Today I had to take in some paperwork to get our adoption underway, so after I picked Easton up from school we headed to my parents’ house so that my mom could watch the kiddos. I was only gone about an hour, so we stayed for a couple hours at my parents before heading home. My mom has a picture of my sister and me on her console, and Easton was looking at it today. He said to me, “Wow, Mom, you were way more beautiful then than you are now.” He said it so sweetly, though, so I knew he thought he was giving me the nicest compliment. But it’s the truth. I was 19 in the photo, and I was tan and skinny with beautiful flowing locks and I wore only mascara. I wouldn’t be caught dead with only mascara now. How did I get old? Now, some would read this and laugh that I think I’m old at almost 28. But I remember being 16 and wondering what it would be like to be married and have children, and I just couldn’t picture it ACTUALLY happening, the same way I can’t picture my children growing up and having children of their own. But those things do happen. A friend on FB mentioned that her son had turned just turned 1, and she went on to say that she only had to repeat the same amount of time 17 more times and her baby would be out of the house. When you think of how quickly your child’s first year goes by and then think that it only happens 17 more times until they are basically grown up and gone, you realize how this life really is just a small moment. It doesn’t seem that way, but it is. I’ve been here for nearly 28 years. I’m practically a pro at life. Although I still feel like I’m just a kid. I still feel like I did when I was 18. Sometimes I think, “Rachel, what are you doing with 3 children? You’re just a child, you can’t be a mom.”
All 3 boys are in bed now. I tried a 3 1/2 hour schedule with Logan today, and we’ll see how he does tonight. He typically has 6 feedings a day on his 3 hour schedule and then one in the middle of the night, so by stretching it out a half hour he drops a feeding. I can never get him to finish a bottle, though. He just doesn’t seem hungry enough at 3 hours after the start of his last feeding, so maybe this new schedule will suit him better. Maybe he’ll be hungrier and more awake at each feeding because I feel like he’s gagging his bottle down right now. I wish I had written down Easton’s schedule when I did Babywise with him. That’s why I’m jotting it down now, so that I’ll remember it with the next two children I’ll hopefully have. I gave Logan his last feeding at 9, but it took him 45 minutes because he was so sleepy. I’m hoping that in the next few weeks he drops his middle of the night feeding and sleeps straight through. Now that he’s only up once a night and content to just hang out on his back looking around while he’s awake, I’m forgetting that newborns are so hard. He’s been so pleasant, so the thought of two more isn’t so bad. It’s really just the first 8 weeks that are tough, as long as the baby doesn’t have colic or acid reflux, and I’ve been really lucky to have good babies. I hope I don’t ever have a baby like I was for my mom. I hear horror stories about how I never slept and was attached to my mother’s hip at all times. If I have a bad baby, let it be my 5th just to really set it in stone that I’m done.
I’ve been going back and forth about going to school for the fall semester. Well not really “going” to school since I prefer to do most of my course work online. But I can only go so far online before every field that I want to go into requires me to do some sort of on-campus work or internship or something of that nature. My interests change all the time. My problem is that the things that I want to go to school for will take me out of the home at a time when it is not the best thing for our family. Speech pathology was my choice for a while, but to be able to practice in a private setting I’d need to have my masters. I’ve wanted to do occupational therapy, but again that requires a masters, and I’m not even close to my bachelors. I’ve considered physical therapist assistant, and I would really only need to do my biology courses to get into that program, but those have to be done on campus. That would require a lab and a lecture, and it’s just a lot for a mom to commit to since Jacob is going to be going to school and working too. With a baby it just doesn’t seem doable. Me going into anything that I want to go into means that I’d have to get babysitters or obligate my mom or Jacob’s mom to watch the kiddos, and that doesn’t seem like the best thing either since I only want to get my degree for the sake of having it or in the event that I might need it. When I became a single mom after Adam and I separated, I suddenly found myself wishing that I was more qualified to support myself and two children. Thankfully, my parents took good care of us, but I felt like such a burden. They never made me feel like that, but I just did. I just want to be prepared in the event that I ever have to work, but I don’t want to impose upon the lives of my mothers to make sure I’m prepared for a “just in case” situation.
