Monthly Archives: July 2011

Gratitude bandwagon

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Today I am grateful for being the mom. I’m not every day so I thought I would note it today. (full disclosure: I am always grateful for my kids, but being the mom sucks rocks a lot of days.). Last night Shanna asked to sleep next to me. She doesn’t cosleep anymore so we had to maneuver a bit. Some time in the middle of the night she woke up, sat up just long enough to look for me then she threw herself across my chest to snuggle. She’s a cuddly kid in general but that instinctive “where is my mommy” in the middle of the night feels different. That is primal. I am the one she wants and needs and loves the most in the world.

Calli has been resisting napping alone. She wants to be on my lap. I haven’t been willing to give her this for most of her life but I’m doing it on vacation. Sometimes she wakes up just a little and starts to panic, then she notices that she is on me and her whole body relaxes. Oh Mommy.

This is why I had children. I wanted this. I want this so much that I ache with it. And I have it. It’s a gift. I constantly feel like I don’t deserve these amazing kids, but they think I am perfect. I am so grateful that I get to be Mommy.

Gratitude bandwagon

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Day one was yesterday, I was too busy being happy to post. I was thrilled to discover that we were leaving Glasgow the day before a big sectarian protest. I will be checking the news today because when we were warned about it I got the impression it might turn into a riot. I’m very grateful that we left before that.

Day two I am grateful that Noah has been gracious and helpful because all day my anxiety has been up in the 8/9 range for no reason. And he’s been very patient and accommodating. Wonderful husband.

Moving forward

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I am finally up early enough to talk to my Sarah.  We haven’t been able to synch up in a while.  It’s really interesting for me to think about my part in forming a multi-adult household.  So far in raising our kids I’ve mostly been the boss.  Noah defers to me most of the time.  I think Sarah will too.  But I’m not sure that’s a good thing.  I don’t want to be a boss.  I feel uncomfortable as a boss.  But I’m a control freak.  I get very anxious when I am not in control.  I’m not sure how to own that and deal with it and yet not have everyone in the house be required to do what I say when I say it.  However my biggest objection to poly households with children (hello judgment!) is that kids need to have structure and it needs to not be wishy washy.  Most of the time I see poly arrangements where the adults all want to be equal and then no one puts their foot down because they don’t want to be the boss/mean.  That hits all of my buttons.  Which isn’t to say that every poly family fucks up their kids, but that isn’t a system I can live in.

So how are we going to do this.  Sarah has far more experience raising kids than me (she’s the oldest of 6 and there is a gap before the second kid) but these are my kids.  At the end of the day, Noah and I are the ones responsible for our children.  But Sarah is much better than me at remaining calm in a crisis and she has better scope for which problems are worth getting upset about.  One of the things I am most worried about is me backing off and giving Sarah too much control because I feel like she is “better” than me, and then getting angry and wanting to kick her out because how dare she act like she is in charge of my kids.  I can see me being that kind of stupid. Ugh.  
Right now Plan A is that we need to have really frequent check ins about every teeny tiny irritation.  I’m thinking that I should probably start charting my moods over the first few weeks.  It’s nit picky and annoying but I don’t want to be blaming Sarah for the fact that I’m crazy.  That’s a pre-existing condition.