Selfish Mom

I read this post a while ago (cannot remember where or I would link to it) about how mom's can easily find themselves saying "no" too often and how selfish that is.  This resonated with me so much that I have changed how I do things in my life.  I found myself saying "no" a ton - mommy, can I help you with the laundry? "no", mommy, can I help you make dinner? "no".  Sure it can be frustrating to try and make dinner with someone underfoot, especially after a long day of work and stuff.  Doing the laundry with a toddler in tow means she will find a toy downstairs, maybe bring downstairs things upstairs, or something else equally as insignificant.  Does it really add that much time and frustration to allow her to get involved?  The answer is "no".

So, over the last 6 months, I have made an effort to say "yes" more often.  To ask the princess if she wants to run the store with me if I have to make a quick trip.  If we both get up early on Saturday, we will go to the store and get sugar cereal or pancakes, while my husband and the munchkin sleep.  She enjoys helping me cook.  She loves to help me sort the laundry!  She will bring down her underwear basket and her sock basket and help me sort out those things, which is actually a big help.  It is great for both of us to let her get involved, and she is learning about housework!  It is a win-win!  Sure, there are times it is more annoying than helpful trying to cook multiple things at the stove with a chair in the middle, and there are times I do say "no" because we are short on time.  But, I remember that post I read and I try to say "yes" more often than not. 

I have learned a lot about the princess by saying yes more often.  I think this is especially true now that we have two kids (not a kid and a baby); these outings with just the two of us are a good way to connect without me getting stressed about the whole two kids, one parent with stuff to do situation.  I recommend all mommies take stock of how often they say "no".  You might learn something about your kids! 

Thanks for listening!
~Erin

The race is done

We have been busy lately.  Overwhelmingly busy.  Really, not just "lately", but for the last two months.  I can barely remember when it started, and honestly, the past two months are like a blur for me.  It all started when I took on my first proposal.  I am a government contractor and have always worked the "40-hour a week" government contracting jobs.  In August, my company asked for my help on a proposal. 

And so a new addiction was born.  That is a bit of an exaggeration, but it is really cool that I am part of this team and understand this new language and have these opportunities.  Proposals are awesome because they stretch the brain, make you think bigger and outside the box, and require an amazing amount of time and effort.  I spent days working my "regular" job, then would come home, cook, eat dinner with the fam, and jump right into the proposal - often working four or more hours at night, only to jump in bed for 5 or less hours of sleep before restarting the cycle.  It was both tiring and not tiring - the adrenaline rush of doing this and being part of this team kept me going.  When the proposal was over, I definitely crashed.  Unfortunately, I did not have much time to recover before the next proposal kicked off and I was back to the crazy hours! 

In addition to my regular job and the back-to-back proposals, we also had a week long vacation and two out of town weddings.  Writing it out here just does not make it seem as tough as it has been.  But it was tough - I was literally doing work until midnight Saturday night before we left for vacation.  We drove home late that Friday, unpacked the car, went to bed, and were up early Saturday morning to get the kids to the in-laws and head up to the wedding.  We got back Sunday night and I found out I had to work Columbus day.  And we worked - 20+ hours...I arrived at the office around 6:30am and did not leave until 3:30am the NEXT day!  The week that followed was one of the busiest I have had here at my "regular" job, complete with a surprise briefing to the big boss. 

This past weekend we had our other out of town wedding.  We had a fantastic time, and a great weekend.  I enjoyed this weekend more than most we have had, and it was not because this wedding was better than the previous.  They were both fantastic weddings.  But, this Sunday I took a different approach to life.  We decided to totally forget about the clock (except to check mass times and try to find one that fit OUR schedules).  We slept late and let the kids watch cartoons (for the second time in their life) in the hotel room.  We had a big, fairly expensive, breakfast in a local diner.  We took a sentimental drive up to see my grandparents' old home and all the sites of my childhood. We stopped at a Farmer's Market on the side of the road and picked pumpkins.  We got home when we got home and found time for church.  We ate a bucket of KFC on a tablecloth in the family room to ignore the mess in the kitchen.  It was RELAXING.

I went to work Monday morning with a whole new attitude.  Knowing my brief was over and my inbox was relatively cleaned out, I had all week to get stuff done.  I have no weekend plans from now until mid-November and plan to keep it that way, which leaves plenty of time to get to the housework and laundry and other various projects.  As a result of all this empty time stretching ahead of me, I feel lighter!  happier! more refreshed!  I cannot believe I let our schedules get this out of whack, but I am glad I did.  I have learned that I can live on less sleep, that I have a fantastic work ethic, that my kids understand when mommy has to work late, and that it is okay to use these opportunities to teach them about working hard.  But most of all I have learned that piling too much on - even if it is all "fun" - weighs me down.  It literally depresses me.  Once we "crossed the finish line", I immediately felt happier and my energy level soared.

