get on the bus! NOW!
Up until this year, getting my boys off to school in the morning was a fairly simple process. Only two had school in the morning, and a bus picked them up half a block from the house. They didn’t even have to be on the bus until almost 8 AM–manageable even for non-morning-person me. William had afternoon young fives last year, so he, his little brother and I had a nice leisurely morning together before he got on the bus. And if I did miss out on sleep, Owen, the youngest boy, and I would settle down for an afternoon nap as soon as Will was gone. Easy peasy.
But this year? Things are a bit different. This year my eldest son Jacob started middle school, so he has to be on the bus by 7:15. Isaac and William, 10 and 6, both start at 8:20 but because the elementary school is within a mile, there is no bus. It’s a 10-15 minute walk with no major streets to cross and sidewalks all the way, so I’ve been having them walk it most days. But once the weather starts getting bad, that’s not always going to be an option. And since my husband works out of town most of the time, he’s not around to help out with either driving or kid-wrangling.
Sure, putting them in the car and driving them isn’t that huge a hassle, except that now we’ve also got the baby (6 months) and Owen, now three, to contend with. On the handful of days we’ve driven, something is always happening to make us late: a blowout diaper, a tantrum, a forgotten backpack.
I know, I know, this is just part of life in a larger family–at least those larger families that use school (feeling a little jealous of homeschoolers right now…). But I miss our old leisurely mornings, and I know it’s just going to get more complicated as the kids all move into different phases of their lives. Anyone out there feeling my pain? How do you deal with the school-morning shuffle?
We’ve had discussions on the whole baby fever phenomenon before here, most recently from Meagan on being “done.” I’ve posted about it a couple times on my own blog, the most recent being just 2 short weeks ago.
And now I’m suffering AGAIN! Only it’s much, much worse this time.
This weekend we had an extended family get-together with camping in the backyard, s’mores around the campfire and Baby Luke, who is now a whopping 5 weeks old. I happily hogged Luke the entire time, only giving him back to his mom when he needed to eat and letting my youngest son, who is equally obsessed with babies, and my daughter hold him for a few minutes before I impatiently took him back. I was on an infant-induced high, snuggling Luke’s little body, smelling his sweet little head, patting his bottom as he fell asleep.
It’s not like having another baby is even an option for me at this point. Number one, I’m divorced. Number two, even if I were to get back together with my ex, he got snipped just before Logan, our youngest, was born. Number three, Logan is starting kindergarten this fall. Even if I got pregnant today, he’d be 6 by the time a new baby arrived and it’d almost be like starting a whole ‘nother family. Number four, I already have four kids, which is plenty. It’s two more than I planned to have.
And yet, I long for another baby like my dog yearns for the steak we’re eating. It’s ridiculous.
It doesn’t help that Logan, too, thinks we need another baby and tells me so. Often. Actually, he insists that we need two more. He absolutely adores babies, both real and imagined. He still pretends his stuffed animals are all babies and treats them as such, using his “baby voice” to speak for them. The entire time Baby Luke was there, that’s all Logan talked about. When it was time to leave, he started to cry and said, “But I’ll miss Luke!”
Perhaps my recent extra-vicious baby-coveting stems from the fact that Logan is, as I said, starting kindergarten in the fall. I’m truly traumatized about it. A few years ago I thought the day would never come when all my kids would be in school full-time, but now that it’s almost here, I’m broken-hearted. It’s the end of me trying to work with Logan chattering away, while the other kids are at school. My baby is growing up. I’m going to be a wreck when he gets on that bus for the first time.
Career-wise, it’s a God-send. Since I’m a work-from-home freelance writer, the kids being gone five days a week will give me amazing amounts of time to work uninterrupted. As far as my working life goes, another baby would royally mess that right up. Yet another great reason why I can’t and shouldn’t have any more.
So why am I so sad that I’m “done?”
Here’s my baby (Logan, age 5-1/2) holding Baby Luke this weekend:
Do you have or occasionally get baby fever? How do you deal with it? How do you know you’re “done?”
Sarah is the mother of 11-year-old twin girls, who will be starting 6th grade/middle school this fall; a nearly-7-year old boy going into first grade; and the aforementioned kindergartner, Logan. She refuses to think about how few days are left until school starts, when her life will begin a new, somewhat unwelcome, phase. Sarah blogs most weekdays at Parenting By Trial and Error.
I have been on pretty much all sides of the Mommy Wars. You know the Mommy Wars. The constant battle over who has it harder and who is in the right. Who is raising their children the right way and who is ruining their children forever. Yes, those Mommy Wars.
I began as the young mom. I married at 18 and had my first son at age 19. Then, I was a stay at home mom for the first 11 months of my oldest son’s life. After those 11 months I went back to work full time. So I was a working mom. I was also a military wife at the time. Anyone knows that being a mom within the military life is a different world all its own. Then I was the stay at home mom to two. Then back to work. THEN the big one….I was a single, full time working, part time student mom.
