Snow day

M stayed home from work today. One of the benefits of working for a small family business, I suppose- on days like this when we have snow drifting over the roads, they can all just sort of make a common-sense decision to not attempt to get to the office. No need to call in or anything.

M has stayed busy all day cooking and baking. He made 5 dozen waffles (someone gave us a waffle iron for Christmas, so why continue buying frozen waffles, when we can just keep the freezer full of them for much less money). He also made chocolate muffins, and then a crockpot beef and vegetable stew that was soooo good. I’m not much of a meat-eater, but that the stew was seasoned just right and the beef was perfect. Eli ate some veggies from the stew, and a goodly little portion of the beef too, prechewed by myself. Mama birds have the right idea.

My very picky 4-year-old ate part of an apple and a ketchup sandwich, as per usual. The child only has about a dozen foods that she reliably eats. Carrots, apples, ketchup sandwiches, waffles, yogurt (but only the fluorescent kid yogurt that comes in a tube), “red fruit only” out of a jar of canned fruit, plain pasta with parmesan cheese, oranges, bananas, and cereal with honey. Sometimes nuts. Sometimes prunes. That’s about it, really. Nothing green except occasionally a few bites of a raw spinach leaf, if she helps me make a salad.

I no longer feel like this is my fault, though. I don’t know why I blamed myself for so long- I love veggies and we eat a fairly varied diet. Now that I have a little boy who eats anything I put in front of him, I know that I did not somehow make her into a picky eater. She just is, much like her daddy, and much like my sister was as a child.

Downsizing

I need to declutter my house. Seriously. I was off to a great start in January and got rid of 200+ items (my goal is 2010 in 2010), but then I fell into a slump and stopped.

Need to get rid of:

-my wedding dress (need to consign this now, as this is prom season and my wedding dress is really a white prom dress)

-random plastic toys on my porch

-all the excess baby and child clothing, much more in each size than is needed

-lots of college textbooks that I don’t need

-and of course, need to attack my own closet with a vengeance.

Life is good. Really, really good.

I have done a lot of whining and moaning and complaining lately. Yes, we did lose our health insurance. Not the end of the world. I signed us up for a low-premium, huge-deductible crisis coverage type plan, for the next six months. By the end of the 6 months, we will have a clearer picture of what needs to happen from there. M. may have coverage through his job again, or maybe I will be working the 24 hours a week needed to get benefits at my job. Or maybe we will just put the kids on the low-premium state-subsidized plan- thanks to cigarette taxes!

To get us through the next few lean weeks in which my husband will not be receiving a paycheck from his temporarily broke employer, I have been working at the hospital more than my usual one shift a week. Still less than 20 hours a week, but more time away from the kids than I am used to, for sure. I can tell a difference in my daughter’s behavior already, for the worse. My mom (who is an awesome one-woman preschool) watches the kids when I work an occasional day shift, and daddy gets to put them to bed all by himself when I work an evening or night shift. I hate doing rotating shifts- totally screws up my body clock and makes me grouchy. But oh well, sometimes working whatever hours I can scrounge up is just better than the alternative of having to put everything on the credit card and getting into a big mess again. Better in the long run, that is.

Things I am thankful for:

**My sweet, unique, wonderful kids.

**My husband, who cheerfully put in 13 hours at his job today working for a rather unpleasant client, and then came home and wrestled the kids on the floor (he is now asleep on the kitchen floor, next to a half-completed kid puzzle).

**My health and my family’s health.

**A big yard with a woods to walk in whenever we want.

**Loving parents and a sister who happens to be my best friend.

**An interesting job that allows me the flexibility to work as much or as little as I need to – I’d rather not work at all, but since I have to right now, at least it’s intellectually challenging and I’m getting paid a fair wage.

**My great uncle, who is 88 and just found out that he is full of cancer. He is an old Baptist minister with huge ears and a huge heart. He showed so much kindness to me the summer after my divorce during a rough family reunion, just by putting his arm around me and saying some kind words at the exact right time. He has had a positive effect on so many people during his long life.

**I am thankful for life’s little coincidences- I worked overnight a day or two after finding out our bad financial news, and what do you know, my manager needed to talk to me after shift report. She plopped down next to me and explained that she had finally heard back about an opportunity that I have been bugging her about for months. Not sure if it will lead anywhere right away, but it’s just interesting that she approached me about it the very day that I needed that light at the end of the tunnel.

**And last but not least, kundalini yoga! I found a 50 minute youtube video, and I am loving it… I never knew yoga could actually be fun.

