Hello! My name is Jenn and you can find me over at PDX MOMMA with new posts (almost) daily. I am 30 (something) and have been married for just shy of 2 years and have a ridiculously adorable 18 month old named Oskar… or Oz… or Ozzie if you’re nasty. Yes if you did the math… I was 6 month up the spout when we made it official in Hawaii.
Big thanks to Censie for letting me share a post with y’all.
I thought long and hard about what I would share with you and in the end it took her suggestion to help prod me in the right direction. I finally decided to share with you my recent change from proud working momma to (temporary) stay at home momma.
I have spent the last 15 years working my booty off. I am in HR and I love having a career. Well not everyday but you know what I mean. I was never a woman that thought “just until I have kids and I stay at home”. Hells no. I am proud to say that I like adult time, I love making a difference in other people’s lives, and the paycheck ain’t half bad either. Oh and in the pattern of our no traditional family… I am also the breadwinner, so staying home isn’t an option I have ever entertained.
So when I was laid off about 3 weeks ago, needless to say I was shocked and somewhat scared. Being a Type A planner type of gal I didn’t like the idea of not knowing “what’s next?”. After my trek to the unemployment office and a thorough scrub of our budget I settled in to the idea that at least temporarily I am a stay at home mom. Shit.
24 hours a day with my kiddo?! My kid that too 16.5 months to walk and is now running and getting into EVERYTHING? Terrifying. Plus our daycare LOVES him and I was sad to see him leave his buddies behind. I know lots of folks have the opinion that “no one can raise your child as well as you can”, but I tend to subscribe to the theory that “It takes a village”. That village means daycare, nights at Gramma’s, and both parents that work to provide for our little family and create our comfortable life. I come from a single parent family and the idea of staying home hasn’t ever been in my reality.
I first hit up Target and finished the childproofing that we had avoided by only having the mornings and evenings to watch him like a hawk. I knew I wasn’t planning on saying “no Bubs… close the buffet and put down the wine glasses” every 2 minutes, much less find him drinking out of the toilet (yeah that happened). After getting the house ready I now had to figure out what our days would look like. He was still napping 2x on weekends and needed to be transitioned to 1 nap a day for his sake and mine. That worked well and he is now even sleeping till 7am vs 5:30. That was a nice side effect. Then we bought an membership to the science museum and started using the Zoo membership we bought a couple months back.
I couldn’t do this if it weren’t for my solid group of super moms that are full time SAHM’s. We hit up the local toddler playland, go for walks, and commiserate with eachother when we have had a hard day. Toddlers are SO much work! I am very happy when Hubs gets home in the evenings and am trying to not be the wife that hands Oz off to him the second he walk in. I have been cooking a lot more (which I have missed) and trying hard to eat right throughout the day to keep up my weight loss efforts. It’s kinda hard to fight the snacking urge when you are feeding yummy carb loaded snack to the kiddo all day!
I am not sure how long I will be at home with him. I am enjoying watching this time of quick development and his personality is growing everyday. I am not guilty about saying that I am looking forward to finding the next career move, but will definitely be sad to go back to only seeing him a couple hours a day during the week. Perhaps the perfect part time job will magically appear? Yeah probably not… so I am relishing in these days/weeks we do have. Who knew I was so domesticated?
Thanks for listening to me ramble and I hope you follow along over at PDX MOMMA.
Thanks Censie!
