Giving Up My Career {Again} to Be A Stay At Home Mom

So, if you've read about me giving up my career to be a stay at home mom, then you are probably wondering why I'm pulling a Garth Brooks and 'retiring' again. Here's the background: when Levi was 10 months old  (I was edging into the second trimester) I went back to work two days a week. I would work around my husband's shift work so we could forgo finding a babysitter.  Hubby did a great job being Mr. Mom and it was a nice change to get up, put on matching shoes and hang out with adults all day (even if most of them didn't want to see me... joys of being an Environmental Health Officer).

Sorry Son, Mom is at work so DADDY has to clean your diaper art from the crib. 

At the end of the day things were generally a win-win. Dad and son bonding; mama wore a bra and got a paycheque; and, health hazards were stopped in their tracks! Me! Saving the town! I was a hero! (not, so much that last part).

Gradually the newness began to wear off as we realized this gig was just more to toss into the growing family calendar. I had to laugh when my husband pointed out that he could work overtime and make more money than his civil servant wife. I wondered how far I could stretch my maternity wardrobe to remain work appropriate. So, after six months of juggling our schedules and meeting the demands of wife, mother and employee I and went on maternity leave and had Lenayah.

Levi seeing me off to work on my first day

I planned to come back after six months, but that didn't happen. I knew that going back to work even after the full year wasn't really what I wanted and smiled when my husband said he was hoping I would say that. So, at ten months I gave my official notice.

I spoke with my boss who is a mom herself. She had never been a stay at home mom, she continued with her career and rose in the ranks. When I told her my intentions she told me she was jealous and that she wished she could do that. She stated something along the lines of your kids are only young once, enjoy it, work will still be here. For some reason this sat in the back of mind at the end of the night. Here is my superior, a colleague, a woman, a wife, a mom. She took the fork to the left I'm taking the fork to the right. She had the experience to look back on what her decisions were and offer me encouragement in mine. I wasn't looking for her approval, but it kind of helped me to shut the door on any doubts I had.

I followed up in true Lady Nerd fashion with my resignation letter by email:

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Gluten Free Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

You may have seen that magic Gluten Free PB Cookie recipe of 1 cup peanut butter, 1 cup sugar and 2 eggs. Yeah, it's amazing but it's too sugary for me.   Here is my spin on a healthy(ish) version:

RECIPE:
1 cup peanut butter (I used Adam's Crunchy)
1/2 cup coconut sugar (gives the cookies a very dark appearance)
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp coconut flour
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
1/2 tbsp chia seeds
2 handfuls of chocolate chips (or however much or little you want)

Bake at 325F for about 15-20 minutes (or until done)

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Bad to Worse {Adore Your Pelvic Floor}

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I'm so happy I had a chance to have a VBAC but sad to say it has left me with one new addition to the list of 'Things Nobody Tells You About Having A Baby', which is: You might pee your pants after you've had a baby. There I said it! It happens. Don't feel alone or ashamed when you are stocking your bathroom cupboards and purse pockets with various sized panty liners and regulating your coffee intake (snort).  Take comfort in the fact that the legs crossed, muffled sneeze is a universal code to other moms, superseding all language barriers: I'm afraid I might pee a little.

If you have this condition you should talk to your doctor. You might learn there is such a thing as a Pelvic Floor Physiotherapist. She will be soft-spoken, intuitive and dabbles in some new age energy healing you don't know anything about - but when she talks to you about it makes you all weepy and emotional.  She will give you some exercises to help strengthen your pelvic floor that might make your husband question why you are paying a professional who tells you to do this. Don't be ashamed to ask your husband, 'Can you just give me 20 minutes to myself without the kids? It is very important I practice my exercises so I can stop peeing a little and maybe feel a little sexier and MAYBE have a little more sex with you!'  This is a cursed cycle though. You definitely lose that loving feeling when mandatory exercise and thinking are involved. Sadly, the action you get is not about intimacy and passion but is more comparable to a technical meeting on the ligament structure of the core muscle groups of the blah blah blah... oh wait, I fell asleep.

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You might be amazed at all the muscles you didn't realize were lining the forlorn battlefield of your vagina.  You might learn that it is more than just kegels to maintain your business! Your hips are out of whack from toting a toddler, your uterus is a deflated ballon and your dignity hitched a ride in the rush of amniotic fluid that vacated the premises months earlier. But don't be ashamed. It could be worse.......

Your parents could ask you what medical appointment you are in town for. Because you aren't ashamed you tell them you are seeing a Pelvic Floor Physiotherapist and hope they will fill in the blanks and graciously offer you an out by changing the subject to the adorable reason(s) you have this condition. So what's worse than that? How about your Dad responding with a casual offer of your Mom's 37 yr old set of 'candles' to help you with your pelvic floor exercises.

Not.enough.bleach.in.the.world.

