Say "when"....

I have taken for granted all along that we would have a third child. "Maybe even a fourth!", I would exclaim in moments of wild optimism. I have a little problem with allowing the reality of any situation to rain on my plans, even if my plans, obvious to everyone but me, would strain me to a breaking point. But A and I were talking last night about how three (she also has two) would affect the financial outlook of our families and it got my mind going. I processed well into the hours when I should have been sleeping (hence the very little sleep I got last night). I decided that I AM GOING TO BE OK WITH TWO CHILDREN if that's what is best for us in the long run.

Wow. I typed it, so it must be true. It is really REALLY hard for me to accept that. Because I had just always thought we would have more.

If we were independently wealthy, or if I was a stay at home mom this would not enter my mind. If we lived in the same city as family, having backup would make the decision easier. But...there aren't federal jobs in my field where our family is.

Sooo, let me explain why the money matters...

When Gillian was a baby, we paid about a couple hundred dollars a week for her nanny to come three days/wk. That was a lot, but not bad at all when you consider what a lot of people pay for daycare. It was that cheap because we split the costs with another family (nannyshare) for two of the days to 1) make it more affordable and 2) to give Gillian some socialization. When Addie came along, we added Fridays with a Loyola student so Sean could have a 5 day work week, since everything he was producing at work was selling. That bumped the weekly output to about an extra hundred a week still nannysharing (2 kids, 4 days a week-this is VERY inexpensive if you are out of touch with what current childcare costs are). When Gillian started preschool, Addie still needed a nanny (that we still share), and we added 2 hours a day 4 days a week so Sean can have help in the mornings when he's getting G ready for school. So, now we pay out about the same each week for Addie because we are sharing every hour of care we use PLUS over $600 a month for Gillian's school. That adds up to about a couple thousand a month to have childcare for Addie and school for Gillian. That's a pretty nice chunk of our monthly income. It's more than our payment on our mortgage.

So, I was talking to A, I started thinking through what it would cost us to have that third child taken care of while paying for our girls to go to preschool and school. And I had never considered what that would mean before.

Well, here's what it would look like: $28,000 a year for one in K-8, one in preschool, and one at home with a nanny. OUCH.

That reality, and my desire to rationalize my decision that two is plenty given the finances, made me start to think of what other pros I could consider to make myself ok with two kids. Well, there's the fact that every family discount to everything on earth is made for families of four. There's the fact that we wouldn't have to buy a bigger car. We wouldn't have to worry about living in a 3 bedroom condo because the girls could both have their own room. I could actually stop hoarding my annual leave to supplement my short paid maternity leave and start going on a couple nice vacations every year and not sweat taking long weekends every now and then. I could, within less than 1.5 years, start working a reasonable schedule 8 hour schedule five days a week that could get me home in time to pick the girls up from school with a brief (cheap) 1-hour stint in aftercare. This schedule would allow me to go to the gym regularly since I would not have to leave my house at 5 am as well. I could also truly have the option of retirement at 45 if we weren't pressed to provide for yet another child ("retirement" being from government service. I have big plans for becoming a nurse practitioner, as you may recall, so it would be a career change, not a retirement per se).

Then, there is the emotional and developmental benefits. With two, Sean and I more effectively manage bedtime, sickness, meltdowns, discipline, and homework. We could give more attention to each child. We wouldn't be run as ragged. We would have more quality time if we weren't constantly intervening with behavior issues between siblings if there are fewer siblings. We could afford for the girls to do more things they (and we) want to do (dance classes, music lessons, etc.). We would never have to buy a new wardobe and gender-appropriate toys for the inevitable son who would come along. We would have more breathing room and more attention to our relationship, and there just isn't much of that right now. It literally makes me tear up when I think of the attention Addie wouldn't get with a third child. And, more importantly, the more independent they get, the more of my own life I could get back. You know, doing things for myself... weekend trips for fun, lessons-music, art, dance.... that kind of thing.

There is the option of having another child when Addie is in kindergarten too, so then we would be financially about where we are now, but that might not look so good by then. I'm not sure if we could go back to the sleep deprivation and exhaustion of another baby once we have kids out of diapers and in school. Addie still wakes up 1 or 2 times a night (at 20 months). I think I might be unwilling to deal with another poor sleeper when I have two other children to cultivate, love, and care for. I'm not closing the door forever, but I think it would give us pause...

So. Yeah. I think once again, I am realizing limits. For now, I guess we'll get on with the business of trying to do the best we can with the children we are blessed to already have.

