Motherhood is Not a Fix-All

Some women think a baby will "fix" a relationship.
It won't.
Some women think a baby will put an end to all the things you don't like about yourself.
It won't.
A lot of women think that once they're a mom they will be ( and have to be) pefect.
They don't.
I won't.

I read a very scary article that is being touted as "honest." Just because it's honest doesn't mean it should be passed off to the masses as normal or OK. I don't think it's OK that the author feels the way she does at home (angry and resentful: her words, not mine) with her children or towards her work-out-of-the-house spouse. I mean, unless she wants to feel that way... but it doesn't sound like it.
Some things I noticed in her post are self-imposed problems: she expects herself to be perfect; she looks at her husband working as him "getting to be 'out all day'"; she focuses on all the hard things she does; she expects to be able to do everything {often on her own} with 3 CHILDREN, 6 and under; and she expects to be involved in a lot of school-functions. She says the only time she feels truly happy is when she is out of the house with the children.

Now I have NO IDEA what having 1 (let-alone 3) child is like and how hard it is, but I do know about being married and some of the lessons are transferrable. I've also learned a lot about myself in the past year or so and those lessons are universal. Shawn and I read and discussed the article together last night, and these are our collective thoughts:

Moms have to be Perfect
This is, frankly, stupid. Being a mother is not a given, not a default option for any woman. It is an exhausting choice among many choices women can make, and should be regarded as such instead of something women are "born to do" and "have to be." Mothers, like all women childless and otherwise, are people. People are not perfect. So perfect mom = not existent.

SAHM's/SAHD's Don't Work
This has recently been verbalized in the news and is one of the most detrimental thoughts in parent-culture, IMO. Staying at home with children ALL DAY, EVERYDAY has to be hard as hell. How many hours of Baby Einstein can you take? How many messes can you clean in one day while performing normal household chores?! It's HARD! But a working-outside-the-house parent is no more "out all day" than the SAHP is "lounging around in the house all day."
As long as a working partner and the SAHP have a mutual understanding that they are both doing all they can to contribute to the wellbeing of the child/ren, then there is no point in focusing on "who did the most laundry last week?" Focusing on the things you do versus the things your spouse does to support your household can be very damaging to your relationship and imposes a "me"versus "us" relationship... and last time I checked you don't marry yourself.

The Sun Never Says

Even after all this time

The sun never says to the earth,

"You owe Me."

Look what happens with

A love like that,

It lights the Whole Sky.

- Hafiz, from The Gift

Good Moms Do it All on Their Own

Pfffft! HA! Right. Good moms, and parents, all ask for help when they need it. They also simply take it when it is offered. We've all heard "It takes a village..." so build one, then use it. If parents don't get time to themselves and together alone they will lose it--and fast. Stress often doesn't creep up to bad levels until you already need a break, so take one when you can. Surround yourself with a support system made of people you trust, and call them when you need it.

Good Moms are there for EVERY Field Trip and Fundraising Campaign

Um, maybe if they have only one kid! I only say this even because my mom was a SAHM most of my childhood and she was just available most the time. When you have more than one child  you have to shift the priorities from the setting they were at with less children, or even with just one. More people that matter (kids, family) are demanding more from you so the people who don't matter as much (teachers, other moms) need to take a backseat. This way you can give the ones you love your best. No leftovers for family unless they're out of the fridge, folks.

SAHP are Inside All Day

If being inside with kids all day makes you batty, by all means, STAY THE EFF OUTSIDE ALL DAY. Sleep in, get up and get ready (yes, dressed and hair/makeup if you wear it) and go out for the day until working-outside-the-house parent comes home and then re-converge. SIMPLE.

As I stated, I am not a parent so I have no idea quite yet what it's like. I have a feeling, though, if I kept these things in mind that my husband and I came to after discussing this post I believe I'll be a happier mother. My opinion, my blog, my say.

I'm MAD

All my life I have had an issue accepting that things I create are dynamic and amazing. The baby Shawn and I will make will be undeniably these things and many more. What's more, the presence of our child will be unrefutable, even to those who may disapprove.
The things I make I feel others accept with a note of "ohhh that's nice, let's put that on the fridge." I realize this has more to do with me than anyone else, but the thought of this projected onto our future baby has been slapped up into my face today. And I AM MAD ABOUT IT.
Sure, Omaha Fashion Week was a bust--this year. And the job was, too--for now. But these things will be around when I'm ready to blast faces off with fashion and art. And I'm not ready for that.
I am so ready for our baby however, that my insides ache.

I said I realized lots of things over the weekend yesterday, and one of them I realized Sunday morning before I was even awake, a full day before the doctor would even call: I was making busywork for myself by applying to OFW and that job position instead of going after the baby I really wanted. I was trying to distract myself from the pain of it not possibly working out, to fill up the space in time the future might not allow a baby to fill.

