Living the Good Life

There has been a hot topic at our house lately. The topic of being a stay-at-home mom., that is. It has been 2 years and about 3 months since I stopped working outside the house. It was a change that I was very hesitant to make, but one that felt completely right when I jumped in with both feet! Olivia was just about the age of Carter now (just a little younger, I believe) and I felt that I gave the working-mom gig a real effort. The fact that she never took a bottle and I was left scurrying between work and daycare whenever she decided to be hungry was a large factor in my decision, or so I say it was. Who is to say that I wouldn't have made the same decision if the tables were turned. I just don't know. However, I do know how fulfilling it can be to stay home and raise our little people.. Maybe Olivia and the bottle crisis was God's way of pushing me into a decision that He wanted for my life. He knows me well and without that "excuse" I probably wouldn't have had the courage to bridge the topic with Andy, and make that final decision to throw in the towel!

Now here I sit one more baby later, and I am sometimes still left with the same feeling of guilt I had the day I told my boss I was leaving my position. I feel guilt in the fact that I don't contribute financially to our family. I feel guilt that I don't keep the house as clean as it should be. I mean, I don't have a job, shouldn't it be simple to keep the laundry washed and folded, the bathtubs and toilets scrubbed, and the floors mopped? My list could go on and on.... However, I feel the pull to really be present in my children's life and the balance between spending enough one-on-one time with them and leaving them to fend for themselves while I play housekeeper is a fine line. I am sure the guilt would still be there even if I was a working mom; it would just manifest itself in a different way.

As my role of mother has increased in demands with the addition of our second child, I have found my satisfaction levels to ebb and flow much more dramatically when it comes to being a stay-at-home mom. Some moments I feel a complete sense of calm and assurance that being a stay-at-home mom is the place for me, and other moments I think of how much easier it would be to get out of the house and let someone else wrestle with them for 8 hours each day. Maybe then I would be more focused and patient with my children because I would only have to give an hour or so in the morning and a few hours in the evening. The grass is always greener, right?! And to be completely honest, I would never go back and enroll my kids in daycare full time (if I wasn't force to for some reason like finances or something)

However, this post is getting off track. The major discussion point for us lately really lies in the change that happens in a person when you become not only a mom, but also a stay-at-home mom. Your husband continues in his daily role of provider and is still pretty much the same guy you fell in love with (plus a few pounds and less hair....I kid, I kid;) The mom, on the other hand, is not the same. Example, my husband fell in love with me when I was a young and eager professional. Through the early years of our marriage I was quickly climbing the management ladder at my job and an equal financial contributor to our lifestyle. I had big dreams that included my own speech pathology business, or a clinical teaching position in a graduate school program, or being the director of the speech team at a large metropolitan hospital. I thought that a lot of my self-satisfaction was going to be wrapped up in my profession. "I will be a working mom" is what I told him when we talked of having children. He fell in love with that part of me right along with the other parts of me.

However, what happens in a relationship when that part of a person no longer exists or is pushed so far down that it is a distant memory? I have found that staying home with my children has opened up so many doors (and parts of me) that I didn't even know where there, but it has also closed up a part of me that was very much a central role in who I was back in the early years of our marriage.

The challenging and exciting part of an evolving marriage is remembering the reasons you did fall in love in the first place. Remembering that a person shouldn't be judged (or loved) solely on one part of their being, rather the collection of parts. For example, when Andy and I first started dating a discussion occurred regarding his commitment to the military. He told me that his life was in their hands for the next 10 years and if that wasn't something I could handle then he understood. I told him that his service to our country is one of the things I loved about him and, therefore, I couldn't use it against him as well. It couldn't go in both categories. I will still love him long after he gets out of the military, much like he loves me now even though I am a stay-at-home mom rather than the eager professional he fell in love with.

All that being said, that doesn't make it easy. It doesn't change the fact that my husband and I both have moments where we are wistful of the person I used to be, and of the life we used to have together before we became parents. I think we would be ignoring the truth if we didn't acknowledge that. Perhaps people who only think of themselves of moms and dads when they are older (you know the ones that say "when I grow up I want to be a housewife/mom/dad") don't have this struggle in their marriage. My guess is that majority do though. The marriage vows say "for better or for worse" and sometimes I wonder if the battlefield of raising tiny humans is the 'worse' they are speaking of! ha!

Regardless, I wouldn't change a thing about my life. I get the privilegedof staying home with my kids, a luxury a lot of women don't get, and I have a faithful and loving husband who stands behind me in that decision.

So what if the professional in me is lost for a few years? I happen to think the "job" I am working at now is a much better deal.

You know you are in Oklahoma when you arrive to the park and a sweet little boy wearing Wrangler jeans, cowboy boots, a long sleeve collard shirt with snaps, AND a shiny silver belt buckle (whew! that was a loooong clothing description!) befriends you! It was as if he came straight from the cattle ranch for a little fun in the city! ha. He was the sweetest little fella and pushed Olivia on the swings, helped her climb up the tall ladder to the slide, and pushed her on the merry-go-round!

I chit chatted with his mother and Olivia loved having a little playmate! We had walked down to the park a few blocks from our house and it is rather old with little play equipment, so despite the 75 degree weather we were the only ones there. I'm sure the fancy new parks around town were packed, but I liked the idea of being able to walk there! Carter enjoyed the stroller ride and getting some fresh air to his toes!