Is it over yet?

I have just about had enough. Seriously-we must have set a world record for the number of back to back bacterial infections (oh, how many ear infections can we count?), viral illnesses, and just good old fashioned sick this year. Gillian and Addie somehow decided on cultivating the perfect petri-dish-host-environment, disease swapping nastiness, and although Sean and I have generally been above the fray, we have pretty much dealt with at least one sick kid constantly since October. The most perplexing thing I can't wrap my head around is "what's with all the GI bugs this year?"!! I mean, we did had a pretty nasty bout of it in winter of '09-'10, but it was an isolated incident. This year, I have been nauseous (think nausea like week 8 of pregnancy, but not pregnant) more than I haven't been (I guess that's the better-immune-response than vomiting or diarrhea), and the kids have had the fever/vomit/diarrhea GI bug thing at least 4 times. Add snot, coughing, general fever and malaise, and there it is.

Just about everyone I know is echoing my same frustrations with their own families. I literally have cancelled 6 playdates in 3 weeks because of illness and have had other people cancel two on us because they are having the same problems. I don't remember it being like this the past few years. Some of my friends had physical injuries to add a little flavor to the health miseries. Like the friend whose child busted her chin and her head twice (knocking teeth loose, requiring stitches) in a month, or the other one whose little one bit through his lower lip with a fall (also requiring stitches) and had two kids with rectal strep infections. I never even knew that existed. Well, the point is that things could always be worse.

I thought initially that this was because of the extreme cold up here, but friends and family down south are dealing with it too. It's this general foreboding sense that the world seems a bit off right now. Maybe the oil spill, piggy backing on general economic sluggishness, started some great global downward spiritual spiral (sick earth?) manifesting itself in general poor well-being for the sentient. Maybe I am a crazy conspiracy theorist. But I am worrying. And I usually don't worry about the world, as I generally have faith in the way things are. But it seems like it's lapping up to my (and many of my friends') doorstep and I'm very concerned. It's been doom all day long-political insanity and polarization like I have never personally witnessed in my relatively short life (Wisconsin...defunding popular programs...protesting sacred things, like holy books or the funerals of fallen soldiers...regimes falling...political unrest...war); budget crises all over the place (small businesses closing up shop (even on a tiny scale, our food court has two of seven restaurants left), colleagues at state agencies having to take furlough days...states far into the red...talk of government shutdown, federal government freezing raises and hiring at agencies), crazy weather...and crazier unemployment. I'm not an alarmist and I'm not going to issue some blanket forecast of doom, but something is not right (I know, at any given time lots of things aren't right, but this is more than that). And it makes me worry. I probably wouldn't worry as much if I didn't have a family. But I do, so my worries are caricatures of my normal worries.

So, to do my part in an effort to turn this tide, I will try to counteract with oppressive, stifling negativity with greatfulness for my blessings-every single one...trying to make more of an effort to meditate on each every day. Maybe if enough of us do that it will push the darkness back into the vortex where it belongs..to keep it from spilling its sad energy everywhere, keep the darkness out of people's hearts. I have never been great at meditating with all my monkey brain chatter, but this direness demands it. Prayer and Yoga and Kindness. The recipe to counteract disaster. There-a path forward, something I can DO. Care to join me?

One thing I know-I am not Martha Stewart.

So, I try. I really do. I try to be thoughtful, and I try to be creative. Mostly I'm just tired, and do the best I can to remember things and not make people feel bad because I forget stuff that is important to them (it literally takes every ounce of memory-energy I have to make sure I don't forget things important to my immediate family). This is related to lots of things, but especially parenting-school obligations are really a lot of work for parents. I'm not sure if it's because Gillian goes to private school and they just expect parents to be uber involved (I have struggled to do my 10 service hours, and next year they're bumping it up to 20!), or because I never paid attention to how tired people look who cart their kids around from one event to the next. There are forever little notes in Gillian's backpack for what they need us to contribute to function every day (snacks, juice, art supplies-and this is above and beyond what you had to bring at the beginning of the year), and for special occasions (Wear RED (Valentine's Day)! Wear black and Orange (Halloween)! Wear Christmas colors! Wear all black (for Mexican heritage day costumes!!)! Wear silly hats (whatever)! bring a shoebox to decorate for a valentine's mailbox!, bring treats for classmates!....and on and on and on) ...a neverending list of thing to remember for someone like me who can't remember anything.

