Friday, October 28, 2011

I'm happy - deal with it

I am so sick and tired of hearing people say "oh it must be so hard" when they hear about me going back to work. Yes, I love my child. Yes, I do struggle with leaving him in the care of someone else and yes, I wish I was there to see all his big firsts. However, I LOVE my job. I LOVE working and I honestly don't picture myself as a stay at home mom right now. I might be one day, but right now, I love working. But I feel like it's become this "thing" where stay at hom moms are seen as the best moms, the hardest working moms, the moms who truly love their kids and would do anything to be with them every day. Don't get me wrong, I respect moms who do choose to stay at home and I think thats great for them. But it's not for me and I'm not going to feel guilty because I enjoy working. I have a fantastic dayhome, I know my son is safe and happy there. I know she loves him and gives him constant affirmation and affection. He loves going there and loves it when I pick him up. I also hate hearing about how I must look forward to me being able to stay home, going on the assumption that the only reason I'm working is because I have to. Well I don't. Yes, financially it does make better sense for me to be working right now but technically, I think if I really wanted to, we could make it work. Or I could only work part-time or something. I am working because I want to. I am working because I enjoy my job. It's not easy. It is a lot of work to make sure I get enough time with my child and have a life and right now, I do sacifice a bit of my social life because if I'm away from Z all day, I don't really want to get a babysitter and lose more time with him. But thats okay. For me, this is the life I currently want. I don't believe that won't change. I'm sure that I might choose to stay home with my children one day. Maybe. But maybe I will keep working and I'm okay with that too. It's my choice and I absolutely love having that freedom.
But I'm happy and please stop assuming that I'm not.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Weird things my kid does

  • child safety locks - no match for Z. I was taking a shower the other day and being the wonderful mother I am, I plopped my kid in front of a Veggie Tales episode and told him to sit still. 5 minutes later, this little hand pulls open my shower curtain and says "Hi!". I almost died of shock. When no-one over the age of one is home and you have a child proof lock on your door handle, you really dont expect company in the shower!
  • Cleans my house. Really well in fact. He puts all the shoes in the hall closet, he puts the remote control on the TV cabinet, he puts his milk back in the fridge and his clothes in the hamper. I have no idea where he gets this desire to clean from, definiately not from me but I appreciate it.
  • spins in circles when he's bored. And then falls on the ground giggling.
  • Socks in the utensils drawer - I'm teaching Z to put his clothes away, so when I do laundry I hand him his clothes and he puts them in his drawers. He's figured this out really well, except now whenever I open one of the kitchen drawers, I find random articles of clothing in there. Usually it's a sock.
  • When he babbles, it's full sentences and hand movements. And if we ignore him, he will push himself into our line of vision and babble really loud.
  • Imitates a monkey - seriously this kid is such a climber. Yesterday he discovered that he could move his little chair into the kitchen, climb on it, use the drawer handles for support and grab stuff of the counter. He's also learned he can crawl onto the ottoman and couches. Nothing is out of reach in our house anymore
  • Gets himself ready for going outside - he will hand me his socks, his shoes and his jacket. and if I'm taking too long, he brings me my shoes and then grabs the keys and tries to put them in the door.
  • Wears a potty for his hat - he will take the top part of his little potty off and run around the house with it on his head. He also does this with buckets. I feel like perhaps I shouldn't encourage him to run around with things on his head but it's really hilarious.

Thursday, October 20, 2011

I can post again!

For some reason my blog wouldn't let me publish any posts so I had all these posts saved but no way to publish them. But I got around the system by installing the Blogger app on my phone and then i could publish from there! So soon there will be a bunch of old posts up but for the time being I'll just post a picture of my growing little guy:


Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Sometimes I shouldn't open my mouth...

My husband wants to become a cop.

It was my idea…why? I suggested it mostly as a joke when we were thinking of new careers for him – he likes guns so it made sense in my mind. However, I didn’t expect him to be interested. Or to find out that he was considering it but didn’t want to say it because he thought I would freak out. Which I did. But then I stopped and thought about it. Mostly about how hot he would look in the uniform. But I also thought about my feelings on guns (before we got married, I told Mike – my gun loving American that he could never own a gun), on how I hate it when he’s gone more often than he’s home, how I worry needlessly about him getting in a car accident if he’s 10 minutes late so how would I be if he had a higher risk job, but mostly I just thought about how regardless of all that, I think he’ll be a great cop and he would actually enjoy his job.

