Raincity Mama

It feels like we are tread­ing water, try­ing to keep from being washed away by the relent­less waves of every­day life. The days fly past and we aren’t get­ting every­thing done. Our to-do list keeps grow­ing, new items are added but noth­ing is com­plete. It is over­whelm­ing to see what needs doing know­ing that there is lit­tle time to get all of it done.

I was talk­ing with the hus­band about this. We are both feel­ing over­whelmed. The hus­band says that it feels like he’s at the bot­tom of a well. Both of us are feel­ing defeated, unable to start any­thing new because we don’t know where to start. Which task that has been neglected needs to be dealt with first and are there any neglected tasks that are going to explode if they are con­tin­ued to be neglected. Small stuff like the win­dows are so smudged by fin­ger­prints that it looks like the win­dows has a film on them, to “holy crap! our house insur­ance has expired!”

I was speak­ing with another twin mom and she said that it feels like she and her hus­band are lead­ing par­al­lel lives. They are so busy man­ag­ing the kids and the house that there is lit­tle time/energy left over for “them”. They trade off nights so that they can get work done or go out and con­nect with friends but they don’t get a night out together. She is just as stymied as we are as to how to fix this.

When we went to pre­na­tal class the teacher warned us that par­ents of mul­ti­ples have a higher divorce rate and she encour­aged us to talk about what were going to put in place to help smooth the bumps. We sat there rub­bing our preg­nant bel­lies, feel­ing cer­tain that we would not become a sta­tis­tic and talked about how we’d hire a sit­ter and ensure that we had a date night. Thank­fully none of us have added to the ranks of that par­tic­u­lar sta­tis­tic but I think all of us are feel­ing the pinch of try­ing to bal­ance work, life and kids.

I had a rev­e­la­tion the other day that I’m not putting my mar­riage as a pri­or­ity. I’ve thrown myself head-long into car­ing for the kids and return­ing to work that my mar­riage has fallen to the side. I real­ize that I am mod­el­ling what it is to be a mom, wife, friend, insert what­ever role here, to my kids and I worry that I am fail­ing. I rec­og­nize that I am not putting my hus­band on the pri­or­ity list. I don’t want us to become room­mates. I want us to start putting each other first. Even as I type this I worry, will my kids under­stand that I have enough love for every­one. They have got­ten used to my undi­vided atten­tion and they are going to have to adjust as I learn to adjust.

Watch­ing tv last night I saw other par­ents of mul­ti­ples announce that their mar­riage has fallen apart. It is painful to watch. Would it have hap­pened even if the cam­eras were there? Who knows. Watch­ing their life unravel just threw my life into sharper focus. I can’t keep putting off tak­ing care of my marriage.

So for now it comes down to this: we can con­tinue to float, rest­ing because we are so very weary, with the risk that we might drift so far apart that we can­not find our way back to each other; or we can hold each other tightly and face what comes our way trust­ing that we have each other’s back and that we can face any­thing as long as we face it together.

A mar­riage isn’t gaz­ing into each other’s eyes. It is stand­ing side by side, hold­ing hands and fac­ing the world.

I’m a firm believer that you get what you expect. If I think that I’m going to have a shitty time, well guess what, I have a shitty time. I decided that I needed to get out and have some fun! When I heard about the VanCity BlogHer meet-up I knew that this is what I needed to do, that this would be fun. I RSVP’d and then I was wor­ried because I didn’t know any­one but I’m so tired of feel­ing lonely so I decided that I was going to go and have fun. I got dressed, got a hair­cut and got my ass downtown.

I held my breath as I walked in. Would they all already know each other, would I be an out­sider? Would I fit in? It sucks to feel so inse­cure, to be so full of self-doubt. I was one of the first to arrive, but once I saw the other women I exhaled. They smiled at me and I knew that I was going to have fun. These women are an awe­some bunch. We sat and talked and the time flew so quickly. My only regret is that I got so engrossed with the con­ver­sa­tion that I was hav­ing that I didn’t actu­ally get to talk with every­one. Next time I’ll have to get out of the cor­ner seat and make a point of circulating.

