Back To My Reality

Well, tonight, I go back to work.

Back to Reality I guess.

While on leave, I realized a few things about my self.  One being this: I love being a stay at home wife.  Even though CDub sometimes got on my last nevers with his caveman ideals( man work, no clean) I liked having this time to take care of my household.  I liked having time to keep my house clean, I liked having the energy to cook for C-Dub and Pookah.  Every night if I wanted to(which I didn’t!)   I loved have the energy to even think about having  sex with my hsuband( even though the dr said we couldn’t).  I loved not being tired after I put the baby to bed and therefore crashing immediately.  I loved the late night convos me and CDub started to have again. The laughter.  It has been great.

But I also learned something else about myself: time away from my child makes us all happy. I’ve felt like this for a while, and I’ve felt sooo guilty about it.  I wanted soooo bad to be a SAHM.  I thought it was the best thing EVER.  And I have loved being home and available( not just half awake) for Pookah these last few weeks.  We got to experiment with homecooked wheat free foods and he even liked a few! I discovered his obsession with chicken, and even got him to sleep through the night!  All because I had the time and the energy to do so!!

But what has made these few weeks even better has been daycare.

In the beginning, it was because I wasnt’ feeling well enough to take care of him by myself.  So he went 3 days a week.  But after I felt better, he still went three days a week.  I found that when he went just those three days, I started to cherish the time I had with him more.  I started to enjoy being Pookah’s mom again.  Because folks, I was on the edge.  I was starting to dread the wake up in the morning because I knew that all day long, Pookah and I would have a battle of wills.  I tried having a schedule, not having a schedule, going out, not going out.  But in the end, at the end of the day, I found myself living for those moments when he was asleep.   And I  think he felt it too.

But something happened when I took him to daycare.  When I picked him up, we were facinated with each other again. We plaughed and played and I enjoyed being his mom again.  And on those days that he didn’t go, we did things.  It was suddenly fun, not a chore to read All Aboard the Circus McGurkus for the hundreth time, it was fun to play patty cake again, and hide and seek, and go to the park, and all those other things that I was taking for granted.  My patience returned. I know that when I go back to work, some of those three days will be centered around when I work, so I can sleep after working all night.

But still, I NEED this time.

I’m one of those moms who is a better mom when she’s had time away.  I complain about work endlessly, but it does allow me to get away and have some adult time.  And then come home happy to see my boy.  Dont get me wrong, I miss him EVERY second that he is away.

But I need my me time.

I always have.  I’ve been trying to put that aside since Pookah was born becuase I thought, isn’t that what moms do? Dont we give up the “me” and the “I”? Don’t we give up our time, our energy our lives sometimes for our children? I thought that was the kind of mom I had to be.  All or nothing.  I’ve been strggling with feeling this way for  a while. I always envyed those moms who seemed to have it all together.  Not only do they keep a clean house, stay looking good,   have their  own business and take care of your kids and blog everyday?  I tried, lord knows I did, but it wasn’t working for me.  For us.  It finally took my Mom, who always worked outside the home to point out to me that it was OK to feel this way because these were my feelings.  And Pookah wouldn’t feel unloved because he went to daycare so I could sit in the sunshine and read a book.  By. Myself.

So as I go back to work tonight, my way of thinking has shifted.  I’ve come to realize that I can’t and don’t have to be everything to everyone.  And I’m not meant to be a SAHM.  I was sad to let that ideal go, but realizing that is helping me to be the best mom I can be.

For us.