Bless them! Seriously. They take my kids all day and teach them things and keep them entertained so that I don't have to. At no cost to me, other than taxes of course. When it comes to education, I LOVE taxes!
I will admit I'm not the most entertaining of moms. I stress about my clean house too much to spend all day coming up with fun and educational activities for my kids. And I don't enjoy that stuff enough to do it ALL the time.
I love the occasional kid game or making valentines for my kids valentine party, but I don't have the personality to enjoy doing kid things all the time.
I don't have a kid like imagination. I am the type of mom who LOVES to watch my kids play, but I don't really want to join in.
So, for me, having my kids go off to school, gets them the fun activities, education and social interaction they need without me having to do a thing! Awesome.
Moms who home school... you are better than me. Really you are! In this area anyway. You allow your house to be turned into a school, you devote all your time to educating and entertaining your kids. You give up your free time and alone time. You give up quiet days of having the house to yourself and the ability to run errands alone. And you enjoy it?! Maybe you don't, i dunno, maybe you do it because you feel like it's best. Either way, you're better than me.
I am just starting to see a glimpse of the future of my kids being in elementary school. My oldest goes to preschool an extra day each week while I'm home (not at work) and it's glorious. And in the last couple weeks I've had a couple of days where I'm home alone while I put all three kids in school. It's expensive right now, but in a little over three years, this amazing luxury will be FREE! Sometimes I can see why some parents send their kids to boarding school.
And luckily, although I feel home schooling moms are better than me, I don't feel that their kids are better off for it. I don't have to feel guilty that I'm not as enthusiastic as those moms because I feel my kids LOVE going to school. And I feel that it's really good for them. My oldest pre schooler by far learns better from her teachers than she does from me. I'm mom, she doesn't see me in the same light that she sees her teacher in that institutional setting.
I like the socialization they get and the variety of activities and ways of learning that I know I could never come up with myself or be enthusiastic about.
I love public school. I love teachers. I will make a huge effort to show my kids' teachers my appreciation! I can NOT imagine dealing with that many kids every day.
I'm so fortunate to live in an area with great public education.
Thank you teachers.
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Thursday, February 13, 2014
everything is easier
It's amazing what I used to think was stressful or hard. Having kids really puts things into perspective. For instance, studying. I have to study for the NRP exam that I'm required to renew every two years for my job. On monday the kids went to daycare for the whole day because I had an afternoon meeting. I used the morning hours without my kids (rare) to study for this test.
I was sprawled out on my comfy couch reading the book and taking notes. It was GLORIOUS. I thought to myself "remember when I thought this was hard?" Back in college when I thought my life was so stressful. Now, I will say that yes it was stressful. I will give it that. But hard? Maybe a little, but nothing compared to having kids. Studying is relaxing compared to my children. You get to sit on the couch while you read and write. It's for no one but YOU. It's all about YOU and advancing YOURSELF. It's productive and concrete and you can actually mark things off your list and feel like you're getting somewhere.
Being home taking care of kids is mind numbing, unproductive and you are constantly doing for others and giving of yourself to them. There is no time for yourself to do anything you would like to do, other than the tiny window of time when you hopefully get them to all nap at once and then you have to decide between productivity and rest for that hour and a half.
I hear people at work complain about how much they don't wanna be at work and I think "this is my break, this is my day off". Even work is easy compared to being at home.
And people without kids say "I really need a vacation" and I think "a vacation from what? Every day is a vacation for you." they go home and do whatever they want whenever they want. Four days a week all to themselves and the other three are spent at EASY work. And they only have to get themselves ready for that day, no one else. SO EASY!
I never ever realized how easy I had it before kids. Now everything is so hard.
I was sprawled out on my comfy couch reading the book and taking notes. It was GLORIOUS. I thought to myself "remember when I thought this was hard?" Back in college when I thought my life was so stressful. Now, I will say that yes it was stressful. I will give it that. But hard? Maybe a little, but nothing compared to having kids. Studying is relaxing compared to my children. You get to sit on the couch while you read and write. It's for no one but YOU. It's all about YOU and advancing YOURSELF. It's productive and concrete and you can actually mark things off your list and feel like you're getting somewhere.
Being home taking care of kids is mind numbing, unproductive and you are constantly doing for others and giving of yourself to them. There is no time for yourself to do anything you would like to do, other than the tiny window of time when you hopefully get them to all nap at once and then you have to decide between productivity and rest for that hour and a half.
I hear people at work complain about how much they don't wanna be at work and I think "this is my break, this is my day off". Even work is easy compared to being at home.
And people without kids say "I really need a vacation" and I think "a vacation from what? Every day is a vacation for you." they go home and do whatever they want whenever they want. Four days a week all to themselves and the other three are spent at EASY work. And they only have to get themselves ready for that day, no one else. SO EASY!
I never ever realized how easy I had it before kids. Now everything is so hard.