Thank you Mr. Lady for orga­niz­ing and host­ing this meet-up! It was so nice to get out and meet fel­low blog­gers. I’m sad that I can’t make it to Chicago this year, maybe I’ll be able to go next year. I’m slowly adding every­one I met on Twit­ter and get­ting them added to my reader too. This blog­ging thing is awe­some and over­whelm­ing! I’m so glad that I decided to get out and have some fun!

I’ve always been a pro­cras­ti­na­tor. I mar­ried a pro­cras­ti­na­tor. I hope that I can pre­vent my kids from becom­ing pro­cras­ti­na­tors. (Can I use the word pro­cras­ti­na­tor again??? Procrastinator!)

I hate how leav­ing things unstarted or unfin­ished makes me feel. The shame I feel when I real­ize that I’m not doing what needs to be done is awful, but sadly usu­ally it isn’t enough to make me get off my ass and just do it, what­ever “it” is.

I feel like pro­cras­ti­na­tion is tak­ing over my life. Sure, I man­age to get enjoy­able, pleas­ant tasks done. The last piece of cake needs to be eaten? Done. The PVR is full of tv shows? No prob­lem, I can sit and watch tv. The kids bed­room needs to be cleared out so that they can actu­ally sleep in there? Huh, didn’t you say there was cake?

Well. I’m reach­ing the end of my rope. I need to make some changes in my life. I’m tired of how putting things off makes me feel. I decided to take the bull by the horns and I’ve started to tackle on of the big scary things that I’ve been putting off, my taxes. It’s going to take some work but I will get them done. I felt in incred­i­ble mix of emo­tions once I got the ball rolling, exhil­a­ra­tion, fear, shame, relief, the list goes on. I con­sider get­ting this sorted out to be a huge step in the right direc­tion in leav­ing my pro­cras­ti­nat­ing ways behind. Although I do have to say that it has taken me two days to write this post. I’d say that I need to take baby steps but big steps are required if I’m really going to change me ways.

Is pro­cras­ti­na­tion an issue for you? How to you deal with get­ting stuff done?

At work we were talk­ing about sleep, or lack thereof, and being tired. I tried telling my co-workers that I win at being tired. I’m a pro­fes­sional at walk­ing around sleep deprived. They didn’t believe me so I told them what it means to be really tired.

When the babies where new­borns it was hard. I’ve blocked out for­got­ten a lot about those early days but I do recall that I was always extremely tired. I’m sur­prised that I didn’t spon­ta­neously fall asleep. I remem­ber being in my room try­ing to nap while my par­ents or hus­band were watch­ing the kids. I remem­ber feel­ing frus­trated hear­ing the ryth­mic thump of house music pump away while I tried to drift off to sleep. This went on for days, maybe weeks, I’m not really sure. I remem­ber think­ing that it was odd that I’d notice the music when I was try­ing to sleep but I couldn’t hear it when I was down­stairs with the kids. I’d for­get about it and carry on with the chaos that was my life.

I finally asked my hus­band about it one day after it had tak­ing me a long time to fall asleep. He looked con­fused. He wasn’t play­ing any music and he said that the neigh­bours weren’t play­ing any music. Both of us were quite puz­zled and he was a tiny bit wor­ried. I received an email from the mul­ti­ples group that I belong to and there was a thread about sleep depri­va­tion and one woman wrote about being so tired that she started hear­ing “things”. I was aghast that any­one would let them­selves get so tired that they’d start hear­ing voices. I told the hus­band about this poor woman and you should have seen the look on his face. Such a mix­ture of pity and con­cern. He pointed out that I was hear­ing non-existent house music and that I was in fact hav­ing audi­tory hal­lu­ci­na­tions too.

I was dumb­struck! No, it wasn’t some­thing I could be in denial about. I was hear­ing this music and it was not real. My hus­band and par­ents tried to ensure that I’d be able to get naps in more often and the hal­lu­ci­na­tions went away. I’m still sleep deprived on a daily basis, but it’s get­ting bet­ter. On a good day I get almost four hours of sleep in a row but when the kids are sick I get two to three hours in a row. As long as the music doesn’t start up again I think I’m doing pretty good. I rarely drive, so I’m not wor­ried about falling asleep behind the wheel.

