Thanks to everyone for your confessions--I mean, responses--to my post last week about trying to be a supermom. I find it very funny that
everyone uses outside help in some form -- why has this never really occurred to me? We've considered hiring a cleaning service before but I always thought of it as extravagant and a little lazy. I think I just need to train myself to think differently - because TH and I both grew up in lower-class families with single mothers, it's hard for us to accept that it's okay to pay someone else to do things like clean the house or help with the kids. So after a long talk with TH about what things cause us (me, mostly LOL) stress in our daily life, we've made a few plans over the weekend that should help alot:
- We interviewed a cleaning lady and we're going to start with every other week service. I was pretty surprised at how affordable it is; somehow I thought this was really expensive. Now I can't wait until she starts - the only downer is that she can't start until next week, AFTER J's birthday party.
- We finally got our act together with the whole preschool thing - meaning J finally got called up from a waitlist he's been of for the past 3 months for a school that is perfect for everyone - it's convenient to our jobs, it's affordable, the curriculum is great, the facility is beautiful, J loved the setting when we visited, etc. He's going to go 3 days a week at first and then in the fall we'll probably go to 5 days a week.
- I signed up for a glass art class through our local rec center. Before having kids I spent alot of my down time drawing, painting, and crafting. Before Jr. was born I imagined that the 3rd bedroom would eventually become my studio/craft space...alas, now it's a nursery. As life has gotten busier I've really gotten away from that creative outlet and I think it will be so helpful for me to learn a new medium as well as (let's face it) have a night away from the kids once a week. I can't wait!
- TH and I hammered out a tentative schedule that allows me to work out more regularly. Hopefully once we have the cleaning service some of the time I usually spend after the kids go to bed doing "chores" can be devoted to burning some calories. We'll see about this one, Jr. is literally exhausting me/us right now with illness and allergies and waking up 8 times a night (I wish I was joking) so the whole working out thing may have to wait.
- I'm going to work on meal planning. The baby is the easiest one right now - making the baby food has turned out to be way easier and much more convenient than I thought it would be, one Sunday afternoon of steaming & straining veggies makes enough food to last him almost a month. I wish that were true for the rest of us but I'm going to keep working on it...
5 comments:
I am glad you found someone. Sorry that I didn't give you the number to the service we use. If your cleaning person doesn't work out then let me know. My mom started working because she wanted to hire a cleaning person. lol. I am glad you sat down and hammered out some things so that you can make time for you. Before Maggie I took a drawing class. I haven't done that sort in a while so I bet you will have fun.
I am SO glad to read this update (except for the 8 night-wakings)! I too had a huge mental block about hiring some help. I kept telling my husband I could manage myself and if I couldn't, I should be able to, so I need to get myself together. But then I was chatting with a woman who is a nanny for one of my friends and she (the nanny) has 4 grown children. I asked her how she did it and she said, she didn't have money to have any help, but that she doesn't remember a lot about when her kids were little. She said she was too busy to enjoy it at all and it was all a blur. So my point is that you CAN do it all by yourself--we all can, but if you can afford a little help that will make you more sane--good golly, take it!!
I think taking your art class is a GREAT idea! I would love to do something like that. A creative outlet is always a good idea, plus it will recharge your batteries.
I am also from a lower-class family and the hardest thing to get over was the guilt like I should be able to do it all. But then I realized to do it all myself, I would miss out on good times with my kids and husband.
Having twins right out the gate helped with this guilt also. I wish I could say life is less busy the older they get but it stays busy. They just signed up for swim team and practice is FIVE days a week for 10 weeks. WTF!!
Desi it sounds like you have a great plan in place. I hope the night wakings ease off a little so you can get some rest! It's so hard to feel like exercising when you have had no sleep. I think I need to find a new cleaning service to have it start up again to coincide with the new baby's arrival in the next couple of weeks. It was so helpful when we did this with Cooper when he was first born.
Hehehe...yeah, much craft room turned into Michael's room too. Sigh.
I hope these changes help you out. One thing you need to do is stick with them. I find it very difficult to ask for any kind of help, so when I do ask I'm not very aggressive about making sure the help continues.
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