M: What happened to your mom's etsy shop? I was thinking about it the other day when a baby shower invite came...
Sara M: Hi Katie...I really like these questions and would like to know the answers to most of them. Are you going to answer them? I hope you don't take this part of your site down.
Marriage Confessions: Hi Sara - I have considered getting rid of this section because I always forget to answer the questions. But yours tonight prompted me! Thanks for the feedback!
McClure: I don't know if this is too personal, but do you guys save for college? If so, how? (You can just delete this if it's too personal and I will continue to read, because I think you are awesome!)
Marriage Confessions: We do save for college. It's not much, but it's as much as we can afford. We have savings accounts set up for each child and we have an auto-debit set up on our paychecks that pull into those accounts each month. The plans is once we have a decent amount in the accounts, we'll roll them into higher yield accounts (probably mutual funds).
Nancy: Hi Katie! You may have answered this already, so I apologize for being redundant. Why do you prefer the Jeff Galloway app instead of C25K? Thanks!
Marriage Confessions: Hi Nancy - I liked the Jeff Galloway app because a) it was recommended by my mother-in-law who is an avid runner and b) it uses a walk/run method where you walk one minute and run one minute. I used it for the first month to build my stamina and then switched over to the NIke+ app because I could run farther and for longer.
Ann: Totally random ... but would Ginny mind sharing hair styling tips? My hair is straight like hers and cut in a similar style, but hers always looks so smooth and perfect! Thanks. :)
Marriage Confessions: Hi Ann - Maybe I'll do a Q&A post with Ginny about her style techniques. She's got tons of them! She is easily one of the most chic women I know. As for her hair, I can tell you that she uses really expensive products (that I could never afford!). I love going to her house because I get to use everything in her shower! I'll ask her about brands during my Q&A! :)
Heather S: Hi Katie! I was just wondering if you are still a consultant for 31 gifts. I'm thinking of signing up, and I was wondering what you think of it after having been a consultant for a while now. Thanks!
Marriage Confessions: Hi Heather - I am not a consultant any more, simply because I didn't have time. Plus, I thought they would let me use my blog to sell through, but they said it violated some thing and that ruined my little selling market. But it's a great company to work with, if you're interested!
Kelly M: What type of camera(s)do you use?
Marriage Confessions: Hi Kelly - I have a Canon Rebel XS. We love it! I used to have a .55mm Canon lens that made the pictures even better, but I broke that. Boooooooo.....
Annie: Hi Katie! First off, love your blog, I've been reading it for ages:):) I really find strength in all of your posts about faith and putting trust in God...and I think I probably just missed you mentioning it in a post somewhere but what type of church do you attend? I'm just curious:)
Marriage Confessions: Hi Annie - I'm glad you enjoy those posts. They are by far the easiest for me to write, but I always worry the most about how people will react. Religion does funny things to people sometimes! We are Methodists, but I also grew up Episcopalian and attended Catholic school when I was in elementary school! :)
Carlene: Not so much as a question as a suggestion. Have you read the book Bringing Up Bebe? I read a lot of parenting books for work (I work in child are) and this one is by far my favorite. I was just wondering what my favorite e blogger had to say about it,
Marriage Confessions: Hi Carlene - I have heard all about this book and think it sounds so fascinating! It's on my summer reading list, actually! I'll review it once I read it!
Nate\'s Mom @ Nate is Great: What potty training toilet seat do you use for Bean? We're thinking about it here but, so far, Nate just wants to flush the toilet. (Good habit, right?)
Marriage Confessions: Hi Ann - We got this cheap seat from Target by First Steps with the intention of replacing it once we started REALLY potty training. But it's been almost a year now and we are still using that crappy little seat. It comes apart into two pieces whenever we pick it up. It's horrible. I need to get Bean another one, but he's actually just about to start using the potty without the seat altogether, so I'm hoping I can hold out until it's Gracie's turn.
monica brown: Is your marriage exciting. Has your marriage met your expectations?