Anyway, another field that I’ve thought about is accounting because it seems that a mom might be able to do that sort of work around her family. But accounting doesn’t interest me in the least bit. So when I think of getting my degree in accounting, I’m filled with dread and that “I hate accounting” feeling. So I probably shouldn’t go into that field. I’ve considered becoming a teacher, but if I had to be solely responsible for the financial welfare of my family, a teacher’s wages would mean that we’d live on a beans and rice and probably wear hand-made clothes (by someone other than myself because I don’t know how to sew) and take showers in cold water. None of those things make me think, “You should just be teacher, Rachel.” The only thing I like about a teacher’s job would be that I’d be on the same schedule as my children, so that counts for something. We’d be poor and living on love, but I’d be gone when they were gone and home when they were home. The other thing that really interests me now is nursing. I know Jacob is going into it, and I think that’s why I’ve considered it. Nurses make a pretty good living. If I had to support a family on my own I could. This would probably be my first choice now, but the program is a year and a half and is equal to having a full time job. I just can’t do that for a year and a half at this time in my life. So this is the predicament I find myself in, and it’s been going on for a year now. I don’t even know what classes to register for this semester because most of my generals are done so the classes that I need to take now are program specific. And I certainly don’t just want to take a bunch of classes that don’t count towards the degree I eventually end up getting. That’s just a waste of time and money. So here I sit, registered only for Psychology 101 because it satisfies one of my last general ed requirements for several of the fields I’ve considered going into.
By saying all of this, don’t think I’m planning for another marriage to end or think that I’m subtly hinting that something is going terribly wrong and I’m going to be responsible for supporting for 3 children. Jacob and I are quite happily married, and I don’t anticipate that changing because we work at making sure it stays that way. But I never in all my life imagined that I’d be a single mom, and I was. I never imagined I’d be divorced, and I am. I don’t imagine that I’ll lose Jacob, but I don’t know what is ahead. I want to finish my degree, just in case I ever need it.
I should be sleeping since all 3 boys are in bed instead of sitting here rambling on. But since they are asleep, I have time to be awake and not be needed by somebody for something. It’s quite liberating. Tonight at mutual we were all talking about what shows everyone watched, and some of the girls asked me what I watched, and I thought, “Who has time to watch TV?” At this point, there is always something important to be done. Feeding a baby is a lot of work. Whether you are nursing or bottle feeding, for 30 minutes every 3 hours I have to sit and feed Logan and do nothing else. That’s 3 1/2 hours a day that I spend just sitting and feeding a baby. I suppose I could watch TV while I sat and fed him, but we don’t have TV anyway so that’s probably another reason why I never watch or even know what shows are on these days. Anyway, somewhere in the 15 hours that I’m up for the day, I have to clean, eat (I usually forget that part), cook, feed children, do my hair and makeup, snuggle with Teagan (he’s been asking me lately, “Mom, will you come snuggle?” I’m like putty in his hands when he asks me that), do reading and sight words and homework with Easton, run errands, pay bills, read scriptures, and a whole lot of other things. And I promise you that all of the things that I NEED to do each day do not get done. My friend Erin has five children, and I asked the question on FB, “How do moms manage to get things done in the day?” She commented that she quit cleaning, and when I read her comment I realized that it’s ok to not have everything as clean as I think it should be. It’s okay for now because this is where I am in my life. I have to spend 3 1/2 hours feeding a baby, so when something has to go it’s the things that don’t matter most that get the boot. I try to remind myself of this poem I wrote when Easton was a baby. I thought I knew then what busy was, being the mother of one. I was so naïve :).
"Fruit of My Labors"
The day is through,
and you are fast asleep
upon my shoulder
while the dishes are
in the sink
and crumbs are
on the floor.
Dust has settled on the
cherry picture frames,
and baseboards
have been neglected.
Because today
I was just your mother.
We sang, and I
taught you some letters.
We played, then
I hugged and kissed you.
You cried,
and I held you
I cleaned, clothed, and fed you.
Tonight we prayed
together while the tasks
were left undone.
Now you are asleep
upon my shoulder
after a day's worth of
all that I taught you.
And before I look around
and see failure,
I kiss the child resting
in my arms,
and I think of you -
the result of my toils,
the sweet fruit
of my labors.
-7/23/06
God doesn’t care if my baseboards are clean. My children don’t care if my baseboards are clean. And yes, cleanliness is important so I still maintain a degree of presentable cleanliness in my home, but I can’t be as clean as I want to be. I just can’t mop every day. I can’t vacuum 3 times a day to keep vacuum lines and yell at everyone to not walk unnecessarily on the carpet (I used to do that). When I look around my house and see things undone, I want my children to know it was for them. I don’t want them to think, “My mom had to have everything clean.” I want them to think, “Wow, my mom really took the time to love me.” And so often I feel like I push the kiddos aside to do the things that aren’t the MOST important. I need to play with them more, have more fun with them and more snuggles, more time to let them do the things that I don’t want them to do because they might make a mess. I just need to stop confusing my success as a mother with my success as a housekeeper. I want to be a better mom, not a better housekeeper.
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