Monday, February 3, 2014
drugs
I really do love my children, and what makes me sure of this is that I don't do some of the things I would like to do because I care about their well being enough not to do them.
On really bad days I have dreamed of running away from my life and just relaxing by myself. But I never would. Never could. I love my kids too much to be that selfish and do that to them. It would wreck their mental health forever.
The other thing I've dreamed of doing (only since having kids) is taking drugs. I have never been so overwhelmed, stressed, run down and exhausted with life as I am having three very young children. I can see now how some people are pushed to drugs because honestly it kinda sounds lovely.
A few months ago I had a canker sore gone bad and I was in throbbing pain, so I took a hydrocodone that I had left over from my tubal ligation surgery.
It made me high as a kite. I was very sleepy but also unusually happy. I just felt like smiling. In that moment I thought "this would be nice to have all the time". To just escape all of this and feel like smiling. Lovely.
BUT I can't just sleep all the time. My kids need me to be present, alert and interact and care for them. Not high on pills. This is of course a no brainer and I would never do this either, I'm just saying I could see the appeal.
I also had a bad cold a couple months ago and took sudafed and noticed how energized I felt while taking it. I wasn't so sleepy and dragging all the time. I was picking up the house like super mom and not even getting worn out. I had a thought of taking a sudafed every day. No harm in that right? But then I was reading side effects like heart attack and stroke and decided to come back down to reality and realize that's probably a bad idea as well. I'd be a freaking good mom though! I can see why some people start doing meth because they need to get things done.
Momma could use some chemical energy! Too bad it makes your life spiral out of control, and it's illegal and all those other small details.
I've never done any drugs and I've never and still don't drink. I've never understood drug addicts and always thought of myself as better than them. But then again I thought I was literally perfect before I had kids. Really. I had never made any bad mistakes, I did everything right and could not understand why other people could not be like me.
Then I had kids and they humbled me. For the first time in my life I couldn't handle it all . I couldn't keep it all together. The stress was and is too much for me. My house fell apart. It's a mess all the time. My perfect dinner schedule went out the window. I could no longer keep up with the budget and bills and handed that responsibility over to my husband. I gained weight from stress eating. I couldn't succeed at breast feeding. In fact, I hated it. My kids do not eat all organic perfectly balanced diets. I thought I would be a perfect mom to go along with my perfect self, but I'm not.
I'm tired. Sometimes too tired to care if they eat nothing but cookies. That's reality. I'm not perfect. I make mistakes. And maybe this reality of having kids has been good for me. It's good for me to realize I'm just human and I'm not better than anyone. Not even a drug addict.
On really bad days I have dreamed of running away from my life and just relaxing by myself. But I never would. Never could. I love my kids too much to be that selfish and do that to them. It would wreck their mental health forever.
The other thing I've dreamed of doing (only since having kids) is taking drugs. I have never been so overwhelmed, stressed, run down and exhausted with life as I am having three very young children. I can see now how some people are pushed to drugs because honestly it kinda sounds lovely.
A few months ago I had a canker sore gone bad and I was in throbbing pain, so I took a hydrocodone that I had left over from my tubal ligation surgery.
It made me high as a kite. I was very sleepy but also unusually happy. I just felt like smiling. In that moment I thought "this would be nice to have all the time". To just escape all of this and feel like smiling. Lovely.
BUT I can't just sleep all the time. My kids need me to be present, alert and interact and care for them. Not high on pills. This is of course a no brainer and I would never do this either, I'm just saying I could see the appeal.
I also had a bad cold a couple months ago and took sudafed and noticed how energized I felt while taking it. I wasn't so sleepy and dragging all the time. I was picking up the house like super mom and not even getting worn out. I had a thought of taking a sudafed every day. No harm in that right? But then I was reading side effects like heart attack and stroke and decided to come back down to reality and realize that's probably a bad idea as well. I'd be a freaking good mom though! I can see why some people start doing meth because they need to get things done.
Momma could use some chemical energy! Too bad it makes your life spiral out of control, and it's illegal and all those other small details.
I've never done any drugs and I've never and still don't drink. I've never understood drug addicts and always thought of myself as better than them. But then again I thought I was literally perfect before I had kids. Really. I had never made any bad mistakes, I did everything right and could not understand why other people could not be like me.
Then I had kids and they humbled me. For the first time in my life I couldn't handle it all . I couldn't keep it all together. The stress was and is too much for me. My house fell apart. It's a mess all the time. My perfect dinner schedule went out the window. I could no longer keep up with the budget and bills and handed that responsibility over to my husband. I gained weight from stress eating. I couldn't succeed at breast feeding. In fact, I hated it. My kids do not eat all organic perfectly balanced diets. I thought I would be a perfect mom to go along with my perfect self, but I'm not.
I'm tired. Sometimes too tired to care if they eat nothing but cookies. That's reality. I'm not perfect. I make mistakes. And maybe this reality of having kids has been good for me. It's good for me to realize I'm just human and I'm not better than anyone. Not even a drug addict.
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