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Don't Hate On the Pinterest Mom

Lately, I've read a lot of blog confessions that I can relate to. Not the ones about looking at my iPhone rather than my kids or wiping their snot on my housecoat sleeves and rolling them over (its not a confession if everyone knows you do it). It's the ones about Pinterest, and how it makes me feel like I'm not meeting 'mom standards' aka got me feeling PIN-adequate. I mean, there is always gonna be that one over-achiever mom. You know the one who throws her two year old a birthday with sandwich sculptures of Dora, individual homemade yurts for each kid to nap in and rainbow-dyed organic handmade candles on the 3D interactive Calliou cake.  You find yourself cursing her as you are sitting on her stupid dual-flush toilet wiping with a stupid toilet paper origami swan and washing in her stupid rock-filled sink with vegan handmade stupid soap derived from her neighbour's kitchen scraps.  'Oh? What's that? You saw it on Pinterest? Oh, how funny I saw me punching you in the throat on Pinterest!' Yeah, I'm going too far. I've only met one mom like that and I got over it by the time I was stuffing my face with cake. She was crazy, that's all there was to it.

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But I still love Pinterest, I love seeing great organization ideas or adorable (doable) themed birthdays. I love putting together ideas/aspirations/visions that I didn't even know I had and/or may never get the time to attain.  But Pinterest and Mom Bloggers didn't invent these things - it's not new. I remember a princess birthday with handmade tiaras and the barbie cake; an Easter with rice krispie baskets; and handmade matching outfits for me and my cabbage patch kid.  I'm sure my mom was buying all the Woman's World and homemaking magazines available and dog earring all the projects she hoped to do.  I'm also sure there was some other mom rolling her eyes at my mom's pineapple-shaped invitation to her Hawaiian Luau dinner party that was really an excuse to drink pina coladas, put flowers around necks and joke that you got 'lei'ed (the only verifiable fact in this statement is that my mama does make a mean pina colada)

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I enjoy a good DIY. I usually will make something rather than buy it - but I've had a lot of fails (a whole other post!) and I still haven't mastered how to keep my toilet paper on the holder or keep a kitchen herb alive. I've even had to take a little break from certain bloggers or Instgrammers who made it look too flipping easy to keep their brood of naturally-birthed kids well behaved in public; their house run on the dewey decimal system with the latest decor trends and themselves sensibly and stylishly pulled together. That's not real life, not mine at least....

....but I still try, and I don't want the fear of being judged by another mom to keep me from sharing a project I am passionate about.  It's easy to hate on the Pinterest mom, but at the end of the day you have to respect something that is there.... the passion.  Being a mom (especially a stay at home mom) can sometimes feel like you are drowning in a sea of dishes, diapers, demands, meal times and routines.  This day in, day out routine can be relentlessly boring. You need something more than monotony.

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Once you've become bored, or resentful, or frustrated, or have lost sight of the value you have as a mother and wife maybe you have lost your passion. When you lose your passion you risk losing your ambition and joy. You start running on auto-pilot (been there, done that!) and it ain't a pretty thing for you and everyone around you. (Disclaimer: Not applicable to pregnant or nursing women. Your hormones make you a bag o'crazy and you have a little babe that needs you. Put your feet up, make/nurse a baby and watch Mad Men. There is lots of time for washi tape and custom drawn comic books of your kid's lives). 

So what do these Pinterest moms do? They make a handmade game for their kids, put a little vavoom in their wardrobe, hunt for furniture to restore, make meal planning boards. Why? Because they are choosing to do more than the day in, day out. They choose to be a little more passionate in their living.

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One of the biggest lies we all buy into is that we have to be perfect to be loveable - so we make a subconscious checklist of what perfect looks like, usually by comparing ourselves to others. In my eyes, perfect does not make us loveable, being loving makes us loveable and where there is love there is passion.

Look for passions in your own daily life. Maybe it is in how you peel an orange, the way you braid your girl's hair, how you stake your beanpoles, collecting stamps, or memorizing the lyrics to 'I've Been Everywhere'. It can be anything at all, but it doesn't have to be everything.

So before you judge that mom who stayed up all night to make cookie monster cupcakes for their two year old's birthday (even if they didn't work out) put away your measuring stick and tell her they are great - and then eat one like cookie monster to make your kid bust a gut (but kinda secretly cause you really want to).

More hilarious pinterest fails

On that note....check out my Pinterest boards!

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Baby Girl is Ten Months and I'm NOT Pregnant {Air High Five}

We are planning on (eventually) having another (third!??!?) kid. Really I'm waiting for that crimson raging reflex to throat punch my husband if I ever see that plus sign to fade away. We are getting there.

Lenayah is already 10 months and by the time her older bro was this age I was announcing that I was expecting.  I love the idea of getting the baby stage over with and having them close together (here's the link to that great article on age gaps that I posted on the FB page). It has been a great experience with the 16 month gap between Levi and Lenayah, so I don't want to wait too long. However, on no fault of her own, having Lenayah has led us down a hard road. My boobs needs a rest, my marriage needs a tune up and I need a sun soaked margarita!

Lenayah is so different from her big bro was at 10 months. She is relentless, discerning, emotive and if I look away I'll find her under wedged between furniture legs; crawling up onto the fireplace; or high centered on top of the laundry basket. She is constantly teetering on some ledge.  I hope she is braver than me, even it means being confused (a little jealous) and in awe of it.

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