It’s been a while since I
last blogged but life has been keeping me pretty busy! Lucas turned 7 months
this past weekend (update to come) and we’ve been all over the place trying to
re-settle in after vacation, find our new home and live our normal life.
I’ve also been having some
internal personal struggles. A few things have been weighing on me lately but
the biggest one is the lack of time I get to spend with my son. Now I know I
said back in November that I wanted (no, needed)
to be something more than just a mom, but as time has flown by I’ve realized
that there is truly nothing I want more in this world than to be able to stay
home with my son. My husband laughs and says it’s “just because you don’t want
to work anymore”, but that has nothing to do with it. Every day that I drop
Lucas off at daycare is another day that I don’t get to spend with him. It’s
another nine hours that he’s with someone else that will watch him, play with
him, experience his growth and ultimately influence him. I love our daycare, I
truly do, the women there are amazing and they love Lucas almost as much as we
do, but it’s becoming more and more difficult for me to say goodbye every
morning. With each passing milestone I get more frustrated. Each time I see him
do something for the first time I wonder if it’s really the first time or if he’s already done it at daycare. And
now that he’s even more aware of his surroundings and the people around him,
he’s starting to reach for his teacher in the morning which only further breaks
my heart. Again, I have to reiterate how much I love our daycare and his
teacher (I’ve known her for 20 years) it doesn’t take away the fact that it
hurts to see him reach for someone else!
Couple that with the fact
that more than a handful of my friends have now reduced their hours or left the
workplace altogether for this very reason and my emotions are in overdrive. I
know that so many women do exactly what I am doing every day and they manage to
make it work and I know being a stay-at-home-mom is just as “un-glamorous” as
being a working-mom, but still my heart aches for him during the day. I look at
his pictures while I’m pumping for the millionth time, struggling to produce
enough milk for his daycare bottles and
I wonder what we’d be doing if we were together. Would we be reading a new
book, or taking a long walk, or just sitting outside listening to nature? But
instead I sit in a cold dreary office (as most are) watching the minutes tick
by until I can go pick him up and have just a few precious hours with him
before he goes to bed. I envy my sister, who as a teacher, gets out of school
at 3pm(ish), and has multiple weeks of vacation every year to spend with her
son. C was born at the end of January, so after her maternity leave ended she
went back to work for three weeks before having the entire summer off. She
didn’t have to drop him at daycare until he was almost 8 months old… I on the
other hand was dropping Lucas off at 9 weeks. It literally breaks my heart to
look back at how few pictures I have of him at 9, 10, 11 weeks because we
weren’t together. After going back to work so early I vowed that on our next
baby I would take the full 12 weeks. But as it turns out my employer does not
offer maternity leave. So, once again I’d be in a situation where any leave I
take would be unpaid.
Spending a week with Lucas
and my husband (along with S, B & C) in Florida made me realize even
further how much I want to be home with him. Being able to wake up every
morning knowing we had a full day ahead was so wonderful. I was sad to come
home (as I typically am after a vacation) and Brian had to practically beg me
not to go into my “post vacation depression”…while I was able to keep a smile
on my face this time, knowing that we were going back to our “normal” routine
weighed heavily on my mind. So, I did what I always do, I started thinking
(obsessively) about how I could make my dream of staying home a reality. I know
myself well enough to know that I wouldn’t be able to not work at all, so the idea of doing something part-time on nights
and weekends entered my brain. That way I’d be home with Lucas during the week,
we could avoid the cost of daycare (a huge savings over the course of a year)
and I would still be able to have some adult interaction and have that sense of
being a “contributing member of society” that I know I’ll want and need. You
know that saying, “everything happens for a reason,” well maybe the reason we
sold our house so quickly and we haven’t been able to find another one is
because of this (am I reaching?). While my brain was in overdrive I also spent
some time crunching numbers. I figured out what our new home budget would allow
for if I were to work from home. These two things put together confirmed my
decision. I spoke with Brian and amazingly enough he is on board with the idea.
It’s not something that is going to happen immediately (see previous living
situation issue) but it’s something we’ve both agreed would be best for our
family. Yes, it might mean cutting back on some of the “fun” stuff but at the
end of the day family is really the most important thing isn’t it?
All of this being said, we
have a ways to go before it could even potentially happen (I’m hoping by
mid-summer) but knowing what we’re working toward gives me a new sense of calm.
It makes those morning drop-offs just a bit easier. With every passing day I’m
(hopefully) one day closer to being home with my son. We still haven’t figured
out all the nit-picky details like who will help me with nighttime daycare when
Brian travels or what I’ll do for
work but I have no doubt that we’ll figure it out…it always seems to fall into
place just when we needed it to most!
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