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Archive for the ‘Rambling’ Category

The things people say…

06 Oct

As soon as you leave your home with children, it opens you up to all kinds of comments.  (And of course, there’s comments if you don’t have children, too.  Those are way worse!)  You get all kinds of advice…how to dress them, how to discipline them, how to feed them.  I’ve had people tell me that I should be breastfeeding when I’ve been giving a bottle, people who told me I should give a bottle when I was (very discreetly) breastfeeding, people telling me that I should spank my child who is acting like a normal 2 year old, and people tell me that I’m being too tough on my kids when I remove a privilege for misbehavior, people who told me my baby needed a hat when it was 60 degrees out and people who told me fleece was too much when it was below freezing outside, people who told me I should get a babysitter to go grocery shopping (like the groceries aren’t expensive enough) and people who criticized me when I was happy to be able to grocery shop without my smallest “helpers.”  Seriously, I am not making any of these up.  It’s as if people lose their filter completely when they see a person with a child.  And then there’s the comments about the number of children I have.

When I had just one child, especially when he got past the infant stage, I got all kinds of comments from strangers about how I needed to have another one so he wouldn’t be an only child.  This was really painful for me because we were trying.  Shooting up hormones every day in an effort to get pregnant and insensitive comments about adding to your family don’t mix.  I said some very nasty things to people I didn’t even know…but really, who was the rude one in that equation?

Then when I had 2 boys I constantly had people saying things like “Too bad he wasn’t a girl.” or “Guess you’ll need to have another one so you get that girl this time.”  As if I wasn’t thrilled to pieces that I had another baby simply because he had a penis.  Considering all I went through to get pregnant and then all the drama involved with that pregnancy, I was just glad I had a healthy baby.  Genitals simply didn’t matter to me.

And then I got pregnant with #3.  Something of a surprise but certainly an incredible blessing.  And I allowed myself to hope for a little girl.  OK, I admit it.  With my first, I didn’t care.  I figured we had more chances.  With my 2nd I was just happy to be having a baby, any baby.  With my 3rd (and last) I wanted a girl.  I wouldn’t have been devastated if it had been a boy.  I might have allowed myself a momentary disappointment and then accepted that God’s plan was for me to be a mom of boys.  But we all know what happened…it was a girl this time, and there was much rejoicing.  Because no matter what, the plan was for this baby to be our last.  Boy or girl, that didn’t change things.

Yet people assume I’m done because “you finally got your girl.”  But there’s also the people who tell me “you need 1 more girl to balance it out.”  Really?  Because we all know you can just snap your fingers and pick the sex, right?  Yes, I’ll certainly get right on that!

But my favorite comments are the ones that make it seem like I’m single-handedly repopulating the world.  Like the guy who told me I had a whole “herd” of kids at Lowe’s the other day.  Really?  A herd?  Like animals?  Or the woman at Walmart who thought she’d tell my friend (who also has 3 children) and I just how awful it was to have kids.  In front of our children.  The people who tell me I have my hands full.  The people who I have never met in my life who ask me if I’m having more.  Oh, yes please!  I’d love to discuss my reproductive choices with you, complete stranger!  It is mind-boggling the insensitivity and rudeness we encounter every time we take our children out.  These 3 children, who I think are the most incredible things that ever happened to me, open me up to more scrutiny and criticism than I ever would have thought possible.  I think I need a T-shirt…Mom's-T-Shirt

I think there’s a market for these…what do you think?

 
2 Comments

Posted in Me Stuff, Parenting, Rambling

 

Life Changes

28 Aug

Yesterday was a down day…we had an unexpected expense and we’re left $50 short for a bill payment.  We’ll have it next week, but the stress of realizing you don’t have the money to pay a bill the day it’s due is not something I like to deal with regularly.  And it’s something that I’ve had to deal with over and over and over since my husband was laid off a little over a year ago.  Before that, I spent money without thinking about it.  Cute outfit for one of the kids?  Sure, I’ll take one!  Long day, don’t feel like cooking?  Let’s go out to eat!  Book I want to read?  Just buy it!

These days, I am grateful to the various people who have given us their hand-me-downs for the kids to wear.  We don’t go out to eat (except maybe on Sundays after church, and only then if we have a coupon) at all.  And a new book is probably one of the most frivolous expenses I could imagine right now.  Since our library rarely has the books I want to read, I’ve been doing a lot of re-reading of old favorites.  It’s not necessarily a bad thing.  I am learning a lot about how to save money and that is something that will serve me well when we’re back on our feet.  But I’ll just say it…it SUCKS sometimes.  Going from being very comfortable and solidly middle-class to scrounging in the bottom of my purse for change to buy something we need is not at all fun.  It’s humiliating and downright painful at times.

But I’ve also gained a lot since this all happened.  I was looking at my blog stats this morning, and saw this post listed as being viewed yesterday because someone was searching for Susan Harling.  The title didn’t look familiar, so I clicked on the link and read it.  And it made me cry, because the thing that I was lamenting a lack of (good girlfriends) in that post is something I now have in spades.  This was also a few days before I found out I was pregnant with Violet, and a little more than a month before my husband was laid off.  And suddenly everything was put into perspective for me again.

Yes, we have lost much since June 16, 2008.  But we’ve gained so much more.  I have said over and over again that I’ll be OK, even if we lose the house, even if we have to file bankruptcy, even if we get sued for that bill we can’t pay.  Why?  Because my people…my husband, my kids, my friends…they will all be there on the other side of it.  I will never understand why people kill themselves and their entire families over money.  Really?  Do you not see just how insignificant money is in the grand scheme of things?  No matter what, we’ll come out the other side of this because there are people who love us.  And that, in the end, is all that matters.

 
2 Comments

Posted in Family, Me Stuff, Money/Finances, Rambling

 

Cue the new semester freak-out.

