Damian
18 December 2007

I’ve become a flake.  I hate being a flake.  I was a flake in my 20s.  I was the flighty sister that you could never rely upon.  I liked this persona and even fostered it.  It let me get out of a lot of responsibilities.

But then, in my 30s, I changed without planning it or even realizing it.  I became reliable.  If you needed something to get done in the family, it became known that you could leave it with me.  And it turned out, I liked being reliable.  I liked being the responsible one.

But now that I have two children, I have become the flake again, and I’m really not happy about it.  Emails go unanswered; promises remain undelivered; the house does not get cleaned before guests arrive.

I hate being a flake.  I hate it.  I’m just going to have to learn how to have two small children and not be a flake.  That takes work though, and I am still a bit lazy.  That never changed. 😉

Sleeping family.
16 December 2007

Matt and I have been co-sleeping with our children for three years now, since Lily was born.  The whole family, all four of us, sleep together in a king-size bed.  I mostly get looks of disapproval when I explain that we co-sleep, and both my mom and Matt’s parents have encouraged us to move the children out of the bed.  If you decide to co-sleep, expect to constantly defend your decision.

I thought a fair number of people co-sleep with their children, but my playgroup did an internal sampling.  We have about fifteen families in the playgroup, and only two of the families co-sleep.  I really was surprised by this.  I realize that we are by no means a random sample; the playgroup is all caucasian, all of us are housewives with bachelor degrees, and all of us are married to degreed husbands who have manager-type positions.  Not a random sample at all.  But still, I would have expected more of us to co-sleep with our children.

Now after three years of co-sleeping with two small children, I have some advice to pass on.  There are many benefits to co-sleeping.  I’m not going to list them here; you can google it.  However, there are several drawbacks.  The one you will notice first is the lack of sleep.  More people in the bed means less room, and the children, especially babies, will wake you in the night.  But you don’t get sleep as a parent anyway, so that one is actually pretty insignificant.

There is one drawback that needs to be fully considered though:  you don’t snuggle with your spouse.  And I don’t mean wink-wink nudge-nudge “snuggle,” but as in hugging, talking, touching, holding, being with one another snuggling.  This hugging, talking, touching, holding, and being with one another is an essential ingredient to the bonding of two people.  When you remove that, there is stress — real dangerous stress.

Co-sleeping nurtures the children.  The children are surrounded by love and sleep in love.  But there is a sacrifice for this — the relationship between the parents is not nurtured.  The nurturing shifts to the children.  And though the children do need this abundant love to grow into stable, confident, independent adults, your marriage also needs love — or, like all things left in a desert, it will wither and decay.

Matt and I learned this the hard way.  I’m still a proponent of co-sleeping, but, if you do decide to co-sleep, make sure to find a way to nurture the physical connection with your spouse.  Holding and whispering and soft conversations in the night help create a strong marriage.  And a strong marriage is a strong family.

The kids ready to go Christmas shopping.
Lily is looking fabulous, as always, in her
new cowgirl boots and Christmas tights.
13 December 2007

We’re leaving in a week for England, and we have soooo much to do before we leave.  But isn’t Christmas like this every year: scrambling to get everything done?  One year, we decided to make homemade cookies for the neighbors.  Wow.  That was a lot of work.  But we felt like happy Christmas elves leaving cookies on everybody’s doorstep at dawn on Christmas.  That part was a lot of fun.

This year, we are trying to get our Christmas shopping done and the house clean before we leave for England.  I told my mom that there are two empty beds and two empty cars here if she needed them.  So some people are staying at our house for a few days over the Christmas holiday as loads of people come into town, and they are figuring out beds for everyone.  That means, we have to clean our house before we leave.  But, on the upside, it will be clean when we get back, and it’s always nice to come home to a clean house after a long journey.

Matt did the Christmas present shopping this year, and he got through the majority of the list in just a few hours!  I said, “You’re doing the Christmas shopping every year!”  We have about four more presents to get, and then we’re done.

It’s starting to feel a lot like Christmas. 🙂

Daddy and Lily eating banana bread and watching Totoro
01 December 2007

I’m looking for time.  I’m looking for precious nuggets of time — trying to mine them from my scheduled day of childcare and house cleaning.  And with these mined treasures, I want to create.  I want to sew and write and podcast.