Yesterday I picked the kids up and drove out to my parents house for dinner - something I orchestrated from the parking lot of daycare just because I could.  Tonight maybe we will go to the park or the library.  Or maybe I will go home and clean the kitchen and try a new recipe.  Doesn't matter what we do, we have so much time ahead of us to get it all done! 

*Sorry if this was the most boring post I have written.  I needed to write this to remind myself to slow down, stop committing to everything, and just relax.


Thanks for listening!
~Erin

does anyone still follow this? please do not unsubscribe!

I cannot seem to blog with any regularity, which is disappointing.  I read so many blogs, and I love all of them.  Maybe I read too many and have no time to write?  Maybe I am just boring? 

In any case, I am going to try to blog with more regularity once again.  In honor of that, I joined Twitter.  Something I said I would never do.  But I did and I freaking love the thing!  Join Twitter!  Follow me @crackinguperin

That is it for today.  Baby steps, people. 

Thanks for listening!
~Erin

Happy Anniversary to Us!

My husband and I celebrated our fourth anniversary last week.  While this is no big milestone, like passing the 7-year itch phase or hitting 25 years, for me, it feels like a major anniversary. 

When we first got married, I moved in straight from my parent's house, where I lived after graduating college.  I had never lived on my own, managed tons of major bills, bought my own groceries, etc.  My husband had done all of these things, but quite frankly, not that well - he usually paid bills when the pink slips hit!  Our first year of marriage was quite a rollercoaster.  It was blissfully awesome to live together and do fun things, go out to eat, set up house, and all of those fun, new experiences of owning a home and being newlyweds.  We found out - SURPRISE - we were expecting only three months into marriage, and were overwhelmed with joy and with our families joy!  Of course that meant there were plenty of hormones my husband had to contend with that first year.  And then there were the fights.  In our first two years of marriage we had some real knock-down (not literally), drag out fights where we yelled and cursed and threw things (not at each other!) and slammed doors.  Eventually one or the other would come crawling over to apologize and life would be good, but the fights were ugly.  I can even remember at least one, if not two or three fights, where we threw out the "D" word!  Then, as my daughter was turning a year old and we were approaching our second anniversary, we found out - SURPRISE! - we were pregnant again.  Both pregnancies were welcome and exciting events!  When baby number two joined her toddling older sister, life became crazy busy; in sometimes stressful, but mostly awesome ways.  There is no way to prepare for the jump from one to two kids, it was certainly (at least for me) more life changing than the jump from zero to one kids! 

Maybe this is some relationships downfall - you have more kids, you grow apart, they get older, and you are left with nothing.  But, I am blessed to be able to say this is not true for my husband and me.  In the last two years, we have grown closer than I ever thought possible.  We have so much more respect for each other, our roles, and our contributions than we did before.  I think all of those huge fights allowed us to better our communication.  The fact that we were each willing to apologize (him, more so than me - something I am still working on today), gave us the trust to know that we would always be there for each other.  I can honestly say I cannot remember the last fight we had.  Every single day I feel 100% content in my life and I feel secure in my husband's love in every way.  I used to look back on our first year of marriage with happiness, but also some discomfort; now, I look back on those first two years fondly, not just for all the fun, but also for all the bad times that brought us closer together and made us the couple we are today.  I cannot wait to see what happens next!

So, happy anniversary, Jon!  I love you - forever and always :)

Thanks for listening!
~Erin

Reading!

Reading is my favorite hobby! I try to read a little every night before bed, but obviously since having children, my nightly hour of reading is down to a few pages most nights. But if the kids are in bed and my husband is watching a show I do not care about (or, worse, working late), I'll head to bed early and cozy up with my book!

My favorite author of all time is: Jodi Piccoult
I own every single book she has written and can barely contain myself from heading to the store the day a new release is on the shelves.

My favorite book of all time is Pillars of the Earth
I really like most everything Ken Follett writes, but this book is my favorite. I used to think it was because my dad gave it to me and said "this is my favorite book", but have since discovered a lot of people consider this a favorite!

My guilty pleasure is romance novels. I also own almost every book (because seriously, she has written a LOT of books) by Nora Roberts
My other guilty pleasure (in the romance, comedy, mystery section) is the numbers series by Janet Evanovich

What I am reading right now...Lowcountry books. I have been a fan of Pat Conroy for years. I just discovered his wife, Cassandra King, is also an author! And, my mom just discovered two authors I am obsessed with right now: Dorthea Benton Frank and Mary Alice Monroe. If you do not know about Lowcountry books, they are fictional novels based in South Carolina low country (marsh, beach area), and are generally interesting, romantic, historically based, novels about family, life, love, and generations.  I have read about 5 of their books so far and plan to read as many as I can this summer!

If you think I am kidding about my love of reading, ask my husband about our honeymoon. Some people packed handcuffs and other such fun "honeymoon" toys; I packed 10 books. And read about 6!

