There is no "me" in Mommy

Nor in Mom. But there is one in Mother if you look hard enough. And it takes a little work. Some people are pretty successful at finding the "me" in Mother. Some aren't.

**If you are here for the award scroll down to yesterday's post (I know, 2 posts in 2 days is so unlike me!)

**digression here: my son insists that my name is "mommy," not "mom," not "mother," it's "mommy." He will correct people in the store. "No she's not my mom, she's my mommy."
He asked me what I was going to be for Halloween, I told him I was going to be a "mom." The day after Halloween he asked if I was "mommy" again since he was no longer an Astronaut, or whether I was still wearing my "mom" costume. Cute kid.



Anyway, back to the point. Anymommy had this post yesterday that really made me think (OK, she usually comes up with thought provoking posts, so that part is nothing new). She was talking about the fact that she doesn't cook. And she doesn't do scrapbooking, or crafty homemade stuff either and she's fine with that. She realizes, that as a mother of 4 small children, you simply can't do everything. Even if you're a stay at home mom who doesn't work outside the home. And she is so right on about that. Some mothers will think those kinds of things are expected from them, especially if they are a stay at home mom ('cause those mom's have all the time in the world don't they?). But it is one of the most unrealistic expectations.

My mom was one of those moms who had to do it all. We never had a store bought cake for our birthdays. Each of us had a specially baked (probably even from scratch!) and extraordinarily decorated cake. Whatever we were into at the moment was reflected on our birthday cakes. I wish I had some of those pictures! She made cookie monster, big bird, trains, care bears...you name it. She was such an artist. She sent us with home baked goods to share with our classes for our birthdays or for holiday parties. In my Halloween post I talked about how every year we had homemade costumes. She also sewed costumes for school plays and concerts.

She was in PTA, she was a homeroom mom for at least a couple of us at a time (there were 5 of us!). She was a den mother, cub scout leader, brownie/girl scout leader, soccer/softball coach... the list goes on. We were involved in absolutely everything and she was usually in charge of it.

Sounds perfect doesn't it? She knocked herself out. She stayed up late at night doing things, sometimes she was up all night finishing whatever her latest project was. There was always too much on her agenda. She never said "no" to anything. She aimed to please. And it was all for us kids. Or was it? Seems pretty selfless. She never did anything just for herself. She rarely even bought herself new clothes.

Once, when I was in high school and messing up royally (staying up late and not making it to school in the mornings), my step-father gave me this huge lecture on how much my mom had done for us kids and how much she sacrificed for us.

And I bought into it. Until many years later when, as an adult, I witnessed my sister being that mom with her children. I say with instead of for, because it's really not for the kids. Mothers may kid themselves into believing that, but it's false. My sister followed in the footsteps of my mother to a "t." She is involved in everything at the school. Her kids are involved in everything at the school. She is so busy doing everything that who gets left out? Yep, the kids. Who's losing out on this one? The kids.

When she's not busy planning and organizing for something at school or all of those athletic activities or brownies/girl scouts/boy scouts, she's busy gossiping with other mothers. Whenever I talk to her it's all about other families, the kids' friends etc... it's like her kids have taken a backseat to all the other things they are involved in and the families that are involved along with them.

I have never seen her just spend time with her kids. They never relax. They are always doing something. The time she spends with her children is when they are playing a soccer or softball game, when they are in brownies/girl scouts, when they are doing some school activity.

I can sit back and judge because I'm not that mom ;) and it's so much easier to judge someone else now isn't it? Honestly, I don't feel bad judging my sister like this. I know that she and my mother judge me for not letting my daughter do everything that she wants. They judge me for the type of parent I am all the time. Because I am not them. I'm not their type of ultra-involved do everything homemade mom.

I'm not saying that involvement is bad. As a matter of fact, I wish I could be more involved at the school. But really it's because I need a social life ;) No, seriously, I think some parental involvement is good. But too much is the opposite of good.

I limit my school age daughter to one extracurricular activity a school year. One year she played soccer, the next year she played softball, this year she wants to try basketball. I will do the same with all my children when they get to school. Children need down time. Why pressure them to be busy all the time? Maybe I just value relaxing too much ;) But why teach them to spread themselves too thin right from the start?

If my child doesn't have a homemade birthday cake on their birthday, I feel guilty, but then realize that I just can't do everything, and in the end it won't make that much of a difference. I really wanted to make their Halloween costumes this year, but in the end I realized that it would mean spending a couple of days working on their costumes instead of spending any time with them. And really, the $10 costumes we got them were so much more cost effective (my sister spent $50 on the materials for ONE of her kids' costumes).

I do what I can and try not to sweat the stuff I can't and pray that they will turn out the better for it ;)

The Mother of All Visits

So my mom's been here all week. Her journey here started out rough. A friend was going to come with her, but at the last minute called and said she forgot to turn in her time at work. So mom decided to just make the 7 hour trip on her own.

Her car broke down halfway here. So she ended up in a motel room for the night and having a tow truck tow her and the car to a town 25 miles away that was the closest place that could fix her car. She rented a car (it cost $400 and they conned her into their insurance!!) to bring her the rest of the way here... Found out that day that it was her engine... after she'd spent $1800 getting her car ready to come up here. I felt so awful!!! Then there was the issue of the rental car... that $400 was only for one week. She's here for 2 weeks. There's no way she could spend $800 renting a car that's just going to sit here... so she found out that she could get a partial refund if she took it back before it had been 5 days. But we couldn't really take her the 4 hours to return it - the closest place was 2 1/2 hours away. But with all the charges related to one way instead of 2 way she just broke even. Ugh. Felt awful once again.

