Changes

When I originally started this blog, it was meant to be a photo blog, complete with pictures of my children growing up, changing; documenting every single little cute thing they do to the point of being obnoxious, of being "that Mom"...the mom that thinks the booger hanging out of my child's nose is the cutest thing while everyone else thinks it's disgusting.

While I don't think I go quite that far, I do enjoy posting pictures of my family on the blog for the enjoyment of others.  It's great that this is a way I can keep family who live far away in the loop about my family and the things we do.  My new goal for this blog is to do more writing.  There are some major changes going on in my life and the lives of my family, and I want to start documenting more of my life with words and pictures.

As for the changes that are happening...

We sold our Jeep last weekend.  About once a week something new was breaking on it.  We purchased the blue beauty around 2007 as a seven-year-old-car. It was in great condition and had been well taken care of.  It now has about 140,000 miles on it, and was beginning to show it's age.  We decided that before it completely craps out on us and we wouldn't get anything out of it we should probably sell and and it least get blue-book value for it.  We put the ad on Craigslist about 10 am last Sunday morning, and by 7:30 pm the same day, we had it sold. I'm beginning to wonder if we should have added another $1000 to our asking price.  :)

Now that the Jeep is gone, our hunt has begun for a replacement car, preferably something a little newer and more economically friendly.  We're thinking a Nissan Altima.

Another recent change is my husband's job.  He has been a high school teacher the last several years, and graduated this past December with is degree in Administration.  We recently learned that he was going to be a co-principal at the school he works for!  That means that he will be a principal for half his day, and the music department teacher the other half of his day!  We are really excited about this opportunity for him!

Now for MY major change - as of today, I am a stay-at-home wife and mommy. I have to smile when I think about those words because something about them sounds so small, so unofficial or unprofessional.  Let me tell you, becoming a mother is hands-down and officially the most difficult yet rewarding thing I have ever done!

Choosing to quit my job as a banker was excruciating.  I always thought that if I was given the opportunity to stay at home, it would be a no-brainer; that I would simply walk in one day and say, "It's been great, but I've got this opportunity so I'm going to run with it.".  It wasn't so simple for me.

Before I had children, I used to have this idea about stay at home moms: I thought they were wasting precious talents and gifts that have been given that could be better put to use building a career and their savings accounts.  There are plenty of day-cares around, and it seemed like a pretty good place for kids to learn, grown, and become social. Daycare never hurt me at all. 

Then came the last night of my maternity leave when I had to go back to work and leave my beautiful 2-month-old daughter behind.  I cried and cried and tried to think of a way to stay at home and make ends meet.  Going back to work was the last thing I wanted to do. I wanted simply to stay at home and spend every sleeping and waking moment with my precious child, as time was already ticking away to her 18th birthday when she would leave my little nest forever!

Sorry, that is a little dramatic but that is the way I felt. And when I had my son, it wasn't any easier going back to work.

Anyway, fast-forward to the last couple of weeks.  Once we found out Matt was getting a little job promotion, the wheels started turning.  If you don't know this about me, I'll be the first to admit that I am an over-thinker. I obsess about huge decisions like this. Not only do I enjoy working, but I feel good contributing to our finances and helping to provide for my family.  I definitely had some status at my job - I had been there the longest, and I was cross-trained in pretty much everything. I felt important. I felt like I had a little bit of sway and power.  And I made the extremely difficult decision togive that all up (for a worthy cause, in my opinion).

Believe me, I lost some sleep over this decision. It wasn't until the night before I gave my notice at work that I completely committed  myself to the decision to stay at home.

My biggest fear is, am I a good enough Mom to do it full-time?

I am not looking for affirmations or positive words from anyone- it's more of a personal question. I am really hard on myself as a mother. Every time I lose my temper, every time I yell at one of my children, every time I tell them no when I really could have said yes, every time I feel like I fail in a small or big way as a mom, it stays with me.  I carry around loads of guilt constantly that I am not the kind of mother I want to be.  Of course, I want to be a perfect mother, but I do not believe that exists, yet that doesn't make me want it any less. I want to be a perfect mother of perfect children who never step out of line and do everything that I ask of them and never stray. That's my dream-world of Mommy-hood.

In the real world, Audrey is screaming at me that Kellen is playing in the toilet. When I run in there to dig him out of the toilet, arm drenched up to his elbow in toilet water, Audrey decides to get on the computer and google some random video that begins blaring at 10,000 decibels. When I put Kellen down to go turn the volume down and put Audrey in time out, Kellen realizes his freedom and runs and climbs on top of the kitchen table and starts jumping up and down on it. When I go get him down from the top of the table and tell him no-no and send him to time-out, Audrey runs screaming into the bathroom that she has to pee and just misses the toilet. While I am cleaning up that mess Kellen runs into the kitchen and finds the knife on the counter that I have forgotten to put in the child-proof drawer and comes running into the bathroom to show me his find.  Then I die of a heart-attack and my day is over.

That's real life. Come what may, mother-hood is filled with trial and error, joy and frustration, fear and doubt, happiness and contentment.  I still have sway and power. I still have status, especially in the eyes of my children. To them, Matt and I are the coolest most wonderful thing in the world. We are their universe.

My hope and prayer is that I am a good enough mother to do this.  Every day there will be challenges and triumphs. Some days will be much harder than other days. Some days Matt is going to come home from work and I am going to have to leave for a couple of hours so I can stay sane, but I know all of this going into it.  All of these thoughts and scenarios went into my decision to quit my part-time job as a banker and become a full-time mommy.

Audrey Newborn

Kellen Newborn

Audrey and Kellen today!

It's like friend of mine said to me the other day: No mother ever wishes she would have put in more hours at the office when her children were small. Every working mother wishes they could have spent more time with their children. Before I know it, my children will be off to college, and my hope is that I can look back on the years I had at home with them and feel like I accomplished something major, something important, something of worth. I will have loved and guided these two beautiful souls into adult-hood and given them the tools and lessons they need to be good, productive and educated citizens.   Love is the ultimate goal.  So here I go.