First Field Trip

Another amazing benefit to my new status as a stay-at-home mom is being able to participate in events and activities at Philip and Andrew's school (including volunteering to be a room parent for both of their classes) without the stress of worrying about what I should be getting done for work instead. I am loving it!

Today Philip's class visited Round Hill Farm and it was a great morning. Phil was working and Andrew has school too so Lydia and I joined Philip for his first field trip away from school.  He was so excited to be able to play with his friends on the farm. It was a nice way to spend a cool fall morning.

 

When I went to throw that hoodie in the wash later there was corn in the pockets. LOL.

Lydia missed her 9:00 nap time and was less than thrilled about it by 11:00! But she hung in there like a trooper and slept the entire ride back to the school.

It's a GIRL

Publishing this post is a gamble because admitting that you are hoping for one gender over the other when you are pregnant is frowned upon. And that's a polite way of saying that if you ever dare admit such an ugly truth about yourself while all anyone else is ever hoping for is a healthy baby, you better be prepared for the internet lashing of a lifetime.

At least, that's what I've experience on the interwebs. Not personally, because I myself never dared speak up, lest I too be labeled as ungrateful, immature, or superficial. How dare I have a preference beyond ten fingers, ten toes, and healthy? How dare I ever hope for anything more than the blessed state of being pregnant?

Now, I've never suffered from infertility. I don't know that pain and I don't criticize anyone living with infertility for not taking kindly to any pregnant lady hoping for pink over blue, or vice versa. I also don't take for granted the fact that the pregnancies I have been blessed with have all occurred quickly and without medical assistance. Those women are not the targets of this rant. I'm talking about the holier-than-thou, pack-mentality, Mean Moms, who live to tear into unfortunate newbs on the internet who dare share that they've always wanted a daughter and are hoping for a girl. What a monstrous thing to wish for when so many women only want a baby, right? For shame.

So, no. I never shared with anyone other than family that I was really hoping for a girl the third time around.  But what I never shared before that beautiful day in July when I found out she was on her way, was how my desire to have a daughter often all but consumed me on some days.

I always imagined having a daughter. Really, before Phil and I started dating, I only ever pictured myself with daughters. I grew up with sisters. Boys were totally foreign to me. I wanted someone to pass my old Barbie doll down to. I wanted for there to be a reason I had held on to my beloved childhood furniture through all of these years and moves. I wanted.so.desperately to be a part of that prestigious club so many of the moms in my life belonged to: the moms of girls club.

Now, don't get me wrong. I love my boys. I wanted my boys. I wanted two boys. And I was just as thrilled to find out during my first pregnancy that I was having a boy as I would have been had I found out I was having a girl. I love being a mom to boys. They are affectionate. They are playful. And they are fun and funny wild little rascals and they love their mama so much and watching them with their dad makes my heart soar. My life would not be complete without them and, knowing what I know now, had I only had girls, I would have sorely longed to have a son. I would have never felt complete without being a Boy Mom.

But after Andrew was born I began to feel the desire to have a daughter that much more. Not only that, but I began to worry that maybe since I didn't have a girl the second time around, maybe I would never have a girl. Maybe my husband didn't "make girls," so to speak. Maybe it wasn't in the cards for me to join that club. And when more of my friends began having girls and then, even harder, my family started having girls, I began to feel that much more.... panicked... that I'd never know what those careless woman meant when they made comments like "just two little boys" and "little boys are wonderful but baby girls are just so special."  Cringe.

Now I only had two little boys at home---not six. There was no real legitimate reason for me to jump to such hysterical conclusions as "I don't have a daughter because I am not girly enough."  I wasn't frequenting "Gender Disappointment" message boards (okay, so I browsed and recalled in terror a few times). I wasn't researching homeopathic methods of conceiving a certain gender or pocketing away money for expensive "gender selection" procedures (okay, maybe I spent more time lurking on those boards than I care to admit). I didn't frequent those boards because I had so-called gender disappointment. I wasn't disappointed that I had sons. Not in the slightest. I just longed to have a daughter, too.

