Nobody gets everything they want
Now to finish my first post. Forgive me if this lacks coherency, it is not quite 6am and the family has been up since 3am, both kiddos were having trouble sleeping.
Here's the background, if you already know this part or simply don't care, then skip to the next paragraph! All I ever wanted was to be a stay-at-home mom, however, I never thought that would happen, it was simply a fantasy. So the hubs and I found out we were pregnant the day after our first anniversary. At the time I was the bread winner in the house, Dex was going to school and working part time, so the plan was to put Sage in daycare and I would continue working. I had accepted my fate as a working mom, we needed the money, Dex certainly wasn't making enough money working part-time and would almost certainly not make enough starting out with his associates in networking, so there was no chance of me quitting my job to stay home with the baby. Then I got laid off at 9 months pregnant in early 2009. No, this was not related to the pregnancy, A LOT of people got laid off, practically 50% of the company including everyone in my group. Most people would be devastated to be laid off at 9 months pregnant, but I was ecstatic, I hated my job, and now I would get some extra time home with Sage because my company was still paying my maternity leave, my vacation time, and 6 months of pay continuance and benefits. I figured this would give me time to stay home and plenty of time to find another job before the money ran out. The thing I didn't expect was how impossible going back to work is after being blessed with the opportunity to be home with your baby for 6 months. So I crunched numbers, I clipped coupons, and I saved in order to get as much time home with my baby as possible. Dex graduated college and moved into a full-time position (not using his degree, jobs were hard to come by at that time). We managed enough money to take me to summer of 2010, I was resigned to finding a job. This was the point where life changed. Dex got a phone call, a job offer, it wasn't a lot of money, but it was enough. The one problem with this job is that it was 1200 miles away from home, away from my entire family and most of his. 1200 miles from my little nieces and nephews, Sage's playmates. Then it was decision time, was staying at home worth moving 1200 miles from everything I had ever known? Yes, being at home with my baby was worth moving 1200 miles and justified by the fact that Dex would finally be gaining experience in his field, which would hopefully help him find a job in Virginia and get us back home within a couple of years. So we rented our home out and packed up all of our stuff and headed west.
So here I sit, almost 1 year later, we now have Gia in addition to Sage, and we are no closer to being able to move back home than we were when we left. I love being home with my girls, but I miss HOME, I miss my family, I miss my nieces and nephews, I miss my friends, I miss my dog that we had to give to my sister-in-law temporarily...I miss my life. I feel like a caged animal in solitary confinement, I'm suffocating. OMG, do I love my girls, I enjoy every single second with them (well, almost), but I feel my sanity is slipping away, I feel I am fading and I can barely tread water. I am missing soccer games, football games, baseball games, family cookouts, birthdays, ballet recitals, and school plays. Sage is missing out on playing with all her cousins and hugging her Mimi and Papa and Gia doesn't even realize what she is missing out on, but she is missing out on the opportunity to build bonds with her grandparents and aunts and uncles, and she is missing out on the opportunity to grow with the three other little girls I know born within just months of her. My kids have their mom all day, but is it worth it? Are they gaining more than they are losing? Am I losing me? We sit in the house all day long just conjuring up excuses to go out, but we have nowhere to go, nothing to do, nobody to see. I am dying here, I know I could go out and try to meet other moms and find children for Sage to play with, but that is another post.
What I have learned is that you can never have everything you want and humble pie is sour. I want to raise my own children, but at what cost? Would it be better to move back home, get a job, and put the girls in daycare? Or is it better to stay here, "a thousand miles from nowhere," but with my girls everyday? All I know right now is that nobody gets everything they want, everyone must make sacrifices and compromises in life, and the grass really isn't always greener on the other side. I don't know what our future holds, but I hope this blog can at least give me a place to vent where I can speak freely and maybe, just maybe, help me feel a little less lonely in this beautiful, solitary life as a stay-at-home mom.
Here's the background, if you already know this part or simply don't care, then skip to the next paragraph! All I ever wanted was to be a stay-at-home mom, however, I never thought that would happen, it was simply a fantasy. So the hubs and I found out we were pregnant the day after our first anniversary. At the time I was the bread winner in the house, Dex was going to school and working part time, so the plan was to put Sage in daycare and I would continue working. I had accepted my fate as a working mom, we needed the money, Dex certainly wasn't making enough money working part-time and would almost certainly not make enough starting out with his associates in networking, so there was no chance of me quitting my job to stay home with the baby. Then I got laid off at 9 months pregnant in early 2009. No, this was not related to the pregnancy, A LOT of people got laid off, practically 50% of the company including everyone in my group. Most people would be devastated to be laid off at 9 months pregnant, but I was ecstatic, I hated my job, and now I would get some extra time home with Sage because my company was still paying my maternity leave, my vacation time, and 6 months of pay continuance and benefits. I figured this would give me time to stay home and plenty of time to find another job before the money ran out. The thing I didn't expect was how impossible going back to work is after being blessed with the opportunity to be home with your baby for 6 months. So I crunched numbers, I clipped coupons, and I saved in order to get as much time home with my baby as possible. Dex graduated college and moved into a full-time position (not using his degree, jobs were hard to come by at that time). We managed enough money to take me to summer of 2010, I was resigned to finding a job. This was the point where life changed. Dex got a phone call, a job offer, it wasn't a lot of money, but it was enough. The one problem with this job is that it was 1200 miles away from home, away from my entire family and most of his. 1200 miles from my little nieces and nephews, Sage's playmates. Then it was decision time, was staying at home worth moving 1200 miles from everything I had ever known? Yes, being at home with my baby was worth moving 1200 miles and justified by the fact that Dex would finally be gaining experience in his field, which would hopefully help him find a job in Virginia and get us back home within a couple of years. So we rented our home out and packed up all of our stuff and headed west.
So here I sit, almost 1 year later, we now have Gia in addition to Sage, and we are no closer to being able to move back home than we were when we left. I love being home with my girls, but I miss HOME, I miss my family, I miss my nieces and nephews, I miss my friends, I miss my dog that we had to give to my sister-in-law temporarily...I miss my life. I feel like a caged animal in solitary confinement, I'm suffocating. OMG, do I love my girls, I enjoy every single second with them (well, almost), but I feel my sanity is slipping away, I feel I am fading and I can barely tread water. I am missing soccer games, football games, baseball games, family cookouts, birthdays, ballet recitals, and school plays. Sage is missing out on playing with all her cousins and hugging her Mimi and Papa and Gia doesn't even realize what she is missing out on, but she is missing out on the opportunity to build bonds with her grandparents and aunts and uncles, and she is missing out on the opportunity to grow with the three other little girls I know born within just months of her. My kids have their mom all day, but is it worth it? Are they gaining more than they are losing? Am I losing me? We sit in the house all day long just conjuring up excuses to go out, but we have nowhere to go, nothing to do, nobody to see. I am dying here, I know I could go out and try to meet other moms and find children for Sage to play with, but that is another post.
What I have learned is that you can never have everything you want and humble pie is sour. I want to raise my own children, but at what cost? Would it be better to move back home, get a job, and put the girls in daycare? Or is it better to stay here, "a thousand miles from nowhere," but with my girls everyday? All I know right now is that nobody gets everything they want, everyone must make sacrifices and compromises in life, and the grass really isn't always greener on the other side. I don't know what our future holds, but I hope this blog can at least give me a place to vent where I can speak freely and maybe, just maybe, help me feel a little less lonely in this beautiful, solitary life as a stay-at-home mom.
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