Even though my whole life I envisioned myself as a stay-at-home-mom and wouldn't trade my "career" choice for anything in the world, I'll be honest, I struggle sometimes. Up until recently, I was a non-working mom, but I was NOT a stay-at-HOME-mom. You see, everyday I had to pack our schedules with something to keep us busy just so we could get out of the house. If I had nothing to do I would quickly make something up to do just so I wouldn't be cooped up in the house all day. When it was just Brooke and me, this schedule was great, but now that Adrienne has joined us, it's really become too much and ya know what? That's okay!
Sure, the girls and I get out enough... We meet up with my sister, Alison, and her two kids periodically, we run errands, go grocery shopping, etc... But the majority of our days lately have been spent around the house. We paint, bake cookies, play with dolls, read books, blow bubbles on the front porch, take nice walks, do some cleaning and laundry, along with many other activities. It amazes me how quickly the days fly by at home! I think that my attitude has a lot to do with it... If I wake up and think, "Gee, I'm going to be home ALL DAY. What the heck will we do?" Then it usually ends up dragging, but if my attitude is in the right place, it's so much better.
I think that my need to be out and about so very much is based on a couple of things. First of all, I'm a very gregarious person. I not only enjoy the company of others, but I NEED it. I've really never met a stranger and when I'm out of the house, I usually end up talking to random people and having pretty interesting conversations. I really just like people. It's also hard for me to stay in the house more because I worked as a hostess at Red Lobster starting from the age of 16. Eventually I became a waitress and after being at Red Lobster for 5 years, I quit to stay home with Brooke. I was used to be out most days of the week meeting different people and interacting with others. If you take all that away and stay home with your kids, it's a little hard to transition!
Now that I have made a bigger attempt to stay home, I really feel like life is less stressful. When we wake up in the mornings, we don't have to rush, rush, rush to get out the door and if Brooke takes an hour eating her breakfast (which trust me, happens frequently), then it's no big deal. We just take our time and there's no tension. I think that the extra special things that we do when we're home... Like making cookies.. really helps Brooke feel loved and valued. We did those things before, but now the frequency of such activities has increased and I really try to do one extra-fun, just-for-Brooke thing with her each day during Adrienne's morning nap. Adrienne has also fallen quite nicely into a regular nap schedule, which has been awesome! She goes down for her morning nap an hour after she wakes up and then sleeps for about 2 hours. After we all have lunch, I put Brooke down for her nap and then Adrienne and I have about 20 minutes or so of one-on-one time before she goes back down for another long nap (Sometimes it's up to 4-5 hours).
Another awesome perk to staying in more is that I'm saving so much money! I'm putting less gas in the van (which is a gas HOG) and I've also decreased my spending on food purchases that we rack up when we're out during lunchtime. I can't argue with that!
I still have a long way to go before I'm completely content to spend some days not leaving the house. I've already come so far and I think that it will most likely get easier from here!
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