I hope everyone had a Happy Mother's Day.
I thought mine was particularly special this year. Ever since I was a little girl the one thing that I wanted to do when I grew up, that never changed, was get married & have children. I really wanted what my Mom had. A good husband that worked hard to provide for his family, a little girl & boy, the opportunity to stay home & spend time raising those children.
Well 11 years ago I found the perfect man & just knew we would get married & have those children but I figured that the dream would stop there. I just didn't see how I would get to stay home with my children.
The first big hurdle to jump was actually having children. After 3yrs of trying I was really starting to worry. After the 1st year Jon went to the doctor so we knew he wasn't the problem. He kept bugging me to go but I was just so scared. Scared that as much as I wanted to have children that it might not happen.
I have come to believe that everything happens for a reason. I'm not sure if we would have been able to, or thought we could, buy a house if we already had a baby to take care of but we got the keys to our house July 11, 2008. We found out we were finally going to have a baby in October & July 1, 2009 Keegan was born.
It was a real learning curve throwing a baby into the mix. I was determined to breastfeed but he just refused to nurse. There were so many days & nights in the first few weeks when I still kept trying that he was screaming at me & I was crying. I finally gave up trying to get him to nurse & just resigned myself to a life of bottles & oodles of milk bags. You see, his refusal to nurse did not stop my determination that my baby was going to get breast milk. I pumped for 6 months. I did what the lactation consultants told me & pumped every 2hrs for at least 15 minutes & pretty soon I had more milk than I knew what to do with. After returning to work I decided I wasn't going to set my alarm every 2hrs at night to get up & pump. Especially since Keegan was sleeping through the night by a month old, it was just too much. It was horrible as it was pumping first thing before I left the house, pumping in the bathroom on both of my breaks, coming home at lunch & pumping at the kitchen table while I ate. I felt like I really was "Moooomy" as everyone liked to tease. Then when I got home from work I had about 60+ oz of milk to measure out into bags & freeze and about 11 bottles to wash.
It was soo much work but I did it. I only stopped at 6 months because we were out of freezer space. We had giant Target bags full of milk in our freezer & my grandma's deep freezer. I think he was about 10 months old before he stopped getting breast milk. It wasn't ideal for me but being a breast feeding mother & working is really hard.
Since Keegan was born it has been one medical nightmare after another but I like to believe that the things that happened help lead us to the realization that I have Celiac Disease. Breaking my leg served two purposes in that it also gave me my own wheelchair in preparation for my 2nd pregnancy. The nightmares with my heart that started shortly after becoming pregnant with Kaden led me to where I am today, living my dream.
Kaden is almost 7 months old & except for a few hours here & there I have spent every single day with him. I wish I could have had that with Keegan but now I get his toddler chaos. I feel bad that he is gone 3 days a week to play group but it's good for him & I've learned to let it be good for me too. It's helped me to try to be the mother & wife I've always wanted to be. I don't think I could ever get close to my Mom though. I'm really not sure how she managed to do all that she did because she even baby sat extra kids!
I've developed a routine & it's serving me well. I try to get all the major house chores done on Tuesday & then it's just following up with some laundry & kitchen chores the rest of the week. I felt particularly happy last week because I cooked at least half or more of the dinner every night last week except Friday. Since Jon had business appointments scheduled shortly after he got home from work there were several days that dinner was being put on the table when he walked through the door. I NEVER thought that would happen, especially since until November 2010 I didn't really even cook haha.
The last two weeks have been total chaos for me since I decided to try to make Mother's Day presents this year. I remember being in school & making presents some years & I always thought that those are the presents that mean the most. Of course I had to pick something that wasn't exactly all that easy since I'd never done it before & didn't have quite all the things I needed but I made do & managed to get everything done in time. My Mother-in-Law & both grandma's got magnets made out of resin with pictures embedded inside of them. Instead of magnets my Mom got her resin pieces on a necklace (+ 1 magnet). I even went crazy & made little felt pouches for them to go in & decorated them all up. Mamo found another use for her pouch right away by pinning it to the wall by her calendar to hold doctor appointment cards til she writes them on her calendar.
I managed to do all of that, keep my house pretty clean & have dinner on the table almost every night. I think I need to get myself a cape to wear for weeks like that.
Not to minimize the other gifts I was given, Keegan made me the cutest little blinged out wooden jewelry type box at play group. It has a picture of him inside of it & chocolate kisses for now hehe. I thought it was so perfect & fitting that I made gifts for all of my mothers & I got a handmade gift of my own from my boy. My Mom also posted on Facebook that morning about how proud she was of me & the great mother that I am. Coming from her, the Super, Super Mom, that really means a lot.
My Mother's Day this year was almost my perfect dream come true. There was just a little twist to it since I have two boys & no girl :p
To all you Mother's out there, I hope your Mother's Day was as special for you this year as mine was for me.
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