It is 2 years later and I am again finding the need for an outlet. Not that I have the time to be a "blogger" in the true sense of the word. I am now a stay at home mother of 4, homeschooling 2 of the kids, trying to maintain 2 households on one income while we get one house ready to sell...basically we are nuts!
So much has happened. During my pregnancy with #4, right around 7 or so months along, I lost my job. They put a temporary increase on our quota that magically never went away...that is until 2 weeks after they let me go. Makes sense right? We are talking a 25% increase in production overnight. I was also given new accounts I was unfamiliar with and had accounts that I had been handling for the last 5 years taken away (not because I mishandled them). I was NOT the only one unable to achieve these new goals with the speed bumps that were given to me, but I was the only one let go. It, of course, had nothing to do with the fact no one in that department had to take a maternity leave ever, and I had the nerve to have 2 in 2 years. In the over 15 years I had been in the workforce I had never been fired from a job...EVER! While I hated the company and the industry I was in was never meant to be a career...I worked my butt off to provide for my family.
I was a mess when it first happened, but I try really hard to believe in "everything happens for a reason, even if we can't see what that reason is at the time." It didn't take long to see this as a blessing. We figured out finances and got rid of unnecessary expenses to see if we could make this stay at home thing work for us. I was a different person. I went from being constantly stressed and more angry than I even realized I was, to being so happy and feeling a ton lighter. I had no idea how much that job had been weighing me down. I was able to spend the last bit of my pregnancy solidifying my bond with baby #3 who would turn 2 just a month AFTER baby #4's arrival. It was AH-MAZING!
My oldest was in 5th grade at the local public school. This was his 2nd year in public schools after being in private school with the same kids since pre-3. I had noticed a huge change in him at home though. He was coming home and wanting a "snack" that was the size of a normal person's meal. He would tell me he hadn't eaten all day. I know that he preferred to sleep as late as possible over having breakfast, but I also knew he was getting lunch because I was being charged for it. Needless to say I was not very understanding and would not let him have these after school/before dinner meals. He was also suddenly a very angry child, more so than ever. He was especially mean to his younger sister. I knew something was wrong, but when I would ask him if something was going on at school or if he was being bullied he would deny it. I talked with the mother of one of my daughter's friends and she asked what grade & school my son was in. When I told her, she told me to watch out because that sounded like her son at that age and he was at the same school and he was being tortured by his peers. I decided to share my concerns with my husband and that was when he told me our son had confided in him what was happening at school, but didn't want me to know. I understand he was trying to keep his promise to our son, but this should have been the exception.
The very next morning I got up a little early to have a one on one talk with my son...after a little prying I was able to get him to open up (and we were both bawling). He let me know that the reason he had been so hungry was there were kids who would take his milk and pour it on his lunch making it inedible (yes, there were teachers in the lunchroom, but they never saw it happen apparently?). He was constantly called fat and various other terms, which resulted in him wearing a hoodie to school even when it was 80 out (which was another thing, that before I knew his reasoning I scolded him for). One last example was that, as I mentioned in a previous post my son gets along better with girls as he has no interest in sports or super heroes, this caused kids to call him gay, fag, swag (although 'swag' to me meant a goodie bag or such...these kids decided it means 'secretly we are gay'). I shared with him my experience with bullies, but I also had to share something with him that I had hoped to keep from him. In high school, I had let my problems get the best of me and after multiple unsuccessful suicide attempts I had ended up in the ER with a very close call. He now has a family history of depression & suicide attempts. Seeing that so many kids kill themselves as a direct result of bullying, I did not want my son to become one of those statistics. I called him out of school that day (a Friday) because he was visibly upset. My husband & I took the weekend to talk things over, but we had already talked about it before and really our weekend talk was more or less just making sure we were still on the same page. Monday morning I had a meeting with his principal, in which I pulled him from school and started our home school journey. We chose to have kid #2 finish out the school year with her class, but the following year she joined us in home schooling. She was not accepted by the kids in her class. She was not being "bullied" in the same way her brother was, but was instead being excluded from all activities. At recess she was not allowed to sit, so she would stand around and just watch the other kids play. At her birthday party at our local children's museum the other girls would leave an exhibit as soon as my daughter would try to join. She was hurt and spent much of her own birthday party hiding in corners to cry. Our family is very against it, but they are very mainstream and don't understand or agree with most of our recent parenting decisions either.
