club sells their milk individually and Costco sells it in two's. I am the only one that drinks nonfat milk in our house so we need 3 gallons of whole milk and only 1 nonfat. Now you might be thinking that I could just pick up a gallon of nonfat when I got to the regular non super sized grocery store. While this is correct in theory, I like my cartons of milk to match. I know. I know. I need help...

By the time we check out of the store the boy is usually way past over the grocery extravaganza and ready to go home. This is NOT my favorite part of the outing and almost always results in some crying and at least one spanking...or at least the threat of one...don't judge me GKGW peeps...you know who you are. This does not ruin the fun that we have. We make it through the check out and head out the door where the lady who checks the receipts draws a little smiley face in yellow highlighter on the back of the receipt which always proceeds to get yellow on myself, the boy or some item of clothing...thank you receipt checker lady!

This concludes our Sam's Club family time. I am so thankful that I am a part of a family that can make anything fun. We just love to be together and if you can't have fun while doing it...what's the point?


Lovesandboy,
Bekah