Super Mom? Yes, Ma'am

About two years ago, my daughter A was born.  After being home for a couple of days, I had the panicked thought, "I'm never going to have time to cook a meal again! There is never enough time to do the prep work and then actually cook - she needs to eat so often, and wants to be held at the most inconvenient times!"  Then I took a deep breath and banished the thought from my mind - that was why I stocked my freezer ahead of time, right?  Yep.  So I just kept plugging along and doing the best that I could.  Lo and behold, around the time she turned two I realized that I was really starting to feel like myself again.  I no longer felt like I needed to sleep every time I got 5 minutes to sit down.  I had energy again!  Until then, I don't think I understood that I hadn't fully recovered from her coming into our lives.  Yes, my body was recovered in the sense that stitches were healed, but not from the getting less than two hours of sleep at a time and trying to keep everything from crashing down around me while providing A with everything that she needed.  The mental and emotional stress was overwhelming.  I have many balls in the air, stressful full time job, getting A to and from daycare, quality time with my husband, managing around his crazy schedule and solo parenting during his work week, getting decent meals on the table, visiting family on a regular basis who live 1-2 hours away, caring for our elderly and immune compromised dog, part-time job, house still under renovation...and on and on. 

I always told myself that I'm not super mom and that I would never try to be.  But that is exactly what I was unconsciously doing.  And something had to give.  I was sacrificing my well being to keep all those balls in the air.  I was staying up way too late to get things done, I wasn't exercising, I was frustrated at work and my house looked like a bomb hit it.  The only thing I was really getting right was loving my family and enjoying my time with A. 

I have gradually been putting little routines in place that have helped me tremendously.  Something as simple as picking out my clothes the night before and putting everything I need to take with me the next day in one spot, ready to go, saves me anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour in the morning.  (I am sooo not a morning person.) I've been doing that for a couple of years now.  Other than that, though,  I have mentally resisted the truism that daily routines really do make life easier.  Intellectually, I knew it was true, but I always had an excuse ready for why it wouldn't work for me.

The next thing I worked on was having at least a rough plan for meals for the coming week.  This is usually based around what I have in the fridge that will go bad if it isn't used promptly.  I try to cook and freeze or refrigerate at least three meals for the coming week on Sunday, and I use my crock pot frequently.  (It's so addictive!)  I found a couple of tools that really make meal planning, prep and execution so much easier - since my goal is not just to get any old thing on the table, but to make an effort to have it be healthy and taste good.  I don't remember how I got by without the Six O'Clock Scramble (requires a subscription) or Stephanie O'Dea's Year of Slow Cooking blog.  These ladies know what they are doing!

Without realizing it, my routines have turned me into a super mom!  Not in the sense that I originally thought, where mom is stressed out trying to do it all.  More in the way that if I stick to a few simple routines, I gain a cleaner house, am less stressed and we are all happier and more relaxed.  I actually had the time and energy to bake cookies with A on Monday night!  A work night!  This was previously unheard of in our house! 

I'm on a roll, so more posts on routines will be coming in the next week.  I can't believe I resisted this for so long!  Next up is laundry!

Making New Friends

I must admit that I get a little worried sometimes that my daughter is going to wildly misbehave when she meets a new little friend.  Am I the only one?  It's not based in reality, as I know that there are going to be times when she just does not get along with another kid.  There will be personality conflicts, there will be tantrums for any reason or no reason.  All part of life and growing up.  But I can't help noticing that my parenting is being judged on her behavior.  Again, I dismiss it pretty much immediately, because it doesn't matter what other people think - pretty much every parenting decision I've ever made makes me a bad parent in someone's eyes.  But it flits through my mind.  I'm never going to let it get in the way of my daughter meeting new kids, that would be wrong.  Especially because she is such a social little girl.  She loves other kids, especially those who are smaller than she is.  "Bay-beee!!" 

In reality, we get a lot of compliments on our daughter's behavior.  Which makes me feel a little funny too.  I've always had to work at taking compliments graciously, especially if I don't feel like I did anything to earn them. We spent Saturday with a couple of dear friends and the one year old niece of one of those friends.  The one year old is a sweet baby, very mobile and with her own mischievous twinkle.  She has the sweetest dimpled smile!  The two had a great time together - my daughter noticed how much the baby liked french fries and started feeding her my fries at dinner.  My daughter also made quite an impression on the adults that she met for the first time that evening, and we've been invited to come back.  Such a nice feeling!!