So my announce­ment to my co-workers that I’ve been so tired that I’ve heard non-existent music was met with smirks and weird looks. It wasn’t until I told them that it was house music that they burst out laugh­ing. Come on, it is funny. I can’t think any­one would fall asleep lis­ten­ing to house music. Now I’m on the look­out for the prankster that is going to start play­ing house music qui­etly in their cube in an effort to see me freak out. I’ll just bob my head along to the nst nst nst beat, feel­ing thank­ful that those days are behind me and I have the abil­ity to laugh at what was a very tir­ing phase of my life.

What is the most tired you’ve ever been? Have you ever expe­ri­enced audi­tory hal­lu­ci­na­tions? Come on, share your story.

I’m tak­ing the plunge and start­ing the love list meme. I think it can be telling to see what oth­ers put on their lists and I’ve always wanted to join in but I usu­ally over-think it and never post any­thing. Here’s what I’m lov­ing today:

• kitchen shears that come apart for cleaning.
• watch­ing the kids play in the garden.
• the smell of fresh cut grass.
• a gar­den full of bloom­ing tulips and daffodils.
• choco­late cake
• the smell of my hus­band just out of the shower.
• cof­fee
• walk­ing under the cherry blossoms.

Well, what’s on your love list? Link to your list in the comments.

Over the past week two women I know on Twit­ter have lost their chil­dren. It has left me heart­bro­ken. No, I don’t know these women per­son­ally, but their loss has still moved me. I wanted to come here and write some­thing elo­quent, but now that I sit here no words seem appropriate.

My own chil­dren have been so lucky. I have been so lucky. So many things have gone right for us. There were so many moments when things could have turned out dif­fer­ently, but they didn’t, and my chil­dren sleep safely in bed. I am so very grate­ful for my fam­ily. I am gra­teul for our health. I will snug­gle my kids closely tonight.

I can’t believe how quickly time has passed! It seems like it wasn’t that long ago that my babies were tiny babies. I have vague mem­o­ries from their first year, just like I was warned. It amazes me. I remem­ber being over­whelmed and exhausted (wait, I’m still over­whelmed and exhausted) and think­ing that it would never get bet­ter but it has. I keep get­ting asked if it is eas­ier but in truth, it is just dif­fer­ent. I don’t think par­ent­ing ever gets eas­ier, ask me when they are 30!  I have to say that I mostly love this age (minus the tantrums please) the best so far. I now have kids that gig­gle and play. Hav­ing them come to me want­ing a “squeezy hug” or a kiss is so much bet­ter than infants that want to nurse all.day.long.

For days now I’ve been remem­ber­ing snip­pets of the day the babies were born.

• stand­ing in the shower watch­ing my belly con­tract, telling the babies that it was OK for them to come after months of telling them they had to stay put.
• Sit­ting down­stairs on the couch after the con­trac­tions had stopped, too excited to sleep know­ing that my induc­tion was going to start in the morning.
• chas­ing my hus­band around want­ing him to hurry up. I was wor­ried that we would be late for the induc­tion. I know now that it’s not like they could have started with­out me.
• those first few con­trac­tions after the oxy­tocin was started.
• cav­ing and get­ting the epidural just so they would leave me alone. I still think that I could have done it with­out it.
• the chirp­ing of the epidural being pushed
• see­ing the anethe­si­ol­o­gist do an abrupt about face when he walked in to check my epidural and he saw that I was push­ing. I think it’s funny that he was embar­rassed. It must have been an auto­matic reac­tion to want to give me privacy.
• I pushed for 2 hours but it didn’t seem like that long
• yelling at my hus­band because he wanted to take pic­tures. I didn’t care about pic­tures, I just wanted him by my side
• my doula rub­bing my legs between contractions
• the intern sit­ting on the edge of my bed mur­mur­ing encour­ag­ing words. He seemed quite excited and happy to be there.
• feel­ing my daugh­ter crown and think­ing “I can’t!” It was going to be “I can’t do this” but it imme­di­ately turned into “I can’t stop!”
• check­ing and see­ing that it was indeed a girl.
• real­iz­ing with dis­be­lief that I had to push *ANOTHER* baby out.
• feel­ing amazed at how easy it was push­ing out my son.
• look­ing up and feel­ing aston­ished at how many peo­ple were in that lit­tle room.

