Children fears and mama tears

I swear this is a happy post, you just have to get through my rant first.

Today completes the first whole week I have been home a full 45 hours during the day with my two children in more than 2 years. Cory recently took a new job that requires him to be at an office during the day, ALL DAY! This was actually my greatest concern about him taking the new job. I know probably sounds totally selfish, but I have very much enjoyed our both being able to work a little from home and a little away from home. Overall I think it helped us both be a little more recharged in life. But now, it's all me, for 45 hours a week, every week, all summer long, add another baby in the fall and Winter starting Kindergarten, and then the dreaded cold, stuck-in-the-house winter time. As you can tell I am really looking forward to that time in life.

I think Cory has a good dose of fear that I might just lock the children in a room and cry for awhile. I am not very good at the whole 'stay at home mom' thing. They drive me nuts and I feel like a bird in my gilded cage. I know what a wonderful rare thing it is to get to be a stay at home mom. I know I should relish in the fact that I get to be with my children while they are young, and I do, BUT... I also need to get the heck out of here sometimes. It is not as bad as it use to be. I think staying at home with one child = my living nightmare (and once upon a time my past situation.) I adored spending so much time with Winter. She was a beautiful, smart, fun baby. She also made me feel like a princess trapped in a tower and she was the dragon keeping me from doing anything ever with no hope of leaving and never never having time to myself. I told Cory that once in an emotional crying episode. He was surprised I didn't delight in the fact that he was working his butt off just so I could be at home with her and not have to do anything besides raise her. After I had Ledger there were more tears. I could not imagine leaving him. The four months I worked from home after he was born were so wonderful to have him close but awful because I couldn't focus just on him (and let us not forget Winter, she also demanded my attention.) When I returned to working at an office full time I cried almost everyday on my way to work, I stopped nursing before I wanted to, and even though I knew he was in the good and capable hands of my fabulous sister-in-law, I pined to be at home with my children. I recently confided in Cory that I think it messed up my bonding with Ledger to be away from him so much during his first year of life. I would have gladly lived in my gilded cage to have that time with him. It brings tears to my eye even now to know I didn't appreciate it with Winter and that I didn't sacrifice more to be home with Ledger. Now is my chance one again...

I think my personality is not one of rainbows and sunshine because I always always ALWAYS forget to just enjoy myself, to look on the bright side, to find a way to be happy with what I have, and that if I don't like something CHANGE IT!! It's hard now because all the changes are happening at once and I am out in the rain fighting them instead of seeing that no one can see my tears in the rain, so I might as well smile. I have another chance to do this stay at home thing and damn it, I am going to do it up right!

Introducing the Jar-o-fun (my let's fill the at least part of the day with an activity so mommy doesn't go crazy and you have some great memories and got to do lots of fun things this summer jar)
You can find lots of list all over the internet but here is what is in our jar:

• Make paper flowers
• Camp in the backyard
• Plan a trip to a water park and then go (this one dad is needed to help wrangle so first we plan, then we go)
• Catch frogs
• Fireworks just because
• Have a movie party (we did this one already this week. Winter invited over 5 of her little friends and we made air popper popcorn, had snacks, and set the couches up movie theater style while they watched Alpha and Omega)
• Walk to the ice cream place
• Go for a long bike ride
• Have a tea party
• Outdoor movie night
• Make melted crayons
• Ledger decides (Winter pulled that one last night for today. She doesn't realize there is one that says Winter decides so as of yet, she is kind of bummed that he gets to pick. He is going to pick feed the ducks which Winter also loves)
  
• Go swimming
• Dinosaur museum
  
• yadda yadda yadda

You get the idea. I also have a partner in the library this summer. Each Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday during the day and at night they have something going on at one of the branches, plus there is always story time.

I still have a job, I am still at the hospital almost everyday, just for now, it is in the evenings. And during the day I am working on Cory's RGWB business and my own photography, but only around spending time with the kids. I have figured out that if I want to get something done I am just going to have a frustrating hard day. When I don't care, yes, the house becomes a mess and I get behind on things, but we are all much happier. I'd rather do 'nothing' with the kids all day and be happy and more importantly have them be happy.


This one was all Winter's idea. She wanted to make our own lemonade. Sparkling sounded delish to me so we did. The first taste didn't have much sugar and her sweet little face puckered up from the lemon juice. She smiled and said 'mmm that's good.' Obviously it was too sour. We added a little more sugar and then she could actually drink it. We drank the whole bottle the same night we made it :)

What are you going to do this summer to keep from going crazy?