Archive for the ‘parenting’ Category

The other morning at 7:30, Bean came toddling into my bedroom.  He had his two golf clubs with him, as always, and he used them to poke me awake.  Then he broke into his big ol’ giggle and started holding his arms (and golf clubs) out to be picked up.  I pulled him into bed with me and we snuggled and laughed and I hid from him while Bean swatted around with his clubs.

Super sweet, right?

WRONG.

Absolutely not sweet.

In fact, this is grounds for divorce in my marriage and Bean is merely a pawn.

See, Chris and I take turns getting up with Bean every day.  Bean gets up at 7:00 on the dot every morning and we alternate who is going to get up with him, change his diaper, get his breakfast, and feed the dogs.  It’s a whole routine.  And while one person does it, the other person gets an extra half hour or so of sleep.

So, what’s all the fuss?

Well, lately, Chris has been sending Bean into my bedroom to wake me up.  He says it’s cute.  It’s sweet.  Bean loves me.  Blah, blah, blah.  I don’t care. I don’t care how cute he is, he’ll still be cute when I wake up in half an hour.

And yet this is the perfect crime because what exactly can I accuse Chris of in this situation?  Think about it.  Any argument I try sounds ridiculous:

“Why did you bring the baby in to see me?”

“I don’t want to see the baby right now!”

“Take the baby away!”

See?  All of those make me sound like a jerk.  So, Chris gets to sit back and watch while I simultaneously love and hate this new morning ritual.

Now, it’s true that I am not completely innocent in this.  In fact, I was the one that created this game.  I used to send Bean in to wake up Chris on the weekends when he slept past 9:00.  I mean, we had things to do.  Places to be.  And Chris needed to get his arse up.  But I would like to argue before the court that that situation is very different than using that tactic at 7:30am on a weekday when I had only an extra 15 minutes or so of sleep.

Chris and I have never argued about this before because of the aforementioned complaints making us sound ridiculous, but we do smile sweetly to each other and say, “Isn’t it sweet?  I loved when you made him wake me up yesterday like this.”

Did you get that?  That subtle hint of a complaint in there?

THIS HAS GOT TO STOP.

So, today before God and Internet Land, I am declaring a truce, Chris.  I will keep Bean out of the bedroom while you are sleeping and you need to keep him out of the bedroom when I am sleeping.  No matter what.  It’s the right thing to do, my love.

Because I would hate to file for divorce on the grounds that my husband forced me to snuggle with my child.

As much as I am loving this time to be home with Bean Man, I am still job hunting.  I used to be really uncomfortable staying home, but part of this whole Bloom Where You Are Planted thing is coming to peace with where I am right now and right now, I’m home during the days.  Actually, I’m getting pretty good at it now!  I’m much better at play dates, I’ve made some really nice friends with other SAHM’s here, and I’ve completely gotten used to being out and about during the day by myself with Bean.

The thing is, I’ve gotten so good at filling mine and Bean’s days with fun things that sometimes Chris feels a little left out.  When we’re on the go all day long doing fun things, I can tell when I talk to him that night that he wishes he’d been able to go with us.  Lately, I’ve been making an effort to make sure that he doesn’t feel left out of anything.  Now, we use weekends to do a lot of “Firsts.”  Like, the first time we took Bean to a pool was on a weekend with Daddy and the first time we let Bean order off of the restaurant menu was on a weekend with Daddy.  None of those things are milestones or will probably be significant looking back at Bean’s childhood, but they go a long way to make sure Chris knows how important he is in Bean’s growth.  After we’ve had the “First” with Chris on the weekends, I can add it to my regular rotation of activities we do during the week without feeling like I’m experiencing anything with Bean that Chris would miss out on.

Does that make sense?

On Friday night, Chris and I were up late watching Season One of The Shield (holy smokes what a show!  wowza!) and in the middle of one particularly intense scene, Chris looked over to me out of the blue and said, “Let’s take Bean to the zoo tomorrow.”

Now, I know this is going to sound melodramatic and ridiculous, but I could actually FEEL myself fall more in love with him when he said it.  It wasn’t the zoo that was important to me.  It was that Chris was thinking of things for us to do as a family together.  Knowing that Chris LIKES spending time with us and that he WANTS to be there with us is something that I don’t take for granted.  Lots of dads aren’t like that and I know how lucky we are to have one who is.

So, Saturday morning, we got up and headed to the Central Florida Zoo.  We spent the morning there seeing all the animals and making animal sounds with Bean.  This zoo had a little splash park inside of it, too, so when it got hot around lunch time, we changed into Bean’s swimming trunks and let him splash around for a while before we headed home.  Bean Man was asleep before we even pulled out of the parking lot.  It was a big day.

Blooming where you are planted is hard stuff, man!  You have to be sure you are blooming as an individual, blooming as a couple, and blooming as a family.  That’s a lot of bloomin’ blooming!  But each step is important and to fall short in one area can throw all the others out of whack.

This is one of the many hundreds of thousands of reasons that I am thankful to be married to someone who is not just willing, but who WANTS to hold my hand and bloom along beside me.  And who makes the effort to be there to bloom together as a family.