Marriage Confessions: Hi Monica - What great questions! Yes, I think my marriage is exciting. But someone else in my same shoes would probably not agree. We are pretty routine and mundane these days, and sometimes I worry that that might get old really quickly. But Chris and I work hard to keep things exciting. I think the trick is to realize that "exciting" changes as your marriage grows. Exciting when we were newlyweds meant packing up and taking random weekend trips. Exciting now means getting a babysitter and going out to dinner. And that makes both of us really happy. So far as expectations, marriage has surpassed every expectation I've had. I thought if I had a marriage where I loved Chris and he loved me, then life would be great. But I've learned that marriage is so much more than just love. Marriage has taught me so much about relationships with all kinds of people and about myself and about Chris. It's given me new priorities and goals and dreams that I never would have had before. Without a doubt, my marriage to Chris is the best thing I've ever done.
Heather: Would you mind doing more " I get around" posts? Those are awesome!
Marriage Confessions: Hi Heather - I'm so glad you like them! They are harder for me to do now because it's pretty easy to get around with the kids now, but since I know people like them, I'll make more of an effort! Thanks!
andrea: Oh my goodness! Is Gracie really going to be a year old?!?! When did that happen!?!? Bean got to go to Disney for his first birthday. Have you decided what you doing for Gracie's?
Marriage Confessions: Hi Andrea - Again, I'm sorry I'm so behind on these questions! Hope you saw the post about Gracie's first birthday! We hung out in the backyard with friends. It was low key and awesome!
Olivia @ Crossing Bridges: My husband and I are looking at houses, and have found one we really like that has a beautiful pool in the backyard. Can you tell me a little about your pool maintenance, and the costs associated? Thanks!
Marriage Confessions: Hi Olivia - Oh, Lord. Our pool. When we bought our house, the pool was in terrible condition. Really bad. Swampy. So, getting the pool clean and clear took MONTHS and lots of money (we ended up having to rebuild parts of our pump). But now that it is back up and running, the maintenance really isn't all that bad and is relatively inexpensive. Now, Chris has to clean the pool and the filter once a week, and he shocks it once a week. Then, we usually skim it every day when we're out in it. As for the cost, the routine every day care isn't too expensive. The best advice is to get to know your neighborhood pool store guy. Chris knows our Pinch a Penny guy on a first name basis, and he really helps us know what we need to do.
Leah: How far apart are Bean and Gracie? I went back through some old posts to try and figure it out but it's easier to ask :-) I just found out I'm preggers with my second. Excited but a nervous wreck. They'll be 19 months apart! EEP!!!
Marriage Confessions: Hi Leah - They are 21 months apart. (Gosh that sounds close when I say it!)
Christina : Is your sister still trying to have a baby? I've been thinking about her since your post about their miscarriage. I hope they are doing well and are expecting now or soon. : )
Marriage Confessions: Hi Christina - Hope you saw the post on Ginny's pregnancy! She's doing great! She's almost seven months pregnant now with a little boy. I am super happy for her and she can't wait!
Amber@ClassyConfessions: Katie, could you maybe do a post soon with the blogs that you visit most commonly? I just finally got a time to watch the Live Chat and I heard you say that there are a few you visit commonly. I would love to know what they are?
Marriage Confessions: Hi Amber - My blog reading really dies off during the school year and really picks up in the summer, so I'm sure I'll add to my list in the summer. I'll definitely do a post about that then. For now, my go-to blogs that I always check when I have a minute are Glamorous Life of a Housewife (http://www.theglamlifehousewife.com/), Our Front Door (http://www.ourfrontdoor.us/), Blue Eyed Bride (http://blueeyedbride.com/), and Mile Markers (http://milemarkers.runnersworld.com/).
Heather: Does Bean walk to timeout on his own?
Marriage Confessions: Hi Heather - He doesn't ever put himself in time out, but he does confess really easily when he's done something wrong and he goes willingly to his time out spot.
Sarah R: Would you ever consider taking Bean & Gracie to Magic Kingdom on Easter? The Mobile Azalea Trail Maids will be there greeting and in the parade and I bet Gracie would love to get her picture with the girls in big antebellum dresses ;)
Marriage Confessions: Hi Sarah! Sooooo... I haven't checked my questions in a while, so I missed this. But I definitely would take the kids to Magic Kingdom, and I bet Gracie would have loved the dresses!! We're taking them in January for the first time together (Bean's been before) when I run the Disney half marathon. I know they're going to love it!
