When I was in Elementary School I often said I would live with my parents forever, I don't remember ruling out getting married, just that I would always live with my parents, one big happy family home, that feeling carried over into Jr High. In my early High School years I just wanted to be a mom, I had zero ambitions to go to college I just wanted to get married and be a mom. Once senior year hit and people were making college plans and I had yet to even go on a single date (my choice, I have a blog post on that swirling around in my head for later) making the motherhood thing look a few years off I starting pursuing my only real enjoyment in life, cooking. I sent away for applications to Le Cordon Bleu in Boston (there are 16 campuses in the u.s now!) and pictured myself becoming an independent, carefree, refined, Bostonian woman. I toured the brand new tiny culinary school at Cincinnati State and was encouraged that I didn't have to become independent & refined, I could live at home and practice my cooking skills for my future husband and children... and parents :o)
I just didn't feel the call to culinary school after all and post graduation I got a job at a local day care center.
I was pretty care free & independent (still living with the parents of course) at this time, making a decent pay check for a girl who was driving her parents old mini van and living at home. Running around that fall having a BLAST with one boy, but just not feeling it and all the while swooning over another who had gone away to college.
I was heavily involved in our college group at church and doing stuff every night of the week. My sister and friends all decided to apply to Nursing School and so I did too, thinking I could be a maternity nurse but nothing else! Jayne even told me that I would make a great maternity nurse and that woman oughtta know :o)
I ended up at NKU the following year along with one of the other 3 girls that inspired me and my college days had begun.
I liked school, I HATED gen eds (how can you love an English class that is centered around the show The Simpson's?? or a tree hugging teacher who required me to go to a lecture by one "Julia Butterfly" who literally lived in a redwood tree for 738 days? ) but loved my nursing classes.
I then started dating "swoon boy" in January after spending Christmas break together and quit my job at the unreliable, scary, I reported child abuse, day care center and swore I would never look at those places the same again! I worked for a brief period at the local County Market and loved it because of all the people I got to talk to however $$ soon found me in the form of cleaning one house a week and making more than a week of shifts at the grocery store making minimum wage.
I bought my first car when the parents van predictably croaked and I was living the life. Waking up early going to the gym 6 days a week weighed a whopping 127 pounds and thought I was fat of course :o) I was travelling to Cedarville most every weekend to watch soccer games and although I am, and have always been, a huge proponent of living in the moment and stopping to smell the flowers, and I was definitely enjoying those 4 years, I was still dreaming of the someday of getting married and having babies.
The married part happened the winter after he graduated and we had 2 1/2 years of being what my pastor calls "DINK's" (dual income, no kids). I also cherished this time of just us, figuring out what it meant to be us. I graduated and started my first and current nursing job during this time and was so very happy.
When Annie was born I remember thinking often how funny it was that I had an infant for a best friend. I would like to think that Joe was my best friend at the time, but come on. A best friend is one you talk to, share all your thoughts with, play with, watch movies, cook, bake, shop, take walks, you name it, you do it together and have a blast. And that was Annie and I. I started working 1 day a week after she was born and therefore our days were centered around each other. We would get up twice a night and therefore sleep till 10. Eat breakfast do one of the aforementioned events, take a 3-4 hour nap, cook, bake, clean for our man, we even showered together!! Then Joe would come home and he was a welcome addition to our little clique.
I wasn't in denial, I knew that when baby #2 came along things would change. Baby #2 doesn't get to snuggle with mom in bed until 10am, she barely gets held at all. She gets me, shared by 2 during the day and 3 at night. Having 2 rocked my selfish world and I am a better woman for it. I look forward to the addition of #3 and how he/she will fit into our busy little lives. I think/hope #3 will be an easier transition now that I have reality in mind.
Mothering isn't easy, its selfless. It has to be. It puts the needs of many others in front of your own and the most frustrating times for me is when I am already serving one and another is demanding attention at the same time! It makes me shake my head and wonder why I can't change bed sheets without a snotty nose crying at my feet to be held or fed. I can't wipe a butt without another one saying she has to go potty.
On the rare occasion that I get to wake up on my own without an alarm and without a face in mine saying "im hooooongry" I am possibly the happiest woman on the face of the earth for a few minutes.
Ill admit sometimes I like to try to hide from them just to see how long it will last. I will get them interested in something and then sneak away like the other day, I was exercising in my room with the lights off so they wouldn't know where I was and I probably got 10 min in before I had one jumping on my bed helping me count to 10 while the other one had her finger in my face wagging it saying one, one, one, one, which actually made me laugh pretty hard.
Family Vacation is a funny term. They should just call it parenting away from home. Other than the fact that you don't have tasks like bills to pay, there is still laundry to do, meals to make, butts to scrub, discipline and fights to break up and the ever watchful eye so someone doesn't drown or kill themselves.
So why am I starting to get anxiety about leaving them in the loving arms of my sister, in their own home, in their own beds for what will be 8 glorious days of non mothering bliss???? Because they are wonderful, they are my world, they are my responsibility from God and I worry about someone else having to get up twice a night to tell Annie to go back to sleep. How simple is that, she doesn't require standing on your head, a special song, a special blanket or anything, just "Annie, lay down and go to sleep and quit screaming for Daddy, he is sleeping" I think my sister can handle that just fine... Right???
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