And although the desire to have a little girl of my own sometimes kept me up at night, it was never in my plan to just keep having kids until I finally got a girl. We planned for #3 before the genders of #1 and #2 were ever known. And, had I been told last July that we were expecting our third son, I can't say with certainty that #4 would be in the plans now. I am just as uncertain about whether or not we will have one more child with two boys and a girl in our family as I would have been if we had three boys in our family.

I do feel like, if we were to decide we were done having children right now, I would feel "more complete" with my two boys and a girl than I would have felt had we had three boys. I've always wanted a daughter. I've always imagined myself with a daughter. And I know in my heart that if that dream had never become a reality for me, that ache would have never completely gone away. She would have always been missing on my heart.

And so I am not ashamed to say that the day I found out Lydia was on her way, I was overwhelmed with joy and disbelief. This was the news I had been hoping for in secret for so long. I couldn't believe it was to be our reality.

And she has changed the dynamic of our family in many ways. She has brought a softness to our family. She has captured my husband's heart in a way only a daughter can do. She has given her brothers the role of protectors; they love her so much. And she has changed my life forever. My girl. My sweet little sunshine. When she was just born I was so in awe of her and in those early days of postpartum hormonal craziness, I remember thinking "I'm going to be one of those moms who says her daughter is her best friend." And I do hope that is the case for us. I hope we are always close. I hope she confides in me as a child, teenager, and an adult. I hope I am never uncool to her. I hope I'm the one she calls whenever she has any kind of a heartache or joy to share. I hope she too considers me to be her best friend, at least at some point in her life.

I hope we have what I have always longed for for myself.

"A daughter is one of the most beautiful gifts this world has to give." 

 Laurel Athedon

Never Grow Up

I'm not a fan of my kids growing up. I have friends who seem to embrace every new milestone, and appreciate the new independence and abilities their children are acquiring as they age, and I wonder, "why can't I feel more like that?" I try so hard to live in the moment; really enjoy the little people my kids are becoming, and look forward to their next new accomplishment. But, more often than not, I find myself lamenting each new phase, and mourning the loss of a once treasured toy, book, or movie. Why can't they be sweet, little, and innocent forever? Why do they have to put away childish things and move away? Why can't Philip adore Caillou until he is 18? (Okay, not seriously. Maybe eight?).

So many of my friends seem to rejoice when it's time to give away the crib and not carry around diapers anymore. I hope when that day finally comes for me that I am finally ready for it, too.

I "red-shirted" Philip for kindergarten. He could've/should've gone this fall, but his teachers felt it best for his emotional and social development if he repeated his first preschool year, so that's what we did. Although it wasn't a decision I arrived at easily, I have to admit that one of the reasons it appealed to me on a mom level was that I could postpone sending him out into the big, bad world of school bus bullies and peer influence and keep him little one more year. And, even though the day will come a whole year later when I'll finally have to put him on that big yellow bus, I'll still be up all night in tears, dreading the sunrise. I know I will.

My kids getting older doesn't make me excited. It makes me anxious, clingy, and nostalgic. I love the baby days. Heck, I love the newborn days. I love the toddler days. The rocking and singing lullabies to sleep. I love that my kids still need me in an uninhibited, not embarrassing, full of honesty and innocence kind of way. Admittedly, I don't look forward to the day when I'm not the center of their universe. :-p

Hopefully it will just be a natural progression of time passing that causes me not to tear up when I change out one school picture for the next. When I finally accept that there is nothing in the toddler section for my son after size 5T. When there's no where left for me to shop for him but the
big boys" section, the one that's filled with licensed character pajamas featuring Lego Star Wars, Ninja Turtles, and something called "Mine Craft" [("Mind Craft?" I don't even know. Correction: I don't  to know!)]  Where none of the clothes say "Daddy's Little Quarterback." (Reading over this, I realize that clothing seems to cause me a lot of mental anguish :-p). The day my PJ-loving oldest decides footie pajamas are no longer for him may be the day I finally go and get that anxiety prescription I very well may need.

