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Posts tagged ‘family’

Dec 15

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Cathy: CH-CH-CH-Changes…

cathyofficeFor this blog post, I didn’t want to moan about how we’ve been passing a handful of colds, sinus infections, ear infections, etc. since K had strep a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving. So I won’t, but I couldn’t let go of mentioning it, of course. Tis the season; the temperature has dropped, schools are breeding grounds and buses are transportation devices for snuffy noses and coughs not covered. We’ll get over this round eventually, this is the one where we cough at night, but heads are so stuffed by day, the world sounds like I’m underwater in an old-fashioned diving suit, with the fishbowl headpiece.

12122008panaramaoffice-004What I want to do is give the update on something — I can’t even remember where I first mentioned it — my own blog post or a comment thread. But we did it. The room of my own that never was is now more populated. My husband, who has been roaming the house for a free space for his laptop for over two years, now has a space to do the design side jobs that make up the difference my lack of income brings for our family of six, plus cat and dog. S has already spilled hot cocoa on my husband’s keyboard, while sitting in Honey’s seat with an ice pack on his shin. The dramatic crawl from the bottom of the stairs where he stumbled a bit should win an Academy Award. Too bad I didn’t get it on film.

12122008panaramaoffice-001We’re still in the design phase: pictures need re-hanging, the box of papers to be filed has grown and yes, Honey’s desk is my old kitchen table, which was previously being used as a place to pile tools in the garage. I also need to re-organize my bulletin board, but I can live with it like this until the moment I get so frustrated with the chaos of it, I rip everything off of it to start over. I tried for a panorama view from my desk, which was facing out into the room and now faces the wall, but at least I still have a view out the window. [Click on any image for a larger view.] There are still mini-messes by everyone hovering, but for the moment, they are to a minimum. In other words, the sacrifice wasn’t so great. In fact, I now get to see my husband more now that he’s not wandering for a workspace to call his own. So this is my executive seat, in my humble corner, with my big bookcases, giant file cabinet, and that’s my mother-in-law in residence with Baby C. And to circle back for a revisit to paragraph one, we all feel crappy. But that’s just because of the colds. We’re pretty happy with the current arrangement.

Dec 4

21 Comments

Cathy: Reconciling differences

supermomThanksgiving weekend was spent with my husband’s extended family, eating, eating and, well, eating. There was one family drama — a big one — but otherwise it was really nice having everyone over here and talking, and hanging around and eating. I took one walk. I battled the cold everyone’s been passing around. Honey and I had a date with the baby in tow at the art museum across the water. At my church on Sunday, we had an after-service Thanksgiving leftovers luncheon, to which I brought my sautéed kale with garlic, raisins and walnuts that my in-laws didn’t eat. They preferred the four kinds of pies and two kinds of sweet potatoes and two kinds of mashed potatoes and two stuffings, etc. The kale was a hit at church, which felt good.

Well, there I was, holding Baby C who kept dropping her juice bottle in experiments in gravity. My nursing top was gaping in an unflattering way, as I kept bending over to pick up her bottle. A very nice man came over to get some pecan pie which was in front of me, and cooed at her, talked baby for a while, and here comes the bomb — wait for it — he added, “and I see you’re having another!”

Now, my Honey said before I left for church that morning that I was getting cuter everyday. This was in response to my looking in the mirror at my lopsided nursing boobs, my still doughy, chunky middle eight months later, and feeling exhausted from another sleepless night of coughing and nursing, and moaning about my appearance. So when the very nice man at church asked if I was having a, no — told me I was having another, it just about crushed me. At the time, I was able to laugh it off, but later, I feel pretty blah.

Isn’t it enough that I’m up and around, beginning to lose the pregnancy weight, while sporting a nursing E-cup on a five-foot-two frame? I’m beginning to get back to yoga, trying to walk the dog when it’s not too cold and wet and when the baby and I aren’t sporting colds. I haven’t slept a solid night’s sleep since July 2007, and I feel pretty yucky. Hey, people, I’m showing up and with an eight-month-old trying to circus dive off my shoulder! I think that’s pretty good in and of itself!

So, keep the commentary to your very nice self, please. It would do a world of good for the esteem of any woman lugging around a baby. We’re not Hollywood moms with a drawer full of Spanx, personal trainers at beck and call, and starvation diets. We’re real moms, with real bellies and real appetites because we’re breastfeeding. And no matter how much formula may be pushed on us, even in this more enlightened age than our parents’, we’re doing what’s best for our babies, and eating for two.