The list goes on and on. As time goes by I worry that the mem­o­ries are van­ish­ing. I want to keep ask­ing my hus­band to retell the story from his point of view. For months after they were born I’d keep ask­ing him ques­tions about the order things happened.

Yes­ter­day I kept look­ing at the clock and replay­ing that day in my head. Last night when their birth min­utes were draw­ing near I felt such a mix of emo­tions. The six min­utes between their births was long and short at the same time. At the time, it felt like just moments passed before my son was born.

I feel a touch sad that they aren’t tiny babies any more but I also feel happy and proud at how much they have grown. I miss those days where they slept and I sniffed their sweet downy heads but I love to see them just as they are now. I watch in amaze­ment as my son builds a tower out of blocks. He care­fully con­sid­ers where to place the next block to ensure that it doesn’t top­ple. I watch as my daugh­ter sorts her toys by colour. I gig­gle when I see them dance along with the Wig­gles. So yes, now is by far my most favourite time. Remind me I said that when the next tantrum rolls around.

rushed to be on time
all dressed up, no where to go
meet­ing is TUESDAY

I was in Star­bucks mak­ing fairly reg­u­lar stop. I go so often that most baris­tas know what I order. The man­ager knows my drink and can never remem­ber my name so he called out “Hello grande non-fat Caramel Mac­chi­ato!” and in response I replied “Hello tall dark, half-sweet!”. As the words left my mouth my brain started to scream “shu­u­uut uuuup!” but it was too late. He laughed and started to blush.

The barista behind the bar smiled a weak smile at me, I think it was a look of pity. I said that that must be the lamest Star­bucks joke ever and that they hear that all the time, I didn’t hear the barista’s reply and the man­ager was still chuck­ling and said that he hadn’t heard a cus­tomer say it before.

I have no idea why I said that. He is kind of cute and we have made idle chit chat before but I don’t know why I felt com­pelled to try my hand at flirt­ing. I was never good at it when I was sin­gle and being mar­ried just makes it even more awkward.

So now I feel self-conscious about going back. I’m sure that they laughed it off and it will be for­got­ten but how do I for­get. When this hap­pens to me I tend to dwell on it far too long. Reliv­ing it over and over isn’t going to make me feel any bet­ter. I just want to be able to get my cof­fee with­out feel­ing like a fool.

When was the last time you put your foot in your mouth? Did you do it while flirt­ing? Is flirt­ing as a mar­ried woman accept­able? Leave a com­ment and tell me what you think.

I dropped the kids off at my par­ents house on Sat­ur­day and then I had a few hours to spend with the hus­band. We decided to go for lunch and sit and talk. It was so nice to really recon­nect. Sure, we chat­ted about the kids and work stuff but we got to talk about other stuff too.

After lunch we walked back home and some time left to get down to busi­ness. It is a rare treat that we are alone in the house together so we made use of our time wisely. *wink wink*. There are many projects that we could have tack­led but spend­ing the day recon­nect­ing was what we needed. Yes, we need to set up the kids’ room so that they can move in there and out of our room. We could have started to get the gar­den ready for plant­ing or cleared out the office or any of the one hun­dred other to-do items of the ever expand­ing list; but we both decided that we needed time for us. I still cringe when I think about all the half fin­ished and not-yet-started projects but time together is so rare and I think that we both ben­e­fit from refo­cus­ing on “us” that I can ratio­nal­ize putting off the chores. I also think that it is impor­tant that we show the kids that we are putting our mar­riage as a pri­or­ity and that means that we have to set aside to work on our mar­riage just as we do for every­thing else.

I’m already plot­ting our next after­noon together. What do you do to stay con­nected with your spouse?