I don’t like change. At all. I like my routines, I like knowing what to expect. End of Story. I’m sure you’ve probably heard me say in the past that it’s been my biggest challenge of Motherhood. Let’s face it, there is nothing routine about motherhood and changes…..well…..things change on a daily basis when it comes to raising kids. Knowing what to expect, well thats even more funny because anyone who is a parent knows that you’ll NEVER know what to expect, on any given day. My first born is like her mother, she loves routine, she ate at the same times everyday for the first 12 months of her life, her naps were scheduled, it just worked. Then my second was born. Oh sweet Drew, I will always say you were born to change me! There is that word CHANGE again!
How do I deal with this? Well I don’t 😉 I complain to my husband, my mom and my friends a lot and thats usually how I get by! When I took on a part-time job of course I knew it was going to come along with some adjustments, I was ready to take them on, I wouldn’t have made such a big decision if I wasn’t ready for some change! Lets put it this way, I thought my kids would be effected by this the most. Nope, they are doing just fine. I drop Drew off at school and he goes off and plays with his cute little friends. I say the extra 3 good-byes and off I go to curl up on my couch and work for the day. I know isn’t it great, I get to wear my pajama’s and be comfortable! However let me tell you about the oh not so glam parts of working from home. I have to walk by that messy playroom a few times a day and hold back from actually picking it up, I have to proceed to dodge plastic cars and step on legos. You think it would be great because I could at least get a load of laundry done right? Wrong. I throw in a load feeling like I at least accomplished one thing today, nope come 4pm I realize I’m so engrossed in what I’m doing that I forgot to throw it in the dryer! How about Dinner??!  Yes I get to throw things in the crock pot and check on it throughout the day, maybe give it a stir to see how it’s going. Sure, if I remembered to plug it in!! My mind is actually focused on work so when I do feel accomplished and happy for getting dinner ready early I’ve realized it wasn’t so ready after all.  So for every advantage there is to working from home, don’t forget about the disadvantages that may come along with it. The Pj’s, the lack of having to shower and being able to make whatever you want for lunch is surly an advantage! I asked my husband what he does to unwind from work, how does he change his mental status from working Dad to Daddy is home yay Daddy! He said the ride home. He drives an hour home. Well that doesn’t help me! So my new change is fitting my work out in right before I start dinner and the kids get home on my working days.
So I embraced this thing called “change” and pulled up my big girl panties and I kept on learning what works bests for us. Like making more lists, begging my husband to help me more with the kids “mentally” like telling me when we are out of Tylenol or diapers because I’m not really “on it” like I usually am. I grocery shop with my kids these days so I can reserve a full 8 hours to working and blogging. I’m not sure how much longer that will last because every week I say “NEVER AGAIN!” So this past weekend, I opted to go on a Sunday, my birthday of all days! Lets talk about mistakes, now granted I’ve been out of the working world for 4 years now and it’s tough remembering everything “accounting-ish” if you will. However when your as scatter brained as I’ve been the last few months trying to figure out this “working” thing you realize your making errors that you haven’t made since you started working in this field 15 years ago! I know once I find that even balance, I’ll get my Mommy groove back and won’t forget to buy diapers and I’ll have more ah ha moments with the “accounting-ish” stuff again.
A few weeks ago I had my breaking point. The OK something has to change moment because it just pushed me over the edge. The kind of moment that caused me to go buy a $50 planner (the kind you actually write in). I’ve been fighting every morning with my four year old every Monday, Wednesday and Friday since she started school at 18 months old. She hates it. She hates going and I’m sick of trying to get her to like, make friends, have fun! I give up, the kid just hates it. She still chooses to stand in the corner by herself rather than play with others or run around and have fun like a normal 4 year old. So after another not so fun morning getting Madison out the door, and my beefcake Drew who is just oh so heavy these days and I can’t rush his walking any more than I already am so I don’t have to carry him anymore…..I finally get them to school. Now I have a doctors appointment to get to for myself and I totally underestimated the time of how long it would take to get there from the daycare so now I’m realizing I’m going to be at least 5 min late if not 10. Anyone who knows me…..yes I hate being late. It’s a major pet peeve of mine when I’m late for anything or if anyone is late for me. I finally calm down about 2 min down the road from my doctors office realizing I’ll only be 5 min late, that’s not bad. Nope. Of course not, I see the blues in my rearview mirror, I’m being pulled over!!! For speeding!! I have a perfect driving record people, I don’t speed because I hate being in a car never mind speeding in one! Well luckily that perfect driving record is what got me out of that speeding ticket. THANK GOD. Now I’ll be at least 15 min late, do you think that’s where it ended?? Nooooo…….I go to check in breathless from the 3 flights of stairs because I’m convinced it’s quicker than an elevator. Apparently I checked in a week early because my appointment was actually at 9:30 the next Monday morning! SHOOT ME NOW.
I proceed to cry all the way home because I can’t stand being this scatter brained, it’s loss of control for me, it’s not me at all and I have been this way every since I had my second child. I can’t blame it on going back to work folks, nope I will not. I got pregnancy brain with my second that was real bad and I have yet to gain it back. I started to think of ways I could get more on board with being organized again. I pulled out the new planner weeks and proceeded to write everything down that I could think of, to do lists for work, to do lists for the blog, to do lists for the house. I delete my iphone lists, and break out the markers to the dry eraser board and started writing in my meals for the week, what appointments we have for the week and what must do’s my husband and I have for the week. (which by the way never get done!) I think to myself what more could I do to get things done and get them done correctly. Then it dawned on me. SLOW THE F*CK DOWN!
I know everyone says to stop and smell the roses. Enjoy your children because they aren’t young forever. Kiss them, hold their hands because soon enough they won’t want anything to do with you. I’m always complaining to my husband that I’m not the “fun” parent. I’m the disciplinary one, never the one having fun with them. So from that very moment of crying in the car over messing something up AGAIN, I made the decision to STOP. Appreciate what’s around me and just go with it. Maybe trying to be organized is actually making it worse. I love technology and I love social media. I run a blog I depend on social media however sometimes I’d like to take a page from my parents book, go back to their days before technology even existed. Back when it took a village of their own to raise kids, now we depend on support groups via facebook. One day last week I spent the day with my kids and stayed off of social media. Did I snap pictures here and there and share them via Instagram or FB, sure…. my kids are cute, I love sharing them with friends and family. I just realized when I gave them 110% of mommy and disconnected from the social media world I had just a tad bit more fun with them! Sad but true. Then later on that night I shared my findings with my husband. I explained to him that I used to watch Drama television shows at night once the kids went to bed to zone out and unwind for the day. Then I started working a bit, blogging more or meal planning at night instead of during the day. Before I knew it was 10pm and I hadn’t even started to unwind yet. So no more of that at night, I am dedicating that as my time. Sure there are deadlines for work, my own blog and personal things to do but for the most part that time is going to be for me, myself and I, or my husband if he’s good 😉 You don’t realize how much you get sucked in, I always reach for my phone during commercials. So that night when I did, I laughed at myself, I had retired my phone for the night and instead I reached for food magazine from the pile that was about to fall over. That very pile that this blog got started with. Back when I first started I didn’t have many recipes to share so I’d copy them from magazines, then as time went on I actually started making those said recipes and now every recipe on this site has been made and tested by me!
So what is the moral of this post……Change. Life is all about change, sometimes it takes those very changes to open our eyes and become better people. So lets embrace it!
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