And then I decided even if I wasn't healthy enough quite yet, that we would still try before undergoing another surgery or treatment that might leave me infertile. I surrendered Sunday. Then Monday I was cleared as healthy anyway, which I think means it's time.
So today at work when I shared this with the person who used to be my supervisor, it shocked me to hear him say "Sometimes we just tell ourselves something to make it okay."

Yes, it is SO simple to decide to have a baby that when I don't get a job I want to just throw the towel in and strap on the mommy pants!
Yes, I have been going to Dr. HappyFunTime (AKA the gyno) for the last 8 months to get healthy just for fun!
Yes, I know I've been talking about finally deciding to have a baby for only 6 months, but now that any opportunity I tried for this month has turned me down, I will tell myself it's okay by getting knocked up!

So I'm mad.
Earth, prepare for one real-talking, take-no-shit, matter-of-fact Offbeat Mama.

Good News & Mommy-Training

Happy Wednesday! FINALLY!

A lot of you know but some of you don't know that I have 7 animals. Yes, 7: 2 man-rats, 1 ferret, 3 cats and 1 pug. They are a ton of work but Shawn and I work together to make it all happen. I have sold myself short for the last time (as of yesterday) by saying that I don't have an idea of what it's like to have children just by comparing it to the work the sheer amount of animals we have take. I DO.

This was my Tuesday:

• Woke up at 5AM because I couldn't sleep anymore. I just got ready instead of laying there until I was tired enough to sleep but late enough that I couldn't.
• Did not get to work early. Just on time despite having 2 and a half hours to get ready.
• Worked a full day at work.
• Came home and planned to take a nap while the ferret ran around in the room for exercise.
• Instead cleaned up water-diarrhea that the ferret had all over the floor.
• Gave a wiggly, feisty ferret a bath.
• Cleaned up all the residual mess of half-done tasks invoked by weasel scat.

After that fiasco I looked up to see that it was just about time for Shawn to get home.
No nap for mommy.


ANGRY FAAAAACE!

Then I made dinner for our friends and their almost-2-year-old boy who are a delight. Dinner turned out well, we had just enough food and desserts for everyone, and they told me that Peach is more of a PITA than a new baby. And a toddler.

Much more.

After the day I had, to know that if I can deal with Peach that I can handle our future baby (in the eyes of experienced parents), I feel good about that. So good news there.

Cuz Peach is a crrrazy bitch sometimes; even if she looks sweet.

PS: I wore this today and I must say... I look good today. I'm having a "Jamie Moment!"

How and When in the Now

I strive to live in the moment.

My partner is a great inspiration to me on this; he does a great job of it. Shawn rarely loses sight of what is True and he never takes the rising sun for granted. It's amazing and if it's corny, so be it but this is something I am trying to learn from him.

I am a planner.
I need to have all my bearings gathered with at least an outline of things to come. The reality of the plans can change and the outline never amended thereafter, but I have to start with an idea. Relating this to having babies, it seems to me that at least a little bit of preliminary planning is as somatic a response as involuntary as picking up something you dropped.

Maybe it's just my conditioned mind...

Does manifesting plans cause an inherent need for them? Does not creating any kind of plan and just "letting it all happen" make it easier to have a child? Are there certain things you should plan to a T, and then others to just let fall by the wayside?

Over the last 4 years Shawn and I have discussed babies like there was no question they'd be around in our futures. At first we used individualized phrases like "When I have a kid..." and then as time went by the conversations have woven in on themselves with the words "our babies." After our wedding some life situations like health issues and a death came up, our priorities shifted, and the planned window of time for having "our babies" moved up. Now we were thinking we would try to conceive in the late Fall of 2012. And now it has, at last, become a real fleshy possibility.

This shadow of possibility scares me like nothing before. It scares me so much that from time to time (until a few days after Christmas) I was doing polarized flip-flops on whether I wanted to have kids at all. Finally in the last few days of December I exploded. After putting my hyper pug in her crate before she broke something, every one of my thoughts and feelings about mommyhood from the last 6 months compounded and rose up in my throat. The tears burned so as to tell me that this baby thing was not for me. I couldn't even calm down Peach (pug), how could I ever squelch a whailing baby? I would epitomise inadequacy in the mothering world. I had fully decided for the last time that I did NOT want children and I had to tell Shawn when he got home.
I told him with finality that this is who I am, and if he wanted children I'm laying out the situation on the table. He was really upset. We cried. He asked why and I told him everything about how I'd been feeling and the things that had been running through my head. And then he did what he does best by reminding me of what is True: he is my partner. And we are going to make mistakes, everyone makes mistakes. Planning can make you feel better now but no amount of plans can predict every situation, and you're bound to screw up here and there. The best thing we can do is to live now; try to be the kind of people we want to be everyday; and to thus prepare OURSELVES for being the kind of parents we want our children to have. This diminished my fear.

And then he shared his thoughts on how we will conceive, "I just thought we'd just kind of be in the moment and decide right there if it's time to try, and continue accordingly..."

Sounds good, babe. Sounds really good.