Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Lazy


There is so much to blog about. Marshall turned 2! Exciting things are happening with Jerad's career! Fun projects planned both inside and outside our house! Committing to 21 days of a Paleo lifestyle! Hanging out with new friends and old friends! Maybe someday I'll be organized enough to sit down and do it.


In the meantime I'm feeling lazy.


Jerad has been working locally for the last 4, maybe 5 weeks . Its crazy! I think this is the longest he's been home for one stretch in the past 2 years. We've fallen into this nice rhythm and everything feels so much easier as far as cleaning the house, making all our meals at home, and taking care of the kids goes.


He has a bunch of jobs going on right now and has had to work late a few nights over the past 2 weeks. A few nights ago he called to tell me he probably wouldn't be home until 8pm or so and I found myself complaining that I was having to entertain, feed, bathe, and put the kids to sleep by myself for the third time in 2 weeks. Which is just laughable because until recently I was solo parenting for at least 5 days a week, often times more, and didn't think twice about it. I guess I'm getting lazy.


There were definitely some things that were hard about Jerad being gone so much, but overall I think I'm grateful. I know having to be alone made me so much more confident as a mother than I would have been otherwise. I was just talking to someone at the library who has a 2 year old and has never made dinner while simultaneously entertaining her child, or taken her alone to the grocery store or pediatrician (her husband was even with them at storytime). She's having her second child soon and is freaking out about how she'll handle both children for the *3 hours* she'll need to be alone with them each day and is trying to talk her mom and mother in-law into taking shifts so that she'll have help. I realize that's not the norm, but still.


I don't know why, but that conversation has been stuck in my head for the past week. Anyways, on the one hand I am glad that I'm confident enough to throw the kids in the car and take us all out to a picnic lunch at the beach, but I'm also glad that Jerad has been around so much lately that him missing a dinner or bedtime has become abnormal. Now that I've had a taste of the "easy" co-parenting life, it would be harder to go back to having him gone. Luckily it's looking like he won't have to be!



1 comment:

KelBel said...

I'm struggling with this right now, as we get ready to move out and live on our own for the first time in 9 months. Just a year ago, I was solo parenting 8 hours a day, with our family living 1900 miles away! Now, I can't imagine how I'm going to do the whole "mom of two kids" thing, even with my mom 5 min. away and Jesse coming home every day at 3pm. It's really overwhelming to think about, and I wish that I had the confidence that I used to just a year ago. But I'm realizing that a lot of it is a mental block, not an actual incapability. We can all do a lot more than we think when push comes to shove, we just are afraid to. I think that mom you talked to probably has a lot of fear because she's never HAD to solo parent, and also because she's pregnant and a lot of fears and anxieties are heightened anyways. Luckily, since you didn't have a choice, you don't have to deal with that fear, because you already know you CAN and HAVE done it!