I do think he would be a great police officer. He is calm, controlled, works well with people, dedicated, physically active and would love a diverse and changing job. I think he would enjoy it. Does that mean I want him to be a cop? Not 100% but I want him to have a job he loves, I want him to wake up and enjoy going to work. I hate watching him go to a job he hates because he wants to provide for us. I could picture him as a cop and I like that picture. I’m not a huge fan of the hours or the time away from us but I also know that EPS has pretty decent hours and I truly do believe that we could make it work. They do 4 days on and 4 days off so you actually do get a significant amount of time together but I’m also not naive enough to think that those 4 days on won’t be extremely difficult, especially if he’s working nights. I also know that cops have one of the highest divorce rates in a profession and I will not let that happen to us which means we are going to have to be intentional and really work on our marriage, a lot more than we do now if I’m being honest. I worry that with me working, it will make it a lot harder for me and for us to see each other. If he’s working weekends, then I’m home alone those days and even if he’s off for 4 days, if it’s during the week, I won’t see him because I’ll be at work. We’ll have evenings but with the little dude, that’s not always quiet or relaxing. The nice thing is that he will make more money and if I really wanted to, we could afford for me to stay home and then when he’s home for those 4 days, I will be there too! So we’ll see. I’ll also have to get used to holidays not being celebrated on the actual day (although bonus – holidays are paid @ triple time!) and Mike missing some of those big moments in our lives but I do believe we will be able to do it. There will be sacrifices but if my husband is able to have a job he loves and be able to provide for our family, I will support him. 100%. I know that if I ever said I can’t handle it, even if he’s been a cop for 20 years, he would quit that day. I know that. And I am comfortable with him going into this because I know that. I have no doubt that Mike would do absolutely anything for our family.

But as much as both Mike & I think this is what he should do, we are waiting. This is not a small decision. It’s more than a career, it’s a lifestyle and we can’t make this decision lightly. So we are working on getting all the documents ready for the application (which is no small feat) and we have to wait for some certificates to come (since Mike is American he has to get some extra documentation) and that will take 6 weeks so we are going to use that time to really pray about this and really make sure this is what God wants us to do as a family. Mike needs to train so he is ready for the physical fitness challenge and again, we are using that time to pray about this. We can’t apply for 6 weeks and I think that is a huge blessing because that gives us time to make sure we are not rushing into this and that we are going into this as informed as possible. We are meeting with a couple from church, he is a cop with EPS, and we want their insights and thoughts about becoming a police family.
And then, in about 6 weeks time, we hand in that 100 page application and start this journey (maybe!). And pray that we will continue to be directed by God and that we will seek his will in our lives.

I think we are going to do this but I know I need to open to the idea that this may not be what we should do, which I think will be hard to hear because I have spent a lot of time praying, researching and struggling to come to terms with the idea and I feel like I am there now and I am excited for Mike so if it ends up not being what we should do, I’m going to be honest – it will be a struggle. But we have been disappointed before and we still continue on and if we are disappointed again, we will continue on. Together.And that’s all that matters.

Saturday, October 1, 2011

I'm still here!

I haven’t blogged in so long! It’s not that I have nothing
going in my life, I think it’s more that I feel like I have nothing worthy of
writing going on. I’m back at work, I love my job, love getting dressed in nice
clothes and having adult conversation every day. I love getting a paycheque and
knowing we do just fine because of the money I make. I love that Z does so well
in his dayhome. But I feel guilty. Should I be so happy that I leave my child
every single day in the care of someone else? Should I be happy that days like
today when Z is grumpy all morning, I’m just happy I’m not the one dealing with
him? Is it wrong that I almost start crying when Z gets so excited to go to the
dayhome each day and I’m happy that he’s happy but I kinda wish he would miss
me more? Our lives are so good right now. I love my job. I love Z’s day home
and I love that I feel energized and ready to handle Z in the evenings and
weekends. I wish I had time to cook more – it’s a little embarrassing to think
about how often we eat Costco hot dogs or frozen pizza simply because I’m
feeling lazy or blah. But beyond the cooking thing, I think we’re doing pretty
good! J

So that’s my update. It’s nothing exciting.
But hopefully there will be big news coming soon ;)

And no I’m not pregnant.