having it all

I could probably post about this e-v-e-r-y day. While I feel so lucky, for my family, that David can stay home with the twins (not only are they not at daycare, but their dad is caring for them), I am jealous of the life that the three of them lead. And TRUST me, I know that the life of a stay-at-home parent is not easy. I feel that every weekend when I am home all day with the twins. It is a ton of work to be with kids all day. A TON. I am jealous of the moments they have together, though. I'm jealous of all the smiles, all the coos, just the TIME they get to spend together. I can't totally put it into words, but I feel like I am missing so much of their infancy. These months just fly by and in many ways I'm just so sleep-deprived I can't even remember yesterday. And I just want to hold on to these moments. Lock them in my brain so that I can recall them again in years to come. 


I look at the babies every night when I get home and feel like they've changed so much in the 12 hours that I've been gone. And sometimes I feel like they look at me thinking "who are you, stranger?" Many days it feels like I work two full-time jobs. I get home at 5:15 and start my second shift. And I'm so tired, but I give the babies everything I have - any ounce that is left because it's my time with them. I don't want to feel cheated of those minutes.


The battle complicates further because it's not that I want to be a full-time stay-at-home mom. I know that would get very frustrating to me, too. And I do love my job. I know, from talking to my friends, that this is the never-ending battle we all face. Stay home, work, or some combination. And none are perfect or ideal. As I said to a friend last week, "we have to stop feeling unhappy/unsatisfied about what we have and stop trying to change it because in the meantime life is passing us by." It's time to make the most of the hour or two I have with the babies each night and gobble up every second on the weekend. Stop wasting mental energy thinking about what I don't have, how much my head hurts, how tired I am, and instead relish in the moments I do have, the coos I do hear, the nap I take with a baby on my chest.


There are a million articles about this subject. They at least help validate the feelings of "I'm a working mom who feels like I have nothing, when in fact, I could change perspective and feel like I have it all." 


After a recent trip to the OB I saw Working Mother magazine and of course assumed, that by subscribing, I would be a better working mom. You know, the same magic that works to lose weight by simply buying the work-out video. Hey, I subscribed and my first issue just arrived - I'll give it a little more time to start seeing results :)


What I found interesting about this article from Working Mother, though, is the new perspective it showed me about dads. Because they may be feeling some similar things. We need money to make our world go round. We also need to give love and feel love. Our best child-rearing years are our money-making years, in this culture. And maybe that sucks.


I think this thought sums it up best for me: 
"We want the noise and embrace of family around us; we want, at the end of our lives, to look back and see that what we have done amounts to more than a pile of pay stubs, that we have loved and been loved, and brought into this word life that will outlast us."


Alright moms - how about you - how do you feel in your working situation about the way you're raising your kids? The good, the bad, the ugly. I want to hear it!