To remedy this, I have a calendar in my email at work that gives me a day, an hour, and every-10-minutes-for-30-minutes-before-an-event warning. I would be well advised to put personal things (birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, special events) on there as well. Sean, of freakish ability to remember every detail of everything that ever happened every second of his life, thinks I just don't try, but I honestly am either so focused or so distracted that things fall through the cracks. I'm not trying to excuse myself, but that is the way I am and the way I have always been. Maybe it's because growing up we never made a big deal out of anything-not birthdays (no cake, no gifts that I can remember), not any milestone, really. My dad didn't even come when I graduated from grad school. He lived 3 hours away, but couldn't be bothered (but my inlaws wouldn't have missed it for the world-go figure).

So, I'll never be Martha Stewart, who I am sure never forgets anything special to anyone. I'll never be the mom in Gillian's class who made (from scratch, I'm sure) heart shaped sugar cookies with her son's name imprinted in them, individually wrapped in a beautiful pink foil with red ribbons for each child. The closest I got to trying to do something special was forced on me because somehow I thought the Valentines as advertised in my all-inclusive bag of Starburst mini-packs would be age-appropriate or attractive and not lame... so after working my Very Long Day at work and commuting, getting dinner made, children fed, children bathed, children to bed (an every night Hurculean accomplishment, as all of you parents are well aware) and sitting down to just stare at the wall for a few minutes before turning in, it occurred to me that I was supposed to send in Gillian's treats NO LATER THAN FEBRUARY 9 (yes, bolded in backpack note from the classroom-over-achiever-mom-extraordinaire). I opened the bag of candy. I immediately thought "these Valentines SUCK", and "I would rather eat a rabid dog than have THESE represent Gillian's contribution to this event". Now, mind you, I had not seen what other parents had done, and clearly, after seeing what was in Gillian's mailbox after the Valentine's Day party, most parents are obviously as tired and un-Martha-Stewart-like as me. But here we were. Treats (aside from the overpriced mini-cupcake platter I bought at the grocery store the day before the party) due in less than 12 hours, it was cold out, we had a good parking space, most things were closed...time to pull something out of my proverbial backside. I found some stickers, Gillian's stamps, some googly eyes, construction paper, and a glue gun and went to town. The boys got alien monster cards. The Girls got fairies and princess cards (yes, stereotypical, but that seems to work for this age). I cranked them out in 45 minutes flat. Then I dragged myself to bed.

I wish I was thoughtful naturally. I wish I had been planning what I would do for Gillian's class for weeks beforehand, and even with two kids under 5 and a brand new baby had the wherewithall to make personalized sugar cookies from scratch. I just don't. What ends up happening a lot is that I feel guilty when I forget an important event (sorry T for missing that promotion ceremony last week) or that I will probably need to reciprocate gifts for random holidays (sorry Anna and Lori for not giving you or YOUR kids a gift/chocolate for Valentine's Day). It really isn't intentional. I hope being thoughtful in other ways counts-on those non-special days when I buy someone coffee or a treat and think to upload photos or videos, or send a packet of art to family... I might not do well on those lesser holidays, but MAN, did I do a great job at Christmas!

Fun and Games of the Moment

It seems that we go through our daily routine fixating on one thing or the other. Gillian's first fixation was animating anything and has kind of continued throughout her life... ballerinas, then princesses, then mermaids, now superheros (thought she still adores all of the above, though she no longer gets mad when we forget to address her as Princess Gillian Ballerina Mermaid). She does that with games, and her current favorite is solving mysteries with three clues. The picture above represents a good 30 minutes of drawing clues and trying to solve them (there are pictures on the back too). Where were we? What were we doing? She takes a turn drawing and I guess, then we swap. She made up this game, to my knowledge. It is pretty fun. Sometimes the activities we are doing were real (flying in an airplane to see Nonnie and Grandaddy) and some not so much (flying like a bird through rainbows to jump on clouds). But, it's always entertaining and always a good way to bond and pass the time anywhere (like a doctor's waiting room, for example, when things can get incredibly stressful when (some) people (little ones) get bored).

Addie's favorite thing is to push you down (a redux of that thing she liked as a baby-what gives?) and climb on top of you, and bounce on your stomach until you get the urge to vomit. You struggle to get up, she squeals her delighted squeal, and intently pushes you right back down. More bouncing, more nausea, but you keep letting her do it because GOD, SHE IS SO HAPPY RIGHT NOW. She does it on me, she does it on Sean, she does it on Gillian (which, by the way, warms my heart all the way through). These two will be 100% dangerous when they collaborate on their mischief, I am sure. I am tired just considering the idea, honestly, but they are so silly.