Verses that hit the mark for me today:

Don’t be selfish, don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too. – Phillipians 2:3-4

And this:

Do everything without complaining and arguing, so that no one can criticize you. Live clean, innocent lives as children of God, shining like bright lights in a world full of crooked and perverse people.- Phillipians 2:14-15

And especially this:

Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again- rejoice! Let everyone see that you are considerate in all you do. Remember, the Lord is coming soon. Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray over everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. The you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand.His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus… fix your hearts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. – Phillipians 4:4-8

Yeah- especially the don’t worry part.

I picked up Irresistible Revolution last night, a book by a street prophet which I started reading a couple of years ago but never finished. He was talking about doing small things with great love, per Mother Teresa’s philosophy. About not being worried about whether we can do great, huge things with our lives, and instead just making as much of a difference as we can in the little place where we are planted. About not letting discouragement over not being able to do great things for a great many people keep us from doing small things that make a difference to a small group of people.

I know that I make a difference here in my home. Even on days when I am not at my best, I make life more sane and peaceful just through being here and through not trying to do it all, all at once, all the time.

I don’t have an obligation to use that college degree  full-time, just because I have it. I need to listen to my husband and stop worrying and stressing over finances all the time. We will be okay.

Around our house

In January, we lie around in pajamas all day. Sometimes we venture outside.

We skate in our boots on the frozen pond (OK, more like frozen puddle).

We knock the snow off the bumpers of some of the trucks in Uncle’s truck graveyard.

Icicles.

Chicken house.

Cat.

We walk to the end of the drive to get the mail, and long for summer, when we can walk down the road to play in the creek again.

Where I want to be

Okay. I have been in a major funk lately. S-A-D. Happens every.single.winter between the months of November and February (unless I’m pregnant or just had a baby, in which case the baby hormones keep me going all winter long), so I don’t know why it ever takes me by surprise.

I have been venting, whining, complaining, to everyone around, about how I’m just so miserable working where I work (never mind that I barely ever work there these days, now that I’m a per diem person). About how I want to switch back to NICU, even though that would mean being gone from my family a lot more, which in my heart of hearts I don’t want to do. At which point whomever I’m talking to gently points out that I was very stressed and exhausted when I worked in the NICU, that it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows and gumdrop smiles. And then I always vigorously deny this, and say that working as a nurse in any area is stressful, that I stress myself out watching the monitors these days just as much as I did as a NICU newbie. But it’s not true. There are stressful moments, yes, but for the most part it’s a fairly low-key unit, especially in the summer and fall months, and that makes it a good fit for someone like me who wants to work just enough to pay the grocery bill and not an hour more.

My mom gently suggested the other day that I should not make any major decisions while I have the winter doldrums. She’s right. I shouldn’t.

My husband pointed out that, if I stick around County Hospital long enough, eventually the chance will come for me to transfer to the unit where I want to be- a unit with real-live midwives and real-live VBACs, and much better staffing levels than my own unit. He’s right, I should stick it out, rather than getting frustrated over minor irritations and leaving and later regretting it.

I worked at the hospital yesterday, for maybe the third time this month. It was a fairly stressful day, as far as my unit goes. I hardly ever work these days, so I kind of feel like a fish out of water when I’m there, and don’t feel like I’m as efficient as the nurses who work more often. One of my patients had a very bad family situation, which is always sad to see. But! I had the opportunity to meet the new hospitalist, and she absolutely made my day. My first impression is that she communicates with the nurses and families better than any doctor I’ve ever worked with- and I’ve worked with some really good ones. The patients all like her too.

My main beef with work at this point? The attitude of a small handful of the nurses I work with, who look down on me for not striving to work as many hours as possible. They imply, with remarks made right in front of me but never directly to me, that I am lazy for staying home with my kids most of the week, and only working as a nurse per diem. And when I say a small handful, I mean only 3 or 4 out of 20 nurses, the rest of whom are wonderful to work with. A few of the older nurses have even made comments along the lines of, “I realize that things are more expensive these days, but I didn’t start working until my kids were in elementary school, and I wish more of the young moms would realize how fast the time goes! You have the rest of your life to work, why not stay home and enjoy your babies for a few years?” Staying home with my babies for a few years (as much as we can afford anyway): that is my main priority right now.

I don’t know why I let the comments of just a few coworkers bother me so much. I come home and vent to my husband for days about it, instead of just letting it go. I dread going to work for hours before I have to get dressed in my scrubs and leave the house. Why do I care so much what someone whom I see once every 3 or 4 weeks thinks about me? If they don’t think that taking care of small children is work, that’s fine. They can stop paying their daycare providers, since it’s not real work!