On Sunday, we started doing the legwork on yet another possible home improvement project.  We are looking for a wood stove insert for our fireplace.  (Hooray!  The beauty of a wood fire without sucking all the heat out of the house and up the chimney!)  My daughter does pretty well out and about in stores, but there are so many variables that go into it.  Has she had her nap?  Is she hungry?  How restrictive do I have to be with wandering?  How kid-friendly is the store/staff?  I was actually surprised at how well this went, because I thought I would have to have her on lock down in a woodstove/fireplace showroom.  Fortunately, there was only one unit that was lit in the area that we were in, and it was easy to keep her clear of it.  They also had toys in store (though we had brought a few of our own just in case).  Several members of the staff commented on how happy and patient she was.  She was very good, though I hate that phrase, because I feel like it's used in inappropriate contexts, i.e. that people expect young children to be "good" even when their main form of communication is crying and body language. But I digress.

She had a great weekend, several fun outings despite rainy weather.  I love fall, but at the same time am sad that summer is over.  I am already getting nostalgic for warm days spent entirely outside!

Out with the Old, In with the New...Ideally

I'm so happy it's Friday.  This has been a super long week. Though not without high points, it has just been crazy busy.  Work has both ups and downs (am on a very exciting project that I have a lot to contribute to, but have to deal with a difficult co-worker), and home life is non-stop as usual.  We went furniture shopping yet again, but with different results this time.  Woohoo!  We found a living room set that we could agree on that also fits in our budget! I was beginning to think it would never happen and we would be sitting on the floor after the old sofa finally gave up the ghost...which was very close to happening.  It started to feel like buying a car.  On the final visit Wednesday night, we had it narrowed down to two almost identical sets.  Then came the sitting on one, moving to the other.  Rinse and repeat.  This went on for an hour easily, as my husband wanted to be sure about which one he liked better.  Factor in 3 trips to the potty for our 22 month old.  Oh, and of course the sets we were looking at were at the farthest part of the store away from the restroom.  Other than the trips to the restroom, she did great, happily sitting on the furniture in the showroom, playing with a balloon, and eating the non-staining snacks I brought along.  Then the signing and initialing 6 copies of paper work.  We finally got out of there at 9:15.  So that was a long, though victorious, evening.

Happily, they scheduled the delivery very quickly.  Sadly, that meant scrambling to get the old sofa out and the love seat temporarily parked in the living room to another temporary holding spot upstairs.  I was the only one around to help my husband with this.  Hmm.  We do not have a good history with moving furniture together.  Every time we attempt it, I remember that I never ever want to move again.  I do fine with other friends, but he and I do not do well in this particular arena.  I think the fact that I am 5'1" and he is 6'2" has a lot to do with it.  Our daughter got very upset when we started to move the sofa, which surprised me.  She sat in the dining room pointing to where the sofa had been and saying, "No, sofa back!"  Other than that, we did okay, got everything moved without any muttering about divorce and no trip to the ER.  Always a plus.  

I figured today would be easy, my husband will take delivery of the furniture, I'll call for bulk pickup of the old sofa and carpet.  Easy peasy.  Ha.  I should have known better.    

I called the town to schedule a bulk pickup and the lady who answers the phone tells me that I have to wait until January because they discontinue bulk pickup to do leaf pickup.  Okay.  For 3 MONTHS!?!  I'm thinking that my neighbors probably do not want to look at the 10 year old blue velvet sofa out in front of my house for that long.  The more she insists that I can either bring the stuff to the dump myself or have to wait til January, the more frustrated I become.  Putting aside the fact that almost no leaves have actually fallen from the trees yet, our town has very high taxes and it is becoming clearer by the day that residents get almost NO services for them.  We have to pay for weekly trash pickup, for sewer service, trying to get get permits to get work done is a challenge (and don't get me started on the time a township inspector lectured me that the town is involved in my addition to protect me, but missed the fact that there was no structural support designed for our new second floor), and I could go on and on.  And now I can add to the list that the first time in the 11 years that we've lived here and needed bulk pickup, they aren't doing them.  I asked the woman on the phone what services I get for the $xx,xxx tax dollars I pay every year.  She told me I was being nasty to her.  I really wasn't.  I didn't threaten her, get aggressive or curse at her.  I just asked her questions she couldn't answer.  She, however, was snide to me from the minute I said the words, "bulk pickup".  When I said I was going to just put it out at the curb and leave it there, she demanded my address.  I wasn't sure whether that was because she was scheduling me for a pickup after all or if it was so she could send code enforcement to give me a ticket.  Thankfully, she deigned to schedule a special pickup for me.  Whew.  I am relieved that I don't have to look at that thing for 3 more months.  

The fun continues.  Our house has three doors.  The sofa won't fit through two of them.  (I again curse the architect who designed our addition.)  The third one has a 90 degree turn immediately and this thing can't possibly make the turn.  So they have to bring it in through the kitchen window, over the island, through the dining room and finally make it into the living room.  Am I the only one who is happy to not be present for things like this?  I get so stressed by stuff like this.  It's just better if I'm not even there.  I'm not sure why I get so worked up.  Not being home is better.  I do something else to take my mind off of it and I get a call after it's all over.

And I just got that call.  Hooray!  Bring on the weekend, I am ready to collapse onto the new sofa!