I do find that seeing Philip get older and tackle all of these firsts, first, is much harder on me than watching his little brother do them two years later. I am hopeful that will help me get through the many passing stages and phases that lay ahead of us with Andrew and Lydia. I just pray that watching my baby leave her babyhood behind her doesn't cause me even more stress than watching my oldest do it!

Philip, age 5

Andrew, age 3

Lydia, 8 months

"Your little hand's wrapped around my finger
And it's so quiet in the world tonight
Your little eyelids flutter cause you're dreaming
So I tuck you in, turn on your favorite night light
To you everything's funny, you got nothing to regret
I'd give all I have, honey
If you could stay like that

Oh darlin', don't you ever grow up
Don't you ever grow up, just stay this little
Oh darlin', don't you ever grow up
Don't you ever grow up, it could stay this simple
I won't let nobody hurt you, won't let no one break your heart
And no one will desert you
Just try to never grow up, never grow up"

Taylor Swift, "Never Grow Up"

Just knowing

The eternal question: How do you know when your family is complete? Google produces few helpful answers. The most common response seems to be "you just know." I've asked moms who have declared their families complete how they knew they were done. Evidently, they "just did."

Phil and I always talked in terms of three kids. Scratch that. When we started dating we talked numbers right away. He said two. I said three or four. I knew my family line up while they were just a twinkle in the sky. Boy, boy, girl...

I miscarried my first pregnancy at 7 weeks 5 days. Upon seeing those glorious pink lines I began shopping right away for gender neutral baby apparel. It seemed a real possibility to have either a son or a daughter. Speculation ran wild for those three short weeks.

The pregnancy ended in a blighted ovum--the earliest of stages of a baby that was not meant to be. My only pregnancy during which I never had any gut feelings about the baby's gender.

When I became pregnant with our son, I wasn't more than eight weeks along before I purchased the bedding for his bedroom: antique police cars from Pottery Barn Kids, in honor of his dad. It would be months before the baby's gender would be revealed in an ultrasound but, in my heart, I knew the child growing inside of me was my son. My baby boy. The firstborn I had always imagined.  It wasn't even a true surprise during my 20 week ultrasound when my suspicions were confirmed. I had known all along.

As my pregnancy with baby number two bumped along, my heart told me from the beginning that this child was our second boy; Philip's baby brother. But this time I let doubt creep in a bit more as the anatomy scan drew near. Maybe it could be a girl? So many strangers, upon seeing me pregnant and out and about with my one year old son, even went so far as to ask "is it a girl?" before they even knew how far along I was. Possibly this could be our daughter? Maybe we would have one of each and be done? But I knew better. And when the tech confirmed that Andrew was a boy, I thought to myself, of course he is. I always knew that.

Now I had two sons and well-meaning family assumed (sometimes even decided) we were done. Statistics even told me a third child after two children of the same gender was more likely to be the same gender as its siblings than the opposite gender. But my heart longed, nay ached for a daughter (a subject for another post). Of course, I knew I wanted three children, be the third boy or girl, and expanding our family was a decision made on our desire to add another member to it rather than to "try for a girl." I didn't feel complete after my second child was born, at least I know that for sure. I knew that, God willing, I'd be back on that maternity floor delivering our third child. It was just a matter of when.

I got pregnant with our third child in April of 2012 and the desire to know what we were having was all consuming. So much so that I couldn't wait for the anatomy scan this time to find out. Instead I went at 16 weeks and paid to have a gender reveal scan done. I'm not ashamed to say that I wanted to know if we were expecting a boy or a girl before everyone else would also expect to know. If we were having our third boy, I wanted to deal with any feelings I may have had over not having the girl I was hoping for in private. My sister-in-law had a baby girl in 2011. My sister found out she was expecting a girl in 2012. It was a club I was so hoping to become a member of. And when the tech typed the words It's a... GIRL up on that screen my heart seemed to both stop and explode at the same time. How lucky was I to have the family I had always imagined? Three beautiful, healthy children. Two boys and a girl. My dreams made into my reality in four and a half short years' time.