Question: Who has more time? Answer: No one!

In yesterday's post about balance, I mentioned that I work full-time. I want to clarify that I do not think a SAHM would necessarily have any more balance than I do, though if she does, kudos to that mom!

I have a group of girl friends that I love dearly.  This group includes two working moms (one is me), one SAHM, and two working single women (one is my sister).  I know the two working single women often feel as if the rest of us think they have more time and less responsibility.  While it may be true the lack of children gives them less responsibility, I do not think their lives are easier at all.  First off, I get to share all my chores, my issues, my everything with my husband.  Single people do not have that luxury.  Even if you have a roommate, she is not co-invested in your life the way a spouse is.  Secondly, they are career women.  I consider myself to be a career woman as well, but my focus is split between my career and my home.  My sister works so many hours doing so many things to advance her career and build her network, I totally think she deserves a cleaning person and a cook as much - if not sometimes, more - than I do.  And lastly, most single people are looking for a spouse.  This is no futile effort.  I think if I were single right now, I might drive over to a convent and sign right up, because watching my single friends do this dating dance disaster thing is frequently more awful than awesome.

I have been thinking about staying at home lately (another post for another day), and imagining this amazing world in which my house is clean, my laundry is done, I am an amazing cook, and so on.  Obviously I know this is not the case.  I do think if I stayed home I would have more time to do those things because I will not be commuting or working all day.  But, the reality is, I would not get up at 5am and use the 3 hours before my kids are awake to be productive; I would be sleeping too.  I might not work 8 hours a day, but I would be taking care of my children 16 hours a day.  16 hours a day is a LONG time.  I like my kids, but I also like time away from kids and happily send them off to daycare - there are weekends when Sunday night cannot come soon enough for me.  I read a blog post by A Shorter Mama about time and balance as a SAHM - she recently went from a working mom to a SAHM and thought all these same things I did/do.  But, the truth is, her days are just as busy, but they are busy with different things. 

Sometimes I think working moms have it easiest.  Because of work, my days are naturally routine and scheduled; therefore, adding laundry and cleaning to schedule is relatively easy.  If I go to the store on Monday night, I know I will not have time/energy for other stuff, but if I make extra for dinner Monday, I know that I can use dinner prep time to clean on Tuesday.  If I were a SAHM, there would be nothing pushing me to this type of schedule because for the most part any schedule we would have (with the exception of scheduled activities) would be self-imposed and easily changed. 

In the end, I just have to realize while the grass usually looks greener on the other side, it is important to stop and realize that my yard is just how I want it to be.

Balance?

I quite one of the most irritating conversations with my mother a few weeks ago, so irritating in fact, that I am still stewing over her words! We were chatting and I was telling her all about our weekend. We did whole bunch of things - saw family, played with friends, went to new playgrounds. I thought it sounded like a really great weekend. But, then my mom asked "when do you get your laundry and cleaning done?" I half-jokingly said "never", but then clarified and said, "at different times, sometimes Saturday morning, sometimes through the week, and sometimes it does not get done." So, then she says in her mom tone of voice that means I am saying something nice and normal but it is mean and hurtful: "It is great that you do not care if your stuff is done. That would really bother me, but it sounds like you do not mind if your house is not clean and your laundry is not done. That is great."

My feelings were hurt. Really hurt. Does she really think I do not give a hoot if my house is unclean? Really? Of course I want my house to be clean. I want my family to have clean clothes. I want, I want...But the reality is, I am a mom. I have to manage the kids, the household, chores, bills, etc, and I work a full work week, which requires me to commute 37 miles each way. I want a lot of things, but mostly I want the energy, time, and motivation do them all!

The truth is I feel guilty all the time. I feel guilty about my messy (and sometimes dirty) house, the lack of clean clothes, the lack of folded put away clean clothes, the numerous unfinished or even unstarted house projects, and the disorganization of so many storage areas. I also feel guilyy about only working my 40-44 hours a week. I am frequently the person in my group who works the least number of hours - I am more efficient than most of the team members, but quantitative data does not reflect my productivity in those 40 hours. I feel guilty every time I leave work early for a kid's doctor appointment or school show, and I feel guilty that I take more sick days because I have to stay home with my sick kids. I also feel guilty that my kids have to go to daycare. My toddler thrives there, and honestly, I would send her there even if I did stay home - provided we could afford to do so, but the baby I think would do better at home for a while. I feel guilty when I am home with my kids for one hour and get so fed up I want to send them back to school!

So, the guilt. It is always there. Sometimes it is crushing, sometimes all these guilt inducing things balance each other out and I feel fine. But I am okay with this. While I may feel guilty a lot, while I may never find a "balance" (aka, nirvana), I do feel content 90-95% of the time. As long as I maintain that 90-95%, I am okay!