Brittany: How long have you guys been together? What made you feel that your life was interesting enough to start a blog?
Marriage Confessions: Hi Brittany - Chris and I have been together for 13 years, and in June will have been married for 7. I never really thought of my life as interesting. I still don't. Instead, i think we are VERY ordinary, but I thought that's what made the blog interesting. No one really writes about the REAL side of marriage - the good and the bad. I thought that might make an interesting blog, despite us being a pretty uninteresting couple!
Kristen: Following up on your post about your dogs, can you do a post about them as puppies? I may just want to see puppy pictures of Big Molly! Also, would love to hear funny puppy/dog owner adventure stories.
Marriage Confessions: Hi Kristen - Try going back through the archives under the Dogs category. Some of the old posts are all wonky in formatting from when we switched URL's, but there are still pictures! She was pretty stinking cute. And speaking of Big Molly, you should have seen her this afternoon. Gracie toddled away and found a full, opened, unsupervised juice box and she poured it all over Big Molly, who just laid there. When I walked in, she gave me this look like, "Please, stop this tiny person." She's such a sweet dog!
your BIGGEST fan. not fattest.: why are you so awesome?
Marriage Confessions: Have you ever heard that Brad Paisley song about being cooler online? Yeah. That's me.
Crystal: Just wondering if you found it harder to loose the baby weight with the second child then the first? I am pregnant with my second now and am noticing that I am gaining weight faster this time then my first pregnancy. I'm nervous about loosing it :(
Marriage Confessions: Hi Crystal - I actually found it much easier the second time around. Chasing a toddler and caring for a newborn pretty much keep you moving all day long. Plus, I was spending so much time making sure Bean was active and happy with Gracie around that I ended up out in the pool with him almost every day that first summer and that really helped. My best advice about getting back into shape after #2 is to be sure you're playing and romping a lot with #1. There's nothing better than keeping up with a toddler AND a newborn to keep you fit!
Shanonn: When you found out that your were pregnant with Gracie how did you prepare from going to mother to 1 to mother of 2?
Marriage Confessions: Hi Shanonn - I think the biggest thing I did to prepare was to prepare Bean. We spent a lot of time with him talking about what it would be like to have a baby around. We hung out with him in Gracie's room before she was born. And when she was finally born, he got to help with as much as he was able. Because of this, Bean was really easy to transition when we had Gracie. Having him be so prepared made me feel more prepared. He was my only worry.
Halston : I read a while back that you were not a "hoarder", neither am I...to the extreme. So I was wondering how do/will you deal with keeping Bean and Gracie's projects, colorings, holiday artwork they make at school, things like that? I have about 3 boxes right now for one child, I feel guilty throwing it away but I dont reminisce over old artwork now that I'm grown, so will my children? Am I saving all this stuff for nothing?
Marriage Confessions: Hi Halston - I don't have a system yet for keeping or discarding the kids art work, though I need one because Bean brings home art every single day! My general rule of thumb right now is that I save anything he actually MAKES, and chunk anything that he just colored. I also only save things that have some kind of memory associated with them. For example, I saved this giant laminated guitar he made for his class Christmas concert, but I threw away coloring pictures of teeth and toothbrushes he got this past week when they were talking about dental care. I read about this great thing on Pinterest where someone put together one file folder a year for each child and they only kept enough to fit in that one file folder. I thought that was a great idea, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.
20May
Look what I found! My Q&A page! It’s still here! Who knew????
Here’s the thing with this Q&A page. I’m not super thrilled with the layout, but I haven’t figured out how to change it. I don’t like that there are blog posts AND questions here. But, it is what it is and I’m not technical enough to fix it yet, so this is what we’re working with, people.
Turns out though, lots of you use this webpage! So, sorry I left you guys hanging here! I spent tonight answering questions as far back as December. And I’ll be sure to keep up with this page more from this point on, so if you have a question feel free to leave it. Hopefully, it won’t take me six months this time to answer!