One of my sisters told her that she should have just sent me $1000 and told me to hire a nanny. I thought that was kind of rude. Oh well.

Anyway, it's been nice and annoying having her around ;) I'm so pregnant pissy that every little thing is bothering me and I feel bad about it. But man, she's almost as bad as a child sometimes. Every time she uses the bathroom sink she completely floods it out - I mean water drips off the vanity - and I'm not exaggerating. Every time she uses the sink she gets the counter all wet. Last night I wiped it off after she'd rinsed some dishes and two minutes later she'd rinsed some more dishes and there was water all over the counter again.

Every time I leave the room she's fabreezing my couch and chair...

She's got a million ideas about how to re-do my house and re-organize everything.

She replaced my toilet paper with hers.

She clogged my bathroom sink.

Ugh. Those are just a few things that are driving me insane. But all told, I am glad to have her around to help out. I just hope I can survive the next week! ;)

Baby update: At my last dr's appointment I was actually 1cm dilated and 50% effaced! ;) Next week my Dr is going to strip my membranes to try to get me to go early. She doesn't want the baby to get too big because of the gestational diabetes and because last time I had level 4 "tear" (which was really her idea of an epesiotomy [which I can't spell!]) Anyway, she wants this baby to be smaller than baby girl so I don't tear so bad again...

I also lost my mucus plug this morning! Of course I lost it way early with both of my previous pregnancies, and I was dilated early with them too... so I'm not expecting any miracles in that way... I also had my membranes stripped 3 times with baby girl!

I am just hoping that the baby will come while my mom is here. Otherwise she won't get to see him for a couple of months.

Well, I will keep you all posted as much as I can ;)

The Joys of Co-Sleeping

When I was pregnant the first time, I didn't even realize that co-sleeping was an option. In my mind what happened was you got a crib (bassinette at first maybe) and that's where the baby slept. My first couple of nights with a newborn at home changed everything.


First of all, I was so completely taken with my new baby boy, that it was hard for me to put him down for any length of time. Really, people had to ask to hold him, or my husband had to take him from me and offer him to extended famly members. I think partially I just assumed if someone wanted to hold him they would ask. I would hold him through his naps because he seemed to sleep better and longer that way. Of course this was a huge mistake - there is such a thing as holding a baby too much ;) They get used to it and come to expect to be held all the time. I really wish someone would have told me that. I learned to do just about everything one handed.


But back to the point... that first night home we put the baby in the bassinette right next to the bed. But his sleep was pretty restless, and every time he stirred I got up to check on him. Neither of us or my husband got any sleep. The next night we started out by putting him in a small dresser drawer between us on the bed. That seemed to work a little better, but still he stirred quite a bit. So the next night, while paranoid as hell, we opted for just putting him in bed with us without any barriers. I was so nervous about it. I thought for sure we would roll over and squash him or something. But it seems to be a natural motherly instinct to sleep lightly and be ever so cautious of your newborn while co-sleeping. That night we all slept very good (aside from the every 2 hour feedings of course).


My mother and sister just about had fits when they found out we'd put our newborn baby in bed with us. Every time I talked to either of them they had warnings and advice and so on... it didn't help that I was still a little nervous about it. But I just knew that I was doing what worked best.


And then a couple of months later when my sister had her first newborn baby girl, guess what? She ended up with her newborn in bed with her too. Not only that, but she had tracked down sources that either recommended it or said that it was perfectly fine - and she showed them to our mother. After that, co-sleeping was *the* thing to do. And when they discovered that my brother and sister-in-law were keeping their newborn baby in a crib... well tsk tsk on them.


The funny thing about that is I remember when my mother had my youngest brother and sister in bed with them until they were 5 or older. I don't remember if she had them in bed when they were babies though, but I'm guessing she must have.

Before I had baby girl I tried to get little man to sleep in either the crib or his toddler bed, he was almost 2 at the time. It never quite worked out.

Before I had baby girl I was determined to have her sleep in the basinette. That never panned out either :) The first night I brought her into bed, because same thing as little man - restless sleeping that would keep me awake all night. Now I really didn't want to have 2 in the bed, but we made it work. We ended up getting a King sized bed.

Of course this time -- there's pretty much no way we can have 3 in bed with us! There's barely room with the two ;) and they end up kicking and pulling hair and hogging the bed and covers.

My mother is coming to stay with me for a couple of weeks while my husband is away for work -in case I go into labor early. My sister asked her what she hoped to accomplish while she was here (as if she's here for any other reason?) And she said that her mission was to get the two little ones sleeping in their own beds. As if #1: we hadn't thought of that #2 she could actually accomplish this task... A couple of days before I had this conversation with my mother we had actually re-arranged things, got the kids' beds set up and had been using them for the past couple of nights. The first two nights they both ended up in bed with us rather quickly, but guess what? Baby girl will stay in her bed all night. And little man will make it until 6am before he comes and gets in bed with us. I think we did pretty good on that front without any help ;)

But anyway, my mother is arriving today with her whole bag of "supernanny." She's bringing with her a timer for time outs (sorry mom, but we already have a timer and use time outs), and a toy organizer. And lots of ideas about how we should re-arrange our house...

This should be fun! ;)