Tuesday Mornings

Every tuesday morning for the past 2 1/2 yrs I have been hanging out with some awesome moms. We all get together at each other's houses (rotating who's house every week) and just hanging out and letting our kids run amuck. It varies in numbers and right now there are about 8 of us..most recently one has left for a full-time job and we've added another. But this kind of thing has been happening throughout. I love these ladies. They are awesome and fantastic moms. We get along and have a lot in common. We're all around the same age and have around the same number of children. And most of of our husbands work at the same plant. 

But today was a bittersweet day. It was my last tuesday  for 8 months, my kids will still be going every once and awhile because one of my mommy friends is taking care of them, but I won't be going. It's hard enough to make friends when you an adult and even more so when you're a stay-at-home parent (at least this has been my experience). I love our conversations. Mostly about our kids, but we talk about our hubbies and family and in-laws. We talk about parenting and what life was like before kids. It's really a wonderful little group we have going. And even though it's only once a week, I just can't help but feel that I'm losing my community for a good chunk of time. Where I'll be working I'm the oldest and I have the most kids. Those ladies just get it. We're honest and open about how hard parenting is. How frustrated we get with our kids and our husbands and how we struggle whether to stay at home or go back to work. It just makes you feel like you have a great support network that will help you whenever you need it. 

I love them all and will be making the the upmost effort to get together every month to catch up and reconnect. Every women needs her girlfriends. Even more so when you become a mom. These are my girls and they have help make motherhood a joy for me:)

 If you don't have this kind of network I encourage you to reach out and grab on to the first mom you see...You'd be surprise at how much you have in common and what a relief it is that you are not a lone in this crazy coo-coo world we call motherhood.

In the beginning there was me?

Well here I am world. I guess I should explain why I've chosen to write about my inner thoughts and rants and praises about motherhood and beyond. 

I am going to be embarking a total life change, one of just many in the short 27 yrs on this planet. I have decided to go back to work. After 3 years of being a stay at home mom. I love being at home, I love hanging out with my kids all day and watching all of their firsts. I know I am lucky, I know that a lot of women would love to stay at home and never really get the chance to. But there was this little voice  (ok maybe not little, maybe big and booming) was telling me that I needed to figure what I was going to do once the kids were older and off to school. So here's where my motherhood journey begins....

After 2 months of marriage to my high school sweetheart, we decided to try for a baby. I wasn't really ready and neither was he, but I thought what the heck why not? So after only a month of trying there it was. The positive sign on the pregnancy test. I was going to a mom! I had an ok pregnancy. I had a great first trimester, wicked back pain and a labour that had a few complications.

Once my darling daughter popped into this world, I had to tuck away any fragment of myself and become her mom. I had to nurture her and love her and take care of her. I had no time to think about me or what I needed to be a good mom. I wasn't supposed to. Society and everyone else told me that all I needed was this little baby and I should be instantly fulfilled and overjoyed with my life. But the exact opposite happened. I crashed and burned and suffered from post-partum depression, and like so many others before me, I told no one..out of complete and utter shame!

My husband had no idea what to do. He would go to work and worry about me, he would come home and take her and worry about me and when night came he would lie there and worry about me. Poor guy, this was not what he had signed up for. It was the best thing for a our marriage it made us bond  like crazy glue and over time I overcame my depression and started to feel comfortable in this mother role. So great in fact that we decided that this sweetie of a girl needed a sibling, and 2 yrs , 2 months and 15 days later, our baby boy was born. I felt all the things that "normal" moms feel. I wanted to stay up all night and look at him, I just beamed constantly. I was a became a full-fledge mom. 

My husband went back to work 2 weeks later and my life at home went on as if this had always been it. I grooved right into things. It was awesome. I felt awesome and was the mom I wished I had been right from the start (insert mom guilt). He was our last. Planned that way and I'm very glad to have 2. 2 is great and we wanted to keep it that way. Around this past New Year's I was wondering what I was going to do when our kids started to go to school. Was I going to stay home? Go back to school (yeah, no!)? Or try and find a job? I had a friend who offered me a job that past summer and I said no. I was in  baby love and that was the last thing on my mind, but the older her got the more I though about it and when I told my ever-supportive husband about my idea he said, without hesitation, "sure babe, sounds great."

 So I took the job and had about 3 months to figure out daycare for the kids. So that was easy. I had loads of time left and was pretty happy about the whole thing. But now I have less then 3 weeks left and I'm freaking out a little. It's a total life change and it's all my doing. I'm happy to go back, but being with the kids is all I've known for 3 yrs and change in any degree is hard. 

So here I am and here is where I've put myself back at the top of the list where I used to be before kids. Discovering all over again what I like and what inspires me. I love my kids so much and hard, but I was a person before they came along and I will be after they leave the nest and don't need me anymore. I don't want to need them to make me happy and to make me feel good about myself  and to have a sense of purpose. After all their not going to be a home forever. So my decision is to try this out and see if it is for me and if not the I know I'm supposed to be a at home with my kids. 

Disclaimer:

But this is just my point of view, take what you will from it, I'm honest to a fault and have no intentions of offending anyone. Think of this a reading someones diary..being a fly on my wall:)