Not a good day

Today was one of the bad days, I struggled to make it through the day and not give up half way through. In some ways it is easier the longer I work full time, in that I am not crying every day, but in some ways it is harder than ever. I feel like a wimp, after all lots of moms work full time and not just survive but thrive. I have days though where I feel like I am only barely surviving. I do have good days too, but that just adds to the feeling like I am on such a roller coaster. At least once a day I reach a point where I think “there is just no way I can juggle this anymore, I am done!” Then I push through that feeling and get over it, at least for the moment.
I think part of my problem is that I think through things by talking about them, but I don’t really feel like I can talk to many people about this, for obvious reasons I can’t talk to anyone connected to my workplace, I feel my friends that have made significant sacrifices to stay at home wouldn’t understand why I am working if it gives me this much stress, my husband is my best friend and agrees that it would be good for our family if I can stay at home at some point but just doesn’t get how desperate I feel at times-if it comes to that I don’t know why I feel so desperate either and have trouble understanding exactly what I am feeling. It helps just getting it out though, even if it is just on a blog that no one reads!
I don’t know what to do with all these feelings, more days than not I live through my day thinking about when I will get home and my “real” life will start, but on the other hand there are days when I get real pleasure and enjoyment out of the mental stimulation of working and feeling productive. Should I take these feelings of discontent as a sign that I should make real changes in my life? Is it God teaching me to be content with where I am and not want what I can’t have?
Don’t get me wrong, I like what I do and I am incredibly grateful for my job in an economy where so many people are out of work. I am thankful for a job that provides so well financially for my family and that gives me a chance to use my brain. So again, that is part of why I am on such a roller coaster! I alternate between feeling like I can’t go on like this without something snapping and feeling thankful and grateful for being in this job. On top of that is the joy and delight I get from my son, and the best time of my day is when I pick him up in the evenings.
I just feel like there is this seething well of emotion under the surface of my everyday life and sometimes I can keep it down and not let it interfere with my life and other days I feel overwhelmed. It usually cycles through, it will get worse and worse until I have a break down and then after lots of weeping or anger I can get back on a more even keel for a few days. I don’t like living like this, I don’t think it is biblical but I am not sure how to stop! Hopefully I am at the bottom of the cycle and will be back up again in a few days.
Over the Christmas holidays I have a few days off while my husband is working and I am planning a “staycation” for myself, where I just hang out with my baby and get things done around the house and pretend for 6 days that I am a stay at home mom. I hope that I can spend some time in prayer and reading the Bible and that I can find the spiritual rejuvenation that I so badly need. This is a good time of year to reflect on the things that are truly important in an eternal sense, and to gain some perspective about the things that are not important.

One more giveaway

This would be an awesome way to shop for the holidays! A $100 Burlington gift card would go really far, they have some great deals!

Giveaway rattle

I just saw the link to the giveaway for this rattle and would love to get one! I am blogging about it to get another chance to win. My baby still plays with rattles, even though he is a little old for them, and I love that I wouldn't have to worry about what he was putting in his mouth.

I am going to make it all the way

I am so thankful I have made it this far, and I think it is safe to say that I am going to make it to the 12 month mark with no formula! I am not taking pride in this, formula certainly isn't a "bad" choice but I love nursing and didn't want the fact that I have to work to keep me from doing what I wanted. Also, I wanted there to be SOMETHING that only I could do. He spends most of his day with his childcare provider, and she gets to snuggle him, play with him, read to him, comfort him, etc. and I wanted something that would help me feel emotionally connected with him and keep our bond strong. I am so grateful that I was able to nurse as long as I have, I know that it just isn't feasible for lots of women that really want to nurse and I am very, very thankful! The road has certainly had some bumps at times, I remember breaking down and weeping at the 5 month mark when I thought I was losing my milk supply, and I remember almost weekly freakouts when I would have a bad time pumping at the beginning and I would imagine that it was going to have a negative impact on my supply. Just a couple of months ago I felt like there was no way I could stand to keep pumping and was doing the math to see if I could do half formula and half breastmilk and make it to the 12 month mark with the amount of milk I had frozen. But here I am, just a couple of weeks away from the magic milestone and still pumping twice a day and totally fine with it. You really don't know what you can do until you are in the moment. Just the other day I was talking to my husband about how much the baby loves to nurse and I caught myself saying "he loves it so much, maybe I will keep pumping for a little while past his first birthday so that he can keep nursing" HA! I better not be blogging this time next year about how I am STILL pumping for my almost 2 yr old :) I can see us working on weaning in a couple of months, but I am not stressing about it right now. I hope that things will change, and that with the next baby I will be able to really nurse him or her and only pump for the occasional break but if I am still working full time I know that I could do this again.