24 Aug

Today is the day I can log in to Blackboard and start my fall classes.  On tap this semester is a math class and a computer class.  I’m no math whiz, but I have always been able to get through with an A or B. (Except pre-calc…I got a low C and was just thrilled I didn’t fail completely.  Still don’t understand the concepts.)  And computers…well, clearly I’m comfortable with those.

And yet, when I logged in this morning and read the syllabi (syllabuses?) I started having a panic attack.  And just in case this doesn’t sound familiar to you, I assure you it happened last semester, too.  When I read about writing papers! and taking tests! I had the OMG, why did I think I could do this??? panic attack and almost withdrew right then and there.

We all know how that one turned out, though.  If you don’t, you can go back to this post and see.  Yeah, there was no reason to worry.  But the Fear and Self-Doubt are back and compounded by the “I budgeted money for books but then had to pay to get the car fixed and thought I could do without them but looks like I can’t” problem.  I need to come up with about $200 (and yes, I checked other sources to see if I could get them cheaper…not by much, and then I have to pay shipping) or pray that someone on FreeCycle has some they can offer me.  God has provided before and I believe He will again, but the worry of that and everything else has had my heart pounding and my stomach rolling all morning long.

When I called my husband and proceeded to tell him that there was a final exam that I have to take on campus WITHOUT the book and that I hadn’t done math in over 10 years and there was NO WAY I could pass this class, he (I assume, because I know him so well!) rolled his eyes and said “Don’t you have an entire semester to learn how to do this stuff before the final?”  Um, yeah…I guess I do.

Let the learning commence.  It’s a new semester!

 
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Posted in Back to School, Me Stuff, Money/Finances, Rambling, Sites to See

 

Blah.

10 Jul

Today’s mail bore bad news.  I knew that tuition went up, but getting that bill for $302 hurt.  A lot!  I am going to have to go on a monthly payment plan this semester, something I didn’t want to do.  Because my biggest fear is that there will be a month where we can’t make the payment…and then what?  It’s a level of stress I could have done without.

And then I start looking at my junk mail.  Because I like to torture myself with advertisements for things I desperately want but cannot buy.  Like the Dell laptops that are super-duper cheap.  They have a netbook for $399.  even better, an Inspiron 15 for $479.  And they come in pink.  PINK!  I totally need a pink laptop.  At this point I’d settle for the itty bitty netbook, because it is SO hard for me to do school work at this computer.  The children are constantly running in and out of the room because there’s no way to block it off and the chaos makes it impossible for me to concentrate.  And by the time they go to bed, I’m so fried that I don’t feel like I can do what I need to do.  Right now it is not a huge problem (obviously, since I’m rocking my psych class) but when I start algebra in the fall, then bio and chem at the same time in the spring, it is NOT going to work.

I really try not to complain here…considering our situation, it is a miracle that we are still surviving, much less able to afford tuition!  Sometimes it really gets me down and I just want to pull the big drama queen move and quit because I can’t have it easy.  Ridiculous and immature, but it really reminds me just how hard it is to better yourself if you haven’t been given a lot of opportunities.  I don’t qualify for financial aid despite the fact that we are below the poverty line right now.  I don’t have money to pay for a babysitter so I can go to class, nor do I have family locally who can help with the kids.  Most people in my situation wouldn’t have the money for a computer to do distance education, so if they didn’t already have one they’d be unable to do that.  It is so easy to sit back and talk about how easy people have it here in the US, how much opportunity there is out there for everyone.  The truth is it’s NOT that easy.  I know I won’t be quite so quick to judge people in the future.  The last 12+ months have taught me a lesson in humility that I won’t soon forget!

 
3 Comments

Posted in Back to School, Me Stuff, Rambling

 

Burp cloths…really?

04 Dec

I have finally sorted through all of the old baby stuff and narrowed down the list of “needs” and “wants” so that I can get a realistic picture of what we have to have.  Clothes were easy…some of the boy stuff can be worn by a girl and we’ve picked things up here and there ourselves.  We’ve held onto most of the big equipment or already purchased it when we found a good deal on something, like the car seat.  The only big thing I don’t have is a swing…and since I lived without one last time I figure I can do so again.  I have a couple of blankets ready to go.  Bedding and nursery decor are things that won’t be changing from the last baby, so we’re all set there.  We have toys left over from the previous kids, so no worries there.  One concern is bottles and other feeding accessories like a My Brest Friend nursing pillow.  I tossed all of my bottles about a week before I found out I was pregnant due to BPA concerns, so they have to be replaced.  But I do plan to breastfeed so even that is not a critical worry.  I can get them when (or if) I need them.  And I can always substitute a bed or couch pillow for the nursing pillow if necessary.

But I do not have a single burp cloth.  Seriously.  I don’t know what happened to them!  I’m sure I gave them away in one of my random organizing fits but every last one of them is gone.  It seems so strange to say that one of the things I really need is burp cloths.  Luckily these are not expensive so I can snag some next time I hit Walmart or Target.  But I am just baffled by the absurdity of it.  I’ve had 2 children, spent the first 6+ months of each of their lives with a burp cloth permanently affixed to one or both of my shoulders, and yet I have NONE.  Neither of them were major spitters, but we did use burp cloths every time we fed them because they always had a little something come back up.  So realizing I somehow got rid of all of them was a shock.  It seems like such a silly thing to say burp cloths when someone asks what we really need.  But there it is…the #1 thing on my “need” list right now is burp cloths.

With less than 7 weeks to go, this is what I’m obsessing about right now.  Because if I focus on the fact that I will be having major surgery and will be a mom to 3 in less than 50 days I may just go insane.

 
2 Comments

Posted in Pregnancy, Rambling

 
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