Now our family would feel complete. Right? Surely I would leave that hospital the following January with the feeling that everyone was present and accounted for and my husband could finally breathe a sigh of relief. ;) But almost nine months later I still don't have that contentedness I was hoping to have. While I know that if we were to be done having children right now I'd feel more peace than I would have felt had we stopped after Andrew was born, I know I would not feel total peace. And as much as the idea of another nine months of sickness and agony makes me want to call up my O.B. and ask for that birth control prescription he keeps reminding me is available, my thoughts of one empty seat at the kitchen table, one open seat in the back of the minivan, continue to creep into my mind on a daily basis. Maybe someone is still missing after all?

Thankfully my husband continues to be open to the possibility of just one more. Neither of us has made up our mind either way; only time will tell. In the meantime, I'm not parting with the baby clothes until I too "just know."

My new job title: Stay at home Mom

I got my first real job after college at the end of December 2007. Days after my interview, I got pregnant with my first child. At the time, I was working a part-time job for the local county government while trying to find something full-time. Morning sickness set in, and I ended up leaving that position in March of 2008. It was nice to be able to rest when I wanted to and not worry about getting dressed during the day if I wasn't feeling up to it. I was sick for the majority of my pregnancy. I was still waiting on my security clearance to go through for my new job and didn't know when that would end up happening. I didn't start work full time until June of 2008, right before my third trimester began.

Philip was born when I was just three months at my new job and I went back full time in December of 2008 after my maternity leave when he was three months old. That same month, we also bought our first house and my position as a working mom was solidified. It was hard. I worked full time for the next two years, always around Phil's work schedule. At the time he worked 6 pm to 2 am five days a week so we made it work without childcare. In 2010, he changed jobs, and was put on a 2 on, 2 off, three on, schedule. As a result, I had to switch to part time work in order to fit in my hours on his days off. From that point in time up until August 2013, I worked between 20 and 30 hours per week around Phil's schedule, without childcare. And it was a logistical nightmare. One that resulted in my frequently being stressed out and unhappy. I couldn't be a good employee and a good mother at the same time when I was trying to be both things at once. But being married to a civil servant and not making a boatload of cash myself, paid child care for our two children was out of the question. We had to press on, making it work, often at the cost of my mental health.

In May 2013, Phil was presented for an opportunity to take on a part-time position, at twice the pay of my hourly wage, to work around his full time job. With him working this new job while also working a full-time job, and being a part-time college student, it made the most sense logisically for one of us to assume the role of breadwinner, while they other assumed the role of full-time care taker for our soon to be three children. Thankfully this was an arrangement we both arrived at happily and that felt right to the both of us. Although I was anxious about no longer earning a regular paycheck, I was more than happy to leave the stress of my ever-changing, constantly stressful, never truly part-time, part-time job of five years behind.

I've been at home full time for a month now and while being a stay-at-home mom is by no means easy and certainly has its own daily stresses, not having to also be a working mom, often at the same time, has been such a huge relief. I am a happier, nicer mom and wife. I love being able to be more involved at Philip and Andrew's preschool and not having to see the sad look on my children's faces when I leave for work. I like the traditional role of at home mom. I have never been a career-minded individual. All I have ever truly aspired to be in this life was a mother, and there's nothing wrong with that.

I still very much feel like I want and need to be bringing in some kind of an income, but I am looking forward to having the time available to figure out how I am going to go about doing that in the future. I in no way, shape, or form wish to go back to the line of work I did before. While the benefits and flexibility were great, the monotony and pressure of the work were soul-crushing. If I have to work for a living, I hope I can find something that brings in a paycheck and also makes me at least moderately happy. In the meantime, I am enjoying being right where I have wanted to be since the moment we brought our first child home from the hospital--at home with my kids. It's a blessing I will not take for granted, even on the toughest days.