Because seeing his parents make that effort together is what will give Bean the confidence and security to bloom on his own his whole life.

Being a mom has thrust me into lots of situations where I wasn’t comfortable.  There was the whole modesty issue that I had to work through.  There was getting used to cleaning up other people’s bodily fluids as they project out of their body.  There was coming to terms with staying at home with Bean.  All of these things – and countless other examples – were situations where motherhood forced me to do things that I normally wouldn’t have been comfortable doing.  But, I’ve learned that in parenting is no place for weenies.  So, you suck up your fears/insecurities/pride and you do what has to be done.

Because I’m the mom.  That’s why.

Lately, motherhood has forced me to cross yet another bridge that was way out of my comfort zone:  The Play Date.  I talk today over on Bean’s page about how to have a successful play date, but as easy as those bullet points make it seem, having a play date was a big deal for me.

Contrary to what you might believe since I bear all here on this blog, I am actually a pretty shy person.  I’m not insecure really, just a little on the quiet side until I get used to a situation.  In college, this shyness showed itself by keeping me home a lot.  I lived with two crazy guys who were constantly on the go and they did their best to make sure that I didn’t live the life of a recluse.  But, given the choice, I’d prefer to stay home.  When Chris and I got married, Chris was the one who kept me in touch with the outside world.  He has always loved having people around and so our house in Connecticut was always full of people and activity and I actually grew to love that.  But I think I liked that more because it was at my own house and so I wasn’t really going too far out of my comfort zone.  People were instead coming into my comfort zone.

But now that we are in Florida, we are still trying to make friends and out house has become much quieter (mostly because I think it would be rude to invite people to hang out with us in the ghetto).  And since I’m not working now, if I didn’t get out of my house to meet people, I would have the tendency to just sit at home like a bump on a log.  Not that I would mind that, really.  But it just doesn’t seem healthy to me.  And besides, I have Bean now and I KNOW it’s not good for his development to just sit at home with me all day.

This has left me with no choice but to get out and meet people.  And what’s the best way to meet people when you’re staying at home?  Play dates!

I found several groups of really nice moms through my church, which has then led me to several other play groups through friends of friends.  Before I knew it, Bean and I were out and about.  And (here’s the most important part for me) I was meeting new people almost every day.  Was I uncomfortable?  Yes.  Did I want to be back home in my jammies with a book?  Yes.  But I still got out there.  And not just because of Bean, but because I needed that for myself, too.

I’ve told you all that I’m on this new “change is good” kick.  I’m working out (death to Jillian Michaels!).  I’m eating healthier (I’ve already lost four pounds!).  I’m reading more (actually, more than I should be considering I haven’t spent any time with Chris this week at all!).  And I told myself that I would keep adding changes until I felt better about who I was.  Well, my latest change has been forcing myself out of my comfort zone and into play dates.

It’s been nice because I have Bean with me and even though he’s two feet tall and about 20 pounds, he’s a heck of a wing man.  It’s nice to be able to bring a friend along, so to speak, when I’m meeting new people.  And Bean gives me a lot of inspiration, too.  I see how open he is to meeting other babies.  I put him down in a group of strange kids and he just takes it in stride.  He has a good time while he’s there and then when we’re done, he goes home and does things he’s familiar and comfortable with.  If he can do that at one year old, then surely I can do that, too.  So, I force myself to get out and meet people and then I reward myself by coming home and doing things that make me feel comfortable again.  In the process, I’ve met some really nice people and done a lot of fun things with Bean.

Yesterday, we went to a play group at a park that had a splash fountain (those are those fountains that spray all different heights at all different times and kids can play in them…).  I found out about the play date through an email, but I didn’t know anyone who would be there and I didn’t know where we were going.  I actually thought about not going all morning long.  As I packed our bag of towels and snacks, I thought, “I could just stay home and play in the back yard with Bean instead…” or “We could go meet Chris for lunch instead…”  But before I could really talk myself out of it, I packed up, strapped Bean into his seat, and left my house.  No going back now.

When I got there, turns out the group is actually for kids about a year older than Bean.  When I saw the older(ish) kids there, I drove past the fountain at first and thought, “I can’t go – this isn’t for Bean.”  But then I realized I was just looking for an excuse.  How much older could the kids be anyway?  And lots of the moms had multiple kids of all ages.  And even if they were all older than Bean – so what?  He loves water!  Might as well go play in it!  So, I parked and Bean and I headed up to the group.  And you know, I had a great time.  I mostly watched Bean because he was playing in water, but I also got to chat with several moms from my church and that I had met through other groups.  Bean had a great time watching the older kids play.  And by the time we left a couple hours later, I was so glad we had gone.

Checking out the big kids…

Look at the things I would have missed out on if I had been too shy to go.  Bean and I would be locked up in this awful rental house by ourselves all summer long.  And that’s not fun for anybody.  So, even though it sometimes makes me uncomfortable and even though I’d rather be home, I’m going to keep on pushing myself to meet people.  And, oddly enough, I’m able to do that because one my two foot tall, 20 pound wing man.  Good things come in small packages, don’t they?