25Jan
Did you miss the LIVE MC Video Chat last night? No worries! We recorded the chat session for anyone who couldn’t be there. You know, cause you might have been busy watching, like, the President on TV last night.
(Poor planning, on my part. That’s what I get for not watching the news…)
Click here to watch the chat session and be sure to join us next time!
16Dec
I haven’t been too good lately about answering the questions on the Q&A page. I went on last night to answer a few and found so many waiting! I decided the most efficient (i.e. easiest and fastest) thing to do was answer them on video. Saves my hands from carpel tunnel, you see.
So, here we go…
Part One:
Part Two:
14Nov
I get asked pretty often about life as a working mom. How we do it, what’s hard about it, what I like about it, what I don’t like about it, etc. To new working moms (or moms-to-be), this topic is especially frequent because it’s such a drastic lifestyle change from working while not having kids. I could get all philosophical on you and tell you my theories about working parents and kids who grow up in working parent homes and all that, but I think what’s more helpful is just a straight-forward post on how we make it work in our house. A reader (posting as “VV”) asked this week all the questions that I think most people want answers to, so I’m going to use her question as my guide. Here we go…
Question #1: How do you cope with all the sickness when your kids are in daycare? Are they sick all the time?
In a word, yes. Yes, at least one of my kids is sick most of the time these days. It is especially bad now that we have two kids in daycare because when something goes around one class and that child brings it home, they pass it to the other child who then takes it up to their class (though Gracie seems to have a much stronger immune system than Bean; poor Bean Man has a tough time with his respiratory system and it makes him prone to sicknesses a bit more). As much as possible, we try to keep the kids separated when they are sick so that the cycle doesn’t continue, but it’s really tough. I used to feel awful every time one of them was sick. I still do. I feel really, really guilty because I feel like it’s my fault they are in daycare and so it’s my fault they are sick. But I remind myself that I have to work and so daycare is just a necessary evil in our house.
I hardly ever blog about my kids sicknesses. Mostly that’s because I try to keep their health issues private for them. It’s a blogging boundary that I’ve set for our family. But I also keep it private because so many people have so many different ideas about medication and dealing with sickness in children and, quite frankly, I just don’t need anything else to make me feel guilty about my kids being sick. I already feel guilty enough and so I really don’t like opening that topic up for criticism from strangers. But I thought I’d put that out there today because I know that a lot of moms who work (and some who don’t) struggle with how to balance sickness and health in their family.
Question #2: How do you handle time off?
I am super lucky in that when Bean was little, I had an amazing Dean that I worked for at Yale. He was one of the kindest people you’d ever meet and, having two grown kids himself, he understood the demands of having a small baby. He let me work from home a lot when Bean was sick and couldn’t go to daycare, which really helped with my time off.
(This picture is from my going away party that the faculty and staff threw me at Yale when we moved back to Florida. That’s my Dean standing there with us. Check out Bean’s comb over…)
Now, I still work for really nice people, but I’m much more regimented in how much time I can take off since I work for the public school system. Truthfully, this questions goes hand in hand with the sickness question because 95% of the time I take off of work is for sick kids.
The hardest part is that when a child is getting over something, their immune systems are weaker and so they are more likely to pick up something else right away. This happens a lot with Bean. Usually, he gets sick right after he gets well because his immune system is weak from fighting the first sickness. It’s a brutal cycle for him and for a working mom because every time he gets sick, I have to stay home from work.
Before I had kids, a lot of my identity came from my job. It’s who I was and how I recognized myself and so I put everything I had into making sure I was ALWAYS 100% above and beyond. When I had kids, it’s not that my work ethic changed – I still want to be good at what I do – but my priorities changed a bit. Now, my job is what pays the bills. True, I want to love my job and to do well at my job, but my family is my first priority. So while it is really frustrating to have to call in a substitute because someone at my house is sick, I drop the work guilt a lot quicker than I drop the family guilt. I work to take care of my kids, so if I need to take a day off of work to take care of my kids, then that’s what I do. But it is frustrating in ways that only a working mom can truly understand.