As a parent of preschool children, time becomes precious because it has become so scarce — the whole supply and demand concept working within a family unit.  You have to search not only for time for yourself, but time to be with your spouse as well.  You feel like a supporting character in the cast of your own life.

Matt and I have decided to go out on a date once a month.  We had so much fun being out with each other the other night — and it revitalized our marriage which revitalizes our family – so we want to have regular dates, to connect as two adults in love.

It’s a weird and difficult balancing act as a parent.  You have to nurture the children, yourself, and your relationship with your spouse.  I’ve been a parent for three years now and I’m still figuring it out… and I’m still trying to find the time to fit it all in.

It’s 12:30 in the morning, and my whole family is asleep.  Lily has had a very exciting couple of days because her cousins, aunts and uncles have been here for the Thanksgiving holiday.  Since she is overtired from two days of excitement, we had a lot of “instant meltdown” this evening.

And our house, which was already messy before Thanksgiving started, has surpassed into “what the hell?” after hosting family for two days.  And I am supposed to be catching up on our finances right now.  People who already overspend, like Matt and myself, tend to really overspend during the holiday season.  The holidays are a dangerous time for rampant consumers, like an alcoholic being invited to an open-bar wedding — you can get through it, but you have to be mindful of your weakness at every moment until the party is over… if you drop your guard for too long, you fall back into impulse and habit and wake up the next morning with regret.

Thanksgiving piccies:

Matt preparing the Thanksgiving feast.
Matt, the expatriate Englishman who never celebrated Thanksgiving
before coming here in 2000, has cooked our Thanksgiving feast
for the last four or five Thanksgivings. He said it’s not difficult
at all because Thanksgiving dinner is the same as Christmas
dinner in England. In fact, that is how Glenn described
Thanksgiving: “a dress rehearsal for Christmas.” This year,
Matt’s meal was amazing. Really amazing.
Thanksgiving 2007
22 November 2007

Tickle-mania!
Thanksgiving 2007
22 November 2007

More tickle-mania.
Thanksgiving 2007
22 November 2007

Logan, Carla, and Lily, as always, holding Clara
Thanksgiving 2007
22 November 2007

Carla and Lily feeding Clara
Thanksgiving 2007
22 November 2007

Steve and Lily feeding Clara
(The three of them are watching
the Cowboys game in this picture.)
Thanksgiving 2007
22 November 2007

Carla with her kids
(This picture also shows the very cute
kitty-cat ensemble Clara was wearing.)
Thanksgiving 2007
22 November 2007

Matt falling asleep on the floor after cooking and eating all day.
(Isn’t that what Thanksgiving is all about — cooking and eating?)
Thanksgiving 2007
22 November 2007

The older cousins
Thanksgiving 2007
22 November 2007

Lily fell fast asleep on Cody
after a full day of playing with her cousins.
Thanksgiving 2007
22 November 2007

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving full of food and family.  I hope everyone else had a wonderful Thanksgiving too. 🙂

Super-cute cheeks!
13 November 2007

I feel like I keep going over topics that are well-known.  It is well-known that many stay-at-home moms feel isolated.  I’m just trying to warn people — not to stay away, mind you.  Being a stay-at-home mom is a rewarding and important job.  But to warn people so that they are prepared.

So here’s the warning: you feel very isolated and lonely as a stay-at-home mom.  I am part of wonderful playgroup; I have an amazing, supportive husband; and yet I still feel very lonely sometimes.

Do you remember how lonely you were before you finally met “The One”?  Do you remember crying to the night sky, begging not to be alone anymore?  Do you remember how some nights, alone in your bed, you would feel the almost unbearable crush of loneliness?

Well, you get to revisit all that as a stay-at-home mom.

Preschool children are extremely hard work, and you do 85% of that hard work by yourself — all alone — day in and day out.  All by yourself, each day, you constantly tend to the needs of small children.