Another funny little thing Addie does is squeal "tickee tickee tickee!!!!" when she thinks someone or something is cute or she feels love for someone or something. Even Boobies. She loves to tickle them and give them kisses even when she doesn't want them (per se), like that now she is weaning to once every day or two, she needs to remind them that she hasn't forgotten how hard they have worked for her or all the snuggly times they've had together. The end of the era is near, but we've had a good run.

Mama-centric

Being a mother is amazing, and exhausting, and intense... I feel like it's go time every waking second, and I do a generally terrible job making space and time for myself. Sean is really good about making sure he plays music out a couple times a week, and he goes to the gym, practices music, gets on the computer, reads the paper, and drinks his coffee when the kids are awake. I aspire to be able to take time like he does without the guilt I feel for not giving the kids enough of myself. I guess it's a working mom thing, but when I am not with the kids and I could be, I feel like I'm taking my children, and motherhood, for granted. I feel like I'm squandering this gift I have been given. That is the reason I leave for work at 5:15 in the morning...so I can start my work day at 6, a good hour before the girls even wake up.... because I want that morning hour at the end of the day. With them. I work those 10 hour days so I can have Wednesdays with Addie in the morning, and both of the kids in the afternoon. It's not pretty, but it makes the most sense (for them) right now.

I find myself living my life-the life where I am a wife, and a support, and a musician...I find myself living that life when the children are asleep. That's when I can have a sweet and intimate conversation with Sean, or a quiet dinner or drink and see a movie, or learn a tune, or have a long talk with a friend about their father that died or their cheating boyfriend, or their future. I have been remiss about asking for what I need. I have been remiss about even thinking about what I need so I know what to ask for.

Tonight Sean and I had a little snit about something and he suggested I feel grateful that he gives me and the kids valet treatment with getting picked up or dropped off at home and when we're out somewhere. I told him that even though I love that he is thoughtful, it is a LOT of work getting them anywhere, even with "the treatment". Example: tonight we got dropped off at the restaurant...I had to get the kids through the food line, in chairs with drinks, their food in front of them-all while they are acting exactly their age (especially challenging when Addie is roaming free and throwing everything from the display shelves on the floor while you're trying to finish getting the order made and paid for). So, I told him I will park the car from now on. GLADLY. I dropped them all off in the back of our house after dinner and had a lovely, quiet drive to the parking space and quiet walk to the house. I LOVED not having to lug them up the stairs, carrying way too much stuff (including Addie!). The cold was nothing compared to the tiny serene little break that made the rest of the night enjoyable and a complete breeze. Amazing what (literally) 5 minutes of quiet can do to recharge your batteries.

That got me thinking about a) identifying and voicing my needs and b) offering suggestions for how my family can help me get them met.

I sat down and thought good and hard about the needs of each of us, and I drafted a proposed schedule for all of us (Type A, but that's how I roll when I'm trying to figure something out). Sean has 4 mornings during the week that he can go to the gym, and two days a week where he could go to a session. Gillian has dance class and piano lessons. Addie has wiggleworms and nap requirements. God love him, Sean said "figure out what you want to do, and we will fill in around you".

So, one thing I decided is that I want to go to the gym on weekend mornings for yoga. Today was my first day. I have neglected my physical self and emotional self since Addie was born. I did yoga pretty regularly for 4 years and religiously throughout both pregnancies, but I hadn't done it in a class since I was pregnant about 2 years ago (I did do videos till Addie was born, but classes are different). And it kicked my ass, but in the best possible way. The kind of way where you walk out thinking-that was rough! but I lived! for that I am amazing! Can't wait till next week to get my ass kicked again! I also jumped at the chance to sit right here and relax when Sean offered to hold our end of a babyswap up tonight and sit for our friends. It is lovely, and quiet in my house. But, I am also falling asleep on the couch after a very eventful day and it's only 10:15.

I feel like this sense of self is a moving target, and we can only keep plugging away, moving toward some balance that makes us feel like we're taking care of everyone we need to be taking care of... but the epiphany is that we have to take care of ourselves first. So, I am getting a little more perspective about leaving the living room messy till the end of the day, or just breaking down and getting take out, or realizing Addie will not be traumatized if I come home a half hour AFTER she wakes up from a nap (instead of puting her down and then trying to get home from errand running before she wakes up). And maybe every now and then, I need to abandon the three of them for 20 minutes in a hot bath-GUILT FREE-to make some space to remind myself that my life couldn't be much more blessed than it already is...