Flexible

Prior to being a stay at home Momma, our life was scheduled completely. Down to the minute. I mean, literally. Everything we did had a time and a length and we were good at sticking with it. The kids did well in the schedule - they knew what to expect and when to expect it.

For the most part, our life is still highly organized, but it is much less scheduled. I am working on flexibility - with the kids, but mostly with myself.

See, I love a good schedule. I really am a very organized person. When I was a childless person. I was more spontaneous...but I still thrived in a sense of normalcy. When Bailey came along, I had so much to learn and juggle. We just trended toward our most comfortable way of life - that scheduled, predictable one. Trying to make 40 hours of work fit into 24 hours required it.

I am trying things differently (a bit) these days. I let the kids dictate ouir schedule and I don't shy away from events that will throw off the schedule. I will take them into the city or drive an hour for an event without batting an eye. I come prepared and just let the day develop as it wants to.

It's not easy for me...but I hope that I am teaching my kids how to be more resilient and less reliant on complete predictability.

My Weakness

I can deal with most of the crap of parenting. I have philosophies and tools to deal with temper tantrums, aggression, yelling, etc. It isn't always easy to deal with, but at least there is a corrective course of action. What I can't deal with is not sleeping.

With Bailey, I tolerated it until she was 7 months old and then I pushed cry it out hard and she was sleeping through the night within a week. Very shortly after that, life was so improved we got pregnant again. What Connor taught me is that sleep isn't subject to a "method". He did not respond at all to cry it out, no matter how hard I pushed it. Connor required something that was extremely hard for me to give - time and patience. He started sleeping through the night about 3 weeks ago, right around his first birthday. It really wasn't a gradual process...just one day he stopped waking up and started sleeping a solid 12 hours before waking.

I was elated!!! The improvement in my life is without compare.

So you can imagine my horror when he stopped for 3 nights and started waking up 3, 4 and 5 times a night.

Let me just tell you - I don't need much sleep. 5 hours is enough, provided those 5 hours are uninterrupted. But if I am woken up during those 5 hours, it's as if I got no sleep at all. So, for days it was as if I hadn't slept. I took him to the doctor's yesterday just to check. Make sure nothing was wrong. They told me he is fine.

We put him to bed last night around 7:30. So far, he's not woken up.

And I got my solid 5 hours. Thank god.

Our Marriage

A while back, Kelly asked me not to discuss our marriage in public spaces. Out of respect for her, I have tried not to mention anything - good or bad - about us. In my post this morning, I said that my marriage was still a source of struggle and she commented that people must think we are close to divorce.

Which couldn't be further from the truth.

Kelly and I have traveled a long, bumpy road together. The relationship that has emerged is from years of loving each other despite all odds to the contrary is remarkably strong and resilient.

Parenting has been easy for us. Learning to love each other as parents has been a struggle. We give 100% to parenting, and there is little left over. We work on putting it together, but it is such a far departure from the couple we were before children, when for years our entire life together was about being together.

But, our vow to each other is strong and I have no doubt that we will come through and see the other side of this. We are best friends. We have a foundation built like a nuclear bunker. We might have rough patches...and sometimes we may feel like we are in a never-ending patch...but we are ALwAYS in it together.

Potty Trained!

So, a week ago (Thursday of last week), Bailey decided that she was ready to be potty trained! Her diapers no longer fit her and she was ready to wear panties. And so she put the panties on and hasn't looked back. She's had three accidents. Those happened in the first 3 days. One of them was when I forgot to put a pullup on her during nap. She peed her bed. The other two were about not wanting to stop her activity. She is pooping without drama on the potty. She has used public toilets, gone on hour long car trips, and tells me whenever she needs help. She just doesn't struggle with this. She was ready and she did it on her own. I am a support player in this adventure. Pullups still while she is sleeping, but she knows that when she starts using her potty at night (it is in her room with her), she will be able to start wearing panties. When she is ready...

We are unbelievably proud of our baby girl...

I find myself being so amazed these days. I never thought that I could be this happy doing this job. I just wouldn't have believed it if you had told me that I would be good at this or that I would find a sense of peace. Really, I can't believe it took me so long to make this change. I have never been more confident as a woman or mother. This hasn't been the magic cure for all of the normal stressors. My marriage is still a source of struggle and there is all the normal stress of parenting two young children. But my relationship with me has seen such a dramatic improvement that I feel like a different person. I always carried around so much guilt and doubt. I wondered all the time if I was doing the right thing and I felt like I didn't really know my children. I cared for them, but the hour a day that they were in my direct care wasn't enough to build that deep knowledge of who these two people are. I also didn't know me. I knew that I wanted this, but I was so convinced that I couldn't do it. I was so afraid of failure that I
didn't allow myself to believe that I was capable. The dramatic effect that self-doubt had on my self-confidence as a woman and a mother was so damaging.

But that is over now. I have never been stronger in my role of Momma to these children. I trust myself and my instincts completely with them. Two months into this, and I know them so well they are almost like part of my brain. Because I am with them all the time, I carry no guilt when it's time to be a hardass. I am able to set boundaries and expectations for behavior and enforce them, know that 15 minutes later, when the storm has passed, I still have all day to be with them. We have such a good thing going.