Inspired

When we were first married (over 6 years ago!) we were way better about sticking to a budget. We operated on an almost cash only basis and would set aside money each month for things like vacations and car repairs. Fast forward to the present day and we have about $3000 in credit card debt that we can't seem to get rid of, and we are constantly surprised by being out of money in our checking account and occasionally getting overdrawn when we don't transfer from savings in time. I get frustrated and stressed out about this because 1) I feel like we live pretty frugally and we try to make good money decisions, 2) the credit card debt really started about 2 years ago when we had several large expenses for the house and car (including replacing the water pipe from our house to the street!), and while we can get it down we can't get rid of it-and then something else will happen and we put it on the credit card and we get stuck in that cycle again and 3) I feel like I am trapped into working full time by our credit card debt and the thought that if we can't manage to live on 2 incomes how could we ever live on 1?!? I also know that right now we are not thinking biblically about our finances, so my New Year's goal (a little early I know) for 2009 is to develop a budget we can stick to and get rid of the credit card debt and build up our savings. So this time next year I should know how much we spend each month, we shouldn't have a balance we can't pay off the same month and our savings should be more than it is right now. I want to tithe with a grateful and worshipful heart too! I have started working towards all this by putting all our expenses into a category every day, and once a week running a report from our bank account website to see where we are for the month. I created really broad categories because in the past when we have tried to get back to budgeting we have made so many little categories that it was so tedius to keep up with it. Once I get going with this, and we are out of debt I want to get back into putting small amounts aside each month so we can handle the unexpected expenses.

I have to be careful though, I can get caught up in "saving money" and make that my idol, I can spend too much time thinking about it and working on it and ironically I can end up spending more when I start searching for deals and find things I just can't pass up. I mean, it does make sense to buy deodorant when you have a coupon that makes it free at Walgreens, but I have to be careful not to buy stuff we don't use just because it is "such a good deal!"

I won't miss this!

It is 5am and I am up because I woke up super uncomfortable at 4am. I laid in bed for a while debating getting up and pumping when it was possible the baby might wake up any moment. Eventually I got up, and pumped 10oz in 10 min (so I needed it!), but now that I just finished the baby is awake and will want to nurse. hmmmmmmmm

In the home stretch!

Well, I feel like I made it past the final obstacle between now and the baby's first birthday-the goal in the back of my mind this whole time has been that magic 12 month mark. I just got back from a girls only trip with some college friends and with 4 days away I was worried that either the baby would not be interested in nursing when I got back (he is at the stage where he has trouble sitting still long enough to nurse) or it would impact my supply negatively enough that I wouldn't be able to make enough but we both made it through just fine. It was kind of annoying to have to disappear every 2 or 3 hours for 20 min or so while I pumped and everyone else was hanging out and having fun but it wasn't too big of a deal. The worst was the travel day at the beginning of the trip, I had a connecting flight and then a 3 hr drive at the end and I went about 12 hours with only two short pumping sessions in the airport bathroom with a manual pump so I was in pain and leaking like crazy when we got to our destination. On the way back my flights were spaced better and I had lots of time to kill in the airport and was able to pump for longer so it wasn't as bad. I even made it back with about 80 oz of frozen milk, a bonus I was not even expecting! I called the airline a couple of days before I left and they said that as long as it was in my checked bag I could transport breastmilk so I packed a small cooler in my suitcase and froze the milk as I pumped it. So now we have about 3 months left and I have about 350 ounces of frozen milk and I am still getting plenty when I pump so I see no reason why we can't make it to his first birthday without formula! I had to give up so much of my vision of motherhood when I went back to work, and I am so thankful that breastfeeding was not one of them! One of the reasons I have kept going so long is that I felt like breastfeeding was even more important because I was working since it would give us a way to continue the bond that was started when I was home on maternity leave and it would also be something that I could give him that his childcare provider couldn't. Sometimes at night when the baby is so sleepy and full of milk and I am rocking him before I put him down I am so full of thanksgiving that I pour my heart out to God, thanking him for the miracle of parenthood.

On a humorous note, we had his 9 month check up a couple of weeks ago and the pediatrician was concerned at the size of his head (99% percentile) and that his soft spot was still pretty open, after checking his soft spot she turned to us and asked if we had larger than average heads. We both said that we thought we did, since we have trouble finding hats that fit, so she measured our heads and apparently my head size is off the chart and my husband is in the high 90s. So she stopped acting concerned and said she was just making a note for the dr to check his softspot at his 12 month appointment. This explains why even 18 month shirts are too small to pull over his head sometimes!