I feel like I need to add an addendum: I love my children and my husband.  I love them so fiercely that there is not even a word for it.  Just be forewarned, if you want to be a stay-at-home mom, plan for the loneliness.  Join a playgroup; ask the grandparents to take the children occasionally; keep your husband informed of the sometimes overbearing sense of loneliness so he can be there for you.  It will be lonely, so plan for it as best you can.

I love this picture of Clara.
She looks so tiny and delicate in Steve’s hands.
13 November 2007

I feel overwhelmed by my own life.  But how can you feel overwhelmed by your own life?  Aren’t you the one in charge?  Don’t you dictate the schedule?

Apparently not.

The baby continues to be hard work.  Lily, however, is just a dream right now.  She is being so sweet and adorable.  But anyways, back to the challenges:  we also have Thanksgiving at our house coming up.  And then we have the trip to England for Christmas.

Wait a minute.  It’s the holidays!  Of course I’m feeling stressed and overwhelmed!  Okay, I understand now.  It’s just the holidays. 😉

I love this photo because Matt’s expression
is such a picture. Just a little more sleep….
Just a little….
28 October 2007

I don’t want to go to bed.  I don’t want the night to end.  You see, in the morning, I will wake up and have to take care of two small children again and cook food again and clean house again and all the current responsibilities that dominate my life right now will become priority again.

But, in the night, I get to do what I want to do.  Matt and I just finished the third season of The Office on DVD.  We ate a pint of ice cream… each.  Like a good daddy and provider, he finally called it quits at 2am, saying that he had to be up in four hours to go to work.

And, after this blog entry, I’ll crawl into bed as well.  I need a decent night’s sleep so that I can be patient with the children and a good mommy.  But for a little while tonight, we indulged.

Being a parent is not easy, and I’ll tell you why.  I’ll tell you the number one reason why being a parent is such a difficult task:  the children always come first.  Video games, hobbies, web surfing, movie watching, blogging… any self-interested activity is shelved.  You are shelved.  The children take center stage, not only in their own life but in yours as well.

I think this is true only for small children.  I don’t know.  I’ve never parented a child older than 3-years-old (Lily’s current age).  I think you regain time for yourself as they get older.  But, as parents of two preschool children, the middle of the night is the only time that Matt and I can claim as our own.

On a completely separate note, Matt and I think that the cutest couple at Dunder-Mifflin: Scranton Branch is Dwight and Angela.  They are actually really cute together.  That is a funny funny show.  Now I have two DVDs of the third season of Project Runway waiting for me.  Yeah!!!  🙂

My Dad having his morning coffee in Surfside.
We had an excellent time in Surfside this past weekend
with both my family and Donna’s family.
04 November 2007

I’ve been listening to The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People while on the elliptical at the gym.  Did you get that picture in your mind?  Here, let me paint it again.  I have finished doing the weights (or “resistance training” for the physically-inclined out there), and I have moved onto my cardio workout on the elliptical — the elliptical being like a new and improved treadmill.  I have my iPod on with its little lime green earbuds in my ears, and I’m listening to The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

If you saw me at the gym, I would seem like the caricature that is portrayed in movies of the win-at-any-cost businessman.

And yet, the thing is, I’m not that at all.  Our house is a mess.  I’m in my housecoat as I write this.  I just happen to work out, and that book is quite good.  I’m enjoying it immensely.  Stephen Covey hasn’t started talking about habits yet; I’m on the bit where he is discussing a paradigm shift.

Anyways, if you took a snapshot in time of me on the elliptical listening to that book, you would have entirely the wrong image of me.  Interesting, huh?

If I had to pick a snapshot to define myself, I would probably pick this one:

The Woodings Family
Christmas 2006

There is still so much of me that is not in that picture, but it shows what brings me joy daily. That’s Damian in my belly, so he’s in the picture too. 😉

Piglet and Snow White
Halloween 2007
31 October 2007

We had a really excellent Halloween this year.  We spent the evening with our friends, Ray and Leslie (Ray married us) and their two children.  We went trick-or-treating, ate excellent cheese, and caught up with each other’s lives.  We all had a really good time.

Our baby is already asleep.  Lily and I have already eaten way too much candy.  And we’re watching the latest trailer for The Golden Compass (we all really want to see this movie) before we brush our teeth and go to bed.

Good night, all.  And Happy Halloween. 🙂