I’m taking the superwoman route after that comment — I am a super woman because I am doing it all, and doing it well, most of the time, anyway.

Mar 17

5 Comments

Miranda: Getting your ducks in a row (rubber and otherwise)

rubber_duckyAs I slowly emerge from nearly two weeks of illness (it’s been months, if I include the rest of the family) and my ear infection finally lifts, I’m looking cautiously at the week ahead, and trying to manage my expectations. I realize that in order to maximize my opportunities–even simply my opportunities to do nothing–I need to get the family to cooperate as much as possible.

My kids and husband are troopers about “self-serve” dinner nights–they’ll eat leftovers or something in the freezer from Trader Joe’s. It’s been quite a while since I’ve regularly prepared good, homemade dinners at least five nights a week–and I feel guilty about it, but at the moment, food prep is one area that I’ve chosen to sacrifice. (What I don’t like about self-serve, however, is that we tend not to sit down together for a family meal unless I’ve actually prepared one–and that used to be every night without fail. But that’s another story.)

I wonder if there are strategies that any of you have used to “make” more time for yourself during the day/week? Shortcuts? Things like trying to set yourself up for success when working at home with younger children: play with them, connect with them, make sure they are well fed, watered, and changed, and THEN set them up with something that encourages independent play–before turning to your own work? Maybe you’ve discovered that turning the dining table into a fort, using a few old blankets, will keep the kids entertained for the better part of an hour while you type at the counter? Maybe your spouse, if you have one, feels less neglected if you talk for 30 minutes after the kids go to bed, before you settle down for a work/creativity stint? Or maybe you’re really efficient with time spent waiting at dance classes and basketball classes?

One routine I’ve enjoyed recently is reading while my three-year-old takes a bath. My husband drags a comfy chair into the bathroom for me every night, and I sit beside the tub and read, an arm’s length away, while my son goes to town with his bath toys. Sure, sometimes he wants my attention, and that’s fine–I put my book down when he wants to talk or needs me to wind up the frog family–but most of the time he’s absorbed in imaginary play for a long time (up to an hour!) and I get a lot of reading done that way. It ends up feeling like a treat.

Since I have older children too, I’m pretty good about establishing chores for each kid, and making sure they follow through. I rarely clean up after dinner, for example, unless I’ve gone all out and the kitchen is a total disaster. My feeling is: I made dinner, they can clean up afterward. And if I didn’t cook, well then, it’s just a matter of everyone cleaning up after themselves. They also have weekly chores to take care of. While I think these responsibilities are important for each child’s self-esteem, now that the kids are older their help really makes a difference–it’s not just busywork.

Does anyone have any other ways to squeeze more minutes from the day?

Jan 22

2 Comments

Bethany: Oh wait! I have a baby in the house

I had great plans for this weekend. Much like Miranda, I had plans–ambitious plans–to write.  Resurrecting an old plan for a nonfiction book I’ve had for years (as in 5 years of a proposal sitting in waiting).  It seemed pretty simple.  Open the proposal, refine, adjust, write chapter descriptions, re-read, tweak, save, and then move to the 2 sample chapters.  The chapters I had yet to write beyond the 3 sentence description.  My end goal:  proposal ready for the final edit. Draft of Introduction done (and by draft, I mean brain dump, rough form of chapter).

What really happened was–one run-through of the proposal with chapter descriptions.  Drafts of chapter descriptions.

Ready to let the tears gush, I sat on my bed last night sighing.  My long weekend was lost. Great plans waisted.  Just as I was ready to let the pity take over, the baby cried.  The 5-month-old baby.

That was when it dawned on me.  I’m a mom.  Of two actually.  And with all the mess that is our current life (we’ve just survived two deaths in the family which meant 2 trips out of town at the last minute)– I was taking care of what was really important, my family.  Sure, writing is my dream.  And I need to take steps to make that dream a reality. But, it’s okay to take a step back and take care of the other important stuff first.  Right now, it seems it’s my family.

So watch out next weekend, I’m coming at you strong!  Oh and for that little bit of writing I did do?  Well, I’m thrilled.  Really.  It is better than not getting any writing done.  So, it’s a step in the right directly.  Let’s getting ready for the next step.

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