Question #3: How do you handle sleepless nights and going to work the next day?
I’m pretty lucky because both my kids sleep through the night just about every single night. But there are the occasional nights when I’m up – again, usually with a sick kid. Two weeks ago, Bean woke up in the middle of the night throwing up. It was awful. He started around 1:00am and it continued until 5:00am. I laid down at 5:30, Gracie woke up for the day at 6:00, and my alarm went off at 6:30. It was a rough night. But, life goes on. My sweet dad came down to stay with Bean so that Chris and I could go to work, I dropped Gracie at daycare, and my day went on as usual. There’s nothing really I can do different when I’m tired like that. I can’t take a nap. Gracie still has needs. I still have obligations at school and outside of school. So, usually, I try to go to bed early the next night and just pray that the kids sleep that night. If we have a stretch of days like that (which we did two weeks ago), we usually cancel all our plans that weekend, even if the kids are better, just so we can all rest up from the week.
Question #4: How do you handle cranky babies when they get home from daycare?
This is a big problem Chris and I deal with on a daily basis. From 5:00 until bedtime, the kids are a mess. They’re cranky, hungry, tired, and just no darn fun. Unfortunately, though, the only time we get with the kids during the week is from 5:00 until bedtime. We have tired a few different things to make our time in the evenings with the kids enjoyable and we actually have a pretty nice schedule now. Granted, even on the most routine days, there are periodic outbursts from both kids throughout the evening, but with our current routine we see the outbursts a lot less.
5:00 – 5:30 – I pick the kids up from daycare and we head home. I have a snack waiting in the car for Bean to eat on the ride home every day. This keeps him from melting down when we get home because he wants dinner right away. I bring Goldfish or pretzels and an apple juice box.
6:00 – Once we get home and everyone is settled with an activity (Bean usually plays at the kitchen table and/or moans at my feet and Gracie hangs out in her high chair playing), I start making Bean’s dinner. Bean eats at the kitchen table while I feed Gracie her dinner (baby food and pieces of whatever Bean’s eating that she can have).
6:15 – Chris gets home and sits down at the table with us while the kids eat. Normally, Bean has a complete meltdown because he doesn’t want whatever I’ve made him for dinner that night, but other than that, this time is actually a nice time for us all to hang out together and catch up on our days.
6:30 – Chris and I take both kids upstairs and give them their baths together (if Chris is working late, then I put a movie on for Bean while I give Gracie a bath and then I do Bean’s bath after I put Gracie down for the night). I love bath time. It’s all four of us in there and the kids LOVE taking baths together. We usually let them play until the water is cold and then they sit in the tub until the water drains. They love baths!
7:00 – I put Gracie in pajamas while Chris puts Bean in his pajamas. We all meet in the hall to say goodnight to each other, then I take Gracie to her room and give her a big bottle and read her a book, while Chris reads books with Bean.
7:30 – Both kids are down for the night (though Bean will cry and yell for us for about 20 minutes, but we don’t respond, so we count it as if he’s down for the night…we’re off duty!).
7:45 – Chris and I cook dinner together while we finally get to catch up on each others days.
Question #5: How can I be a good employee if my kids are sick all the time and I’m always tired?!?!
Good question and so totally honest! I love that! The truth is that I am a good employee, but I’m not as good of an employee as I was before I had kids. I meet all my deadlines, I show up when I’m supposed to, I follow through with all my responsibilities, my co-workers and administration like me, I love my job, and I’m pretty darn good at it, too. But my expectations for a work day have definitely shifted since I’ve had children. Being a “good employee” to me on a day when my kids have been up sick all night is showing up and giving the best effort I can give. Would I necessarily teach that way every day? Probably not, but a day every now and then when I let the kids do group work instead of direct instruction or having my students read out loud instead of me reading to them isn’t going to kill them. Just like with everything else in parenthood, working and having kids is all about balance. And it’s okay if the scales sometimes tip more in one direction occasionally. As long as I have more centered days than I have tipped days, then I’m doing okay.