Yes, things are a bit scary financially around here. We will wait and see what happens with the insurance situation, and if we do indeed lose our health insurance, I will start searching for a part-time job at that time. Maybe. If it’s just a matter of M’s company not writing payroll checks for several weeks, and then things start to improve, then we’ll deal with it as best we can. That’s what the emergency fund is for anyway, right?

I missed out on so much of Jubilee’s early years, between 9 months when I went back to school and 3 years when I stopped working full-time. So much. I don’t want to rush into that situation if I don’t have to. I really don’t.

Home is where I want to be. And since we can’t afford a full-time SAHM, the freedom of working per diem is worth the hassle. It really is. I can work 2 or 3 shifts per week if I want/need to, and then on the next schedule, I have the freedom to sign up for nothing more than some on-call time. It’s worth being looked down on by some coworkers, in order to have the freedom to decide how much I want to work on each schedule.

One day at a time…

Well this stinks but it could be worse…

Feeling very discouraged about our financial situation. M’s workplace is broke and he may not be getting any paychecks for a few weeks, and add to that the possibility that we may be losing our health insurance, which is through his work. M tells me not to worry about it yet, but I know how long job searches can take, and may start looking soon anyway. I’m glad that, as a nurse, it is possible for me to receive benefits by working two 12’s a week (at my former workplace anyway, not at my current one). The place where I currently work PRN has no part-t-ime openings that I know about, and I am not willing to work full-time at this point. It’s financial security, but it’s not worth being gone 15 hours at a stretch 3 days a week, and then being a zombie when I am home.

I’m getting sick of being gossiped about right in front of my face where I work now, so maybe this is good timing…

Just bummed out. I really wish that we could afford me to be home as much as I am now, but it’s just not looking hopeful.

Elegant solution to an age-old problem

My 8-month-old doesn’t much like the playpen, so it gathers dust in a corner of my living room.

My 4-year-old loves playing with tiny Legos and puzzles, but hates to play with them in her room by herself.

Tiny toys are not allowed on the floor when the baby is roamimg the house.

Now, the 4-year-old has declared the playpen to be her  Lego area.

So the playpen is being put to use, the baby is not choking on Legos, and the 4-year-old is not lonely. Brilliant!

Pep talk

I swear I need a pep talk from my husband on a near-weekly basis, regarding the fact that my so-called career will not be irreversibly ruined by my being on the mommy track for a few more years. And I worry about what people I hardly ever see think about my barely-working status these days. Why do I worry about the opinions of people I barely know? I mean, come on. My husband and children are the people that I have to live with every day, not these random people from school or work. I want to be at home with my kids and my husband as much as I can, especially while they’re so little, but I just get these worries and anxieties that seem to pop back up the moment that I think I have extinguished them for good. Thank goodness we have been married long enough that I can just walk up to him and tell him that I need a hug and a pep talk, and he can graciously give them. Easter Sunday will make the eighth anniversary of the day we met, and I think I am starting to understand those old married couples who like to proclaim, “It just keeps getting better.”

I wish every day could be like this

Quiet day at home today. Out the window, melting patches of snow, and mud in the driveway, and trees without leaves, and a flat grey sky. I am playing Band of Horses on Pandora on my laptop at the kitchen table. Eli’s eyes are half-shut. He drops the remains of his prune onto the floor, from the tray of his high chair. He is exhausted and dazed, staring into space, since he skipped his morning nap. I look in the fridge and find that we have 3 apples left. I slice an apple, cutting out the brown spots, and give each kid a slice. Jubilee ignores hers. She is more interested in doing a certain 25-piece puzzle for the twelfth time today, next to me on the kitchen table. Eli chews on his apple slice with all four of his teeth, saying, “Mmm”, evey few bites.

Eli discovered last week that he could crawl while holding a toy, and he now can often be seen crawling across the kitchen floor while dragging a toy that is half his size. Pretty funny stuff. He also is finally saying a word, “Mama!”, which he cries out in despair every time I leave the room without him.

Jubilee takes a sip of her milk, and says, “I wish I could be in that puzzle with Strawberry Cupcake. No, no… is that her name? Cupcake? She’s so nice. I would feed her pink cat so she wouldn’t have to all the time.”

Jubilee runs to the kitchen to check if the prune muffins we made earlier are cool yet. They are. Each kid gets a muffin. I eat most of Eli’s, since he is throwing it to the floor one little piece at a time. Jubilee refuses to eat the parts of her muffin without sugar on them, so I cave and let her dip the whole muffin into a pile of brown sugar, just to get some fiber into her.

Moments like this, when motherhood seems like such a breeze, don’t last long.

Soon the baby starts to cry, and so I give him some water and then carry him around to try to get him to sleep, and at my feet my preschooler is whining that she wants more sugar, and I am snapping at her, asking her if she really wants to have another cavity…