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A Journal entry from my life six months ago

Posted on April 26, 2014 | Leave a comment

It’s hard to believe that this little munchkin is about to be four! As a mom, it’s challenging to stop and smell the roses and “pause.” I’ve been pushing a stroller and changing diapers and breaking my back and wearing my hair in a bun and barely showering and eating the wrong foods at the wrong time and forgetting to take my vitamins and not sleeping properly for nearly four years. One of these days I will fit into my pre-baby clothes and wear some other type of shoes besides thongs in summer and Sorrel boots in the winter. I will feel sort of important again and take myself seriously. Stop referring to myself as “Mommy.” Maybe I’ll even make $$ again. And return a phone call. I know us moms vanish for a few years when we have kids and double that for moms who have two in as many years. I feel like wars have happened, gun violence has taken over, my friends are getting really, really successful and loved ones have gotten married, had babies, turned up sick and are dying and/or have died already and I have barely looked up. I’ve been so busy. Life takes us all on our journeys and parenting is up there as the most important one. As one of my sweet parent-friends put it, it’s the most “present” you will ever be in your life…to your children. Maybe you are present for your children, but you are pretty out of it as far as everything else is concerned. Just try sleeping while your baby has the stomach flu. And imagine being okay that you asked her to barf in a bowl and she barfed in your mouth instead? Ah huh. That’s my life. And I get up and start all over the next day, and lots of the time I am having fun. I am, totally. I’m not lying about that. I’m just tired. I don’t look so good anymore I’m the first to admit. If it isn’t my broken out, dried out skin, or my yucky hair or my fat ass, or my suddenly size D boobs (I had B cups until I had kids) it’s something else. I realize that when my kids are mid-sized kids and my stroller and diaper days are over, my looks and my sanity might be gone too. If I was younger, I would say…maybe I’ll be back, but I’m not sure.

Just some thoughts about parenting

It’s hard to believe that last year I had a two-year-old who still sucked on her pacifier, slept in a crib, had awful tantrums and wore diapers. I also had an eight-month old baby. Only a year later and they are already so big, so independent; only one in diapers, one who sucks a pacifier and only one in a crib.

Maya, my almost four-year-old talks like a teenager and seems to have such a confident grasp of concepts; and my little one wants to be big. She’s so darn cute and coming right along. She says “Vadi” for water, the Russian word for it. Yup, she’s coming along. This summer, it’s me that is stalled. Without proper time set aside, I lose myself in parenting. I have a marketing client (I do), who I’ve mostly ignored all summer. I have a playwriting career (I do) and in the summer and winter I simply don’t….have…time. Normally when you have a job, it’s a job and there is a set time that you go do that job. For a mom that works from home, who doesn’t have both kids in school or a day care, where do you get this “time?” You beg, borrow, steal…you pay for it. So it’s a lot to figure out. How do I spend the time that I mostly have to pay for?

And then, during the summers and winters, I have so much less help that there are days and days that pass by where I don’t get a break, a moment of thought to myself, and I just give in to it…to this parenting thing, and I’m okay with that.

I realize I’m not working a normal job (9-5) for a reason and I know why. I don’t have full-time help for several reasons and I know why. The truth is, I am here in this moment flipping through the channels trying to find Olivia because I want to be here…

When you are a parent you have so many moments of “Wow, oh my god…this is amazing….This is so hard…Why am I sweating so much? Do I really have to bend over to get that? Oh yeah, you have learned to put on your own jacket….Please don’t jump on that….Break that…Eat that….Don’t talk to me like that!….Why is it raining and I am pushing a double stroller? And then, it’s over – Pre-school…pushing a double stroller…your parenting time, or maybe your life. So you better enjoy every rainy day, every fight, every tear…every cuddle.

Tag Archives: parenting

A Journal entry from my life six months ago

Just some thoughts about parenting

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