So I have talked about how I came to be a stay at home mom, how I came to be a home schooling mom, and lastly, I have found my calling, my passion, my goals for my professional life. I have found a love for natural childbirth, breastfeeding, etc.
As far as previous births, I had my 1st kid at 19. I took the hospital's lamaze class and thought I was prepared to have a drug free birth, but they taught us that we will get to a point where we may not know what is going on so we should rely on our partner to help us make decisions. Fast forward to labor...hospital having the busiest week in over 100 years and me apparently getting loud (you know, like you see on tv) led me to have an extremely rude nurse coming in every few minutes to push me to get the epidural and inform me I am scaring the other mothers. I was forced to lay on my back in bed and was not allowed to get up and move around, even though I pleaded because the rocking chair felt so much better. Eventually I gave in, but because they were so busy the anesthesiologist was preoccupied with others who made the same choice. The nurse came in to give me demerol to "quiet me down" as she put it. When it didn't work the way she liked, she gave me another dose and shortly after the epidural was given. I don't have many memories of the rest of my labor. I have never done drugs, got drunk, anything like this in my life. I don't like not feeling in control. I would be talking to my husband, blink, and suddenly it was my dad standing there instead. You get the idea, I was not present at all. I was a very modest person, and when pushing time came I was asked if a few EMT students could observe in order to help get certified and much to my husband's surprise I agreed. They had me so drugged up that when it was pushing time the epidural had to be turned down so I could feel to push. Instead by this time they had me so scared that I couldn't do it without medication I was afraid to try so I just watched the monitor and pushed when it told me I was having a contraction. At the time, I thought, well thank goodness I did what they told me and I have a healthy baby. After he was born they kept him in the nursery so I could get some rest and proceeded to give him a bottle (because they told me I couldn't breastfeed yet as my milk wasn't in yet) and gave him a pacifier even though I specifically asked them not to. I tried to pump one time at home, using a poor fitting hand pump...not knowing there were different fits. Decided it hurt too much and being modest like I was, I didn't want to sit alone in my bedroom to pump while everyone including my baby were in the living room. Looking back, there is so much I wish I knew or had thought to look into further than "what to expect" book.
In what I have proven to be my true fashion I have written an extremely long entry again. I am technically trying to catch you up on not only the last 2 years, but also a little bit more background on me too. However, I will have to share the other 3 birth stories with you another time. I have resolved that this family needs to get on a schedule the best we can. Last night I got all 4 kids in bed by 9:45 and the 2 youngest were asleep by 10! Sounds late I know, but if you only knew what time they normally consider their bedtime. Anyway...I stayed up for a while more silently on my phone as to make sure my older ones were truly asleep. They are known for sneaking around after everyone else is in bed. Sure enough about 11:30 I bust them, but manage to wake the baby by leaving her to catch them. She then decided that was merely a 1.5 hr nap and is wide awake. In an attempt to keep the 3 yr old asleep, I brought her downstairs. Shortly after, the inevitable happened and he woke up also. What else should a mom do in the middle of the night with a 3.5 yr old & a 20 month old, but blog while watching Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood and eating graham crackers with whipped topping? The time is now 4:30 am and both children finally appear to be tired enough to attempt sleep...again. Much to my disappointment I am still planning on "trying" to start our schedule starting at 7:00 am. Pretty sure it is going to either be a day of sleeping in or a very, very baaaaaad day for all of us being so tired. Plus the big kids still didn't go to sleep until after 2:00 am and the young ones woke them up just now. Fun, fun, fun...
Night, or morning, or whatever for now...
Zookeeper
From now on, I will assign animals to my kids instead of the numbers.
Kid #1, boy, currently 12: Sloth (he currently moves at the rate of one when asked to do anything)
Kid #2, girl, currently 9: Turtle (she has an hard outer shell, but inside is soft & fragile)
Kid #3, boy, currently 3: Monkey (he climbs EVERYTHING)
Kid #4, girl, currently 1.5: Turkey (something I find myself calling her often)
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