As the year comes to a close I have been sitting and thinking about how much life has changed in a course of a year. One would think I learned that lesson the year I became a mom, but to my surprise it is still changing, and there are more changes coming!
It has been almost a year since I became a Stay At Home Mom!
WOW!
I must admit I came into this job not really expecting much, I would be at home with my munchkin, Darrick would go to work…life would be a lot easier because I didn’t have my stressful job anymore! And we would live happily ever after! LOL!!!
Boy was I wrong! This job is harder than I thought…mentally and physically!
See I was blessed with a husband that does housework…it relaxes him! However, once I was off work and he started picking up more hours which meant that it was less time for him to do housework. So there was a period that we went through establishing our roles. I was good with picking up after Emma and cooking dinner, and sometimes having to wash dishes. But that soon turned into cooking breakfast or at least making sure everyone had breakfast, making lunch for us, and preparing dinner…along with cleaning, grocery shopping (sticking to the budget), doing laundry and anything else that needed to be done! I had to learn how to take care of a household…while supporting my husband while he worked! I have always been a supportive wife but I was now in a new role…we both were in new roles and it took some getting used to!
I quit my job but I picked up a lot more responsibility!
I also quickly learned that no matter how clean the house is…it usually only stays that way for a couple of hours (at the most)!
I wanted to be that stay at home mom that went shopping occasionally during the week. But that soon stopped when I was spending more than I should have been and funds started running low. We had a part time job that we did together on the weekends, and it brought in good money but it took away time that we had together and time together as a family…and eventually we were arguing because we both were tired! He worked all week, sometimes on the weekends and he also picked up extra hours plus our part time job…basically we were doing WAY too much!
My husband works second shift and in the beginning we were spending the mornings together running errands and spending time together. But eventually I realized that after those errands I could go back home and work at my own pace but he had to go to work. So I learned that some of those mornings I needed to run errands by myself with Emma and let him rest.
A HARD lesson that I learned was the “mental lesson” of being at home! From time to time I would go through periods of thinking that my job was meaningless because I wasn’t bringing in any income! And I was constantly reminded by my husband I had the most valuable job of both of us! I took care of Emma, and all the things I was doing at home with her paid off when she was discharged from Occupational Therapy. But I also kept the order…and basically I took care of everyone! I felt like I needed to bring in money, and I often explained that to him by saying that I would go get a job. But that wasn’t reasonable because then we would have the additional cost of daycare. And that wasnt logical because Emma is not ready for daycare, and during this time we were still at the doctors with her at least twice a week with appointments so who was I trying to fool! I could not go back to work, there was no way a job would let me get off at least twice a week for doctor appointments.
…1st year lessons of being a SAHM…
-enjoy this time…don’t be stressed about everything (life is too short) and no matter what Emma thinks I’m the BOMB.com and so does Darrick (HA!)
-Make Schedules and stick to them (I faithfully keep my family calendar)
-Write Lists
-STICK TO THE BUDGET
-Find ways to save money…COUPONS, COUPONS, COUPONS
-Your husband is strong but he needs rest too
-Make time for yourself…and make sure you husband does the same
-Make time for each other…you still need date nights even though you are home together more
-if you once worked full-time, transitioning to be a SAHM isn’t always easy…but whose standards are you living up to, your own or someone else?!?!
-make sure you get a DAY OFF…Friday is my day, I don’t do any cooking or housework maybe a little in the morning but thats it (nothing too serious)
-you are one person…if you don’t get to something today, there is always tomorrow
-STOP STRESSING…GOD IS IN CONTROL!