I feel so blessed!

Brick Wall

That's how I visualize myself when I'm having to enforce boundaries, rules, and expectations with our kids. I see the behavior and I visualize myself as the brick wall between it and the kids. On the other side of the wall is the outcome of the bad behavior and on this side is Bailey or Connor. I decide where the line is and then erect the wall. This allows me to (attempt) to stay strong in the face of whatever reaction my kids may have when coming up against that brick wall.

I don't expect them to not be human. I expect them to feel out the boundaries and try to breech them. I know that they will experience frustration and anger when they can't get their way. When they freak out, I try to picture myself as a teflon pan - nothing sticks, it all slides off me.

Of course, it doesn't work all the time. Some days it doesn't work at all. God, it's hard sometimes. Now that there are two of them pushing the rules all the time, and the various fits, frustrations and consequences...it's exhausting. And I feel like I spend all my time being a hardass. But, I don't feel like there is room for error. I really believe that kids need strong boundaries. I don't feel like they are developed enough to set them on their own, and that we are the only thing between them and complete anarchy.

Dramatic, I know. But, when I get lax, the two of them go Lord of the Flies on me.

I'll be happy when we've gotten them both through 3. And then, we can begin preparing for pre-teen...

Responsibility

You know, I didn't care much when I was a woman who worked outside the home. Don't get me wrong - I enjoyed doing a good job at work and being a critical member of whatever team I was on at the time. My last job - as BD Coordinator - was the most difficult for me because the work was NOT great for me. But, again, I didn't care all that much. My job was just what I did to pay the bills. It was a means to an end.

But this job of mine - Chief Caretaker of My Children - is something I care very deeply about. The outcome rests almost completely in my court. If I fuck them up, well...it's MY fault. I get overwhelmed by that awesome responsibility whenever I think about it too much. If you know me, you know that doing something half-assed or being less than the best is really hard for me. My expectations of myself are astronomically high. I expect and require near perfection from me, and when I am unable to meet that expectation, I better be able to say that I gave it 100% and tried as hard as I could.

The problem is that parenting just doesn't work that way. It's NOT a neatly typed job description with clear tasks and detailed critical skills. It is messy and imperfect. My "evaluation" isn't written on a piece of paper and there is no manager telling me if I am doing my job and where I could improve. It all falls to me.

I'm not sure what my point is, except that every day I wake up and try to make the best possible decisions I can for my children. And every day I have successes and failures. On days like yesterday, when my son spent hours whiny and on the floor throwing fits, I question if I am doing this right. But then, he masters some new skill or launches himself into my arms, and I think maybe I am not fucking it up. Bailey came over to me the other day and nestled herself into my arms, rested her head on my breast and wrapped her arms around me, squeezing me into her hug. She looked up at me and said "I love my Momma". I felt better, and more confident, in that moment than I have ever felt sitting in any job review. And I've had some pretty good job reviews.

The thing of it is, though, is that as mothers we carry this awesome load of tasks. That things that need to get done in any day is ridiculous. But we also carry around the weight of responsibility. We carry our children's future. We are tasked with giving the tangible and the infinitely more important intangible.

Growth

This family of ours is growing quickly. Every day I wake up and want to blog about all that is happening, but then I look up and it's time to start preparing dinner. And there is a relentless march of diapers, feeding, activities, resting, comforting, cooking and kisses. I am busier as a stay at home Momma than I have ever been, with much less time for simple things like blogging.

I am also still 100% certain that I am doing the right thing for this time in our family's life. These two children belong home with me and this is what they need. We are still figuring it out - each week presents a new set of challenges and changes. I am certainly learning as I go. There is no room for doubt or even much thought about my decisions. I make 10,000 decisions in every day and the only measure of success I have is the outcome. I fail a lot, but I adjust and we are getting there.

Our kids are pretty spectacular. I know I am biased...and I would be a shitty parent if I were not biased. But, they are pretty cool, I think. Connor is feeling out his boundries these days - he is very whiny, clingy and does what he knows he should not on a regular basis. We are working on it, but he is very different than his sister and I have not yet found the buttons that push him through those moments. Where Bailey is a white hot flash in the pan, Connor is a slow, rolling boil. A fit can last for a very long time, never escalating past constant whining. But, boy, that whiny is relentless. I don't tolerate whiny. Or at least, that is how it works with Bailey. She whines, I ignore, it ends. But that doesn't work with Connor. Ignoring distresses him, sending him into full blown sobs and classic cryfests on the floor that go on and on and on. I think this is manipulation - he's figured out what works. But, boy, it's hard. And time consuming. He would like constant attention.

With that said, he is also making huge strides forward. He is eating solid food - no baby food. He is sleeping through the night and napping well. And he is sweet and mischevious. He really is a great kid and his sweetness is unmatched.

It's still a transition. Less so for the kids. Bailey never mentions school anymore and has come to expect our daily routine. But I am still getting comfortable in my new role. It's working.