Are you still with me?
Then I was the stay at home mom again. Then we added son #3 and son #4. So now I am the stay at home, homeschooling mom of four.
All this to say, I understand where almost every woman is coming from. I understand the need to feel important to yourself and to the world as something other than “just a mom”. I understand that deep down desire to be the most important person in your child’s world. I understand the wanting to stay at home and be with your children as much as possible. I understand the need to have a life of your own outside your home. I understand that sometimes being a mom can be a drag. I also understand there is no more important job in the world. I also know, that no matter what stage of motherhood I have been in I have ALWAYS had terrible guilt about something. Guilt about dropping my kids off with strangers for nine hours a day. Guilt about not feeding them enough vegetables. Guilt about yelling too much or not paying enough attention. Guilt, it’s what we moms do.
So I am here to say that I know that 99.9% of moms are good moms that only want what is best for their children. I believe in my case that is to be a stay at home, homeschooling mom. What is best for you and your kids? I don’t have a clue. I don’t pretend to know. On the same note, no one outside God, me and my husband can dictate what being a good mom to MY kids looks like.
In the end…..my name is LaShawn. I am just a mom.
For a variety of reasons, we are moving back to Chicago this spring. That means I’m once again looking for housing for myself, my husband, our four boys and now baby Clara. (No pets…yet.)
We’ll be renting for at least a year, so this isn’t a permanent decision by any means. Yet a year can seem like a long time when your home just doesn’t “work”, for whatever reason. Because we’ll be living in a city with a fairly high cost of living, we’re going to have to make some sacrifices, which means deciding what things are must-haves, and what we can live without.
I mused aloud on Twitter that I wasn’t sure whether to rank location above size or vice versa, and got passionate responses on both sides of the debate. Some people are adamant that I’d lose my mind unless we have plenty of space to spread out; others argued that being in a good location is the #1 most important thing. My kids will be using the public schools, so I’m limiting my search to areas with good ones. Within those areas there is a lot of variation between more “fun” neighborhoods with lots of parks within walking distance and easy access to shopping, and neighborhoods that are more spread out and further from common areas but have bigger lots. So I’m trying to decide whethe we’d be happier with a larger private yard or being closer to community parks.
As far as square footage goes: the space aspect did seem important at first, but then I got to thinking. When we lived in a 2000-square-foot home with four bedrooms, one of the bedrooms was NEVER used unless we had guests. Right now we live in a house that’s probably closer to 1400 square feet with three smallish bedrooms, and it doesn’t seem too small at all. The only real issue is that there’s nowhere in the house the kids can go let off steam without me hearing them yelling; but I think that’s due more to the layout than anything. The staircase to the second story is open to the living room, and the bedrooms all open to the staircase, so there’s no hallways or anything to muffle sounds. A separate family room, or preferably a finished basement would be a great “kid hangout” and lower the noise pollution on the main level.
Then there’s the bathroom thing. In theory I know we’d be better off with as many bathrooms as possible. Yet we’ve lived the last 8 months with one bathroom and nothing bad has happened. In fact, last weekend our one toilet got backed up while we had houseguests–a total of 10 people in the house–and it took 12 hours for us to get it unstuck. It wasn’t the end of the world, though my sister and I did have to take kids in carloads to McDonald’s to use the facilities.
Number of bedrooms seems pretty unimportant too. Right now the kids’ room assignments are fluid things; the boys meander back and forth between the two kids’ bedrooms depending on who they’d rather spend time with. Clara sleeps in our room and probably will for another year at least. On the other hand, it sure would be nice to have a fourth or fifth bedroom to use as an office, guest room, etc. Nice…but is it necessary? Or would it sit empty like our fourth bedroom used to?
If you were looking for a home today, how would you prioritize? What can’t you live without? Do you have a set square footage in mind, or do you think layout is more important? To your mind, is the more space the merrier, or do you prefer cozier quarters? Is there a number of bedrooms or bathrooms you absolutely need? I’d love to hear about it!
–Meagan Francis is an author and mom of five. She writes about her family at her blog.
I know we’ve talked about this here before–in fact, I’m pretty sure I have posted about this here myself, before…but–
How do you know when you’re done?
If you aren’t leaving your fertility up to God/higher power/nature, what criteria are you using to decide how many children to have?
We’ve used a “wing it and do what feels right” method so far. And now that we’re both in our thirties and have a houseful of kids, it seems like enough. As much as we love having a loud, boisterous brood, we would like to eventually be able to save for retirement and enjoy a little of that selfishness we’ve been putting off. And since we had kids young, we’d like to be relatively young when they’re out of the house, too.
But sometimes I wonder if I can really make the logical side of me–the side that says “Okay, this is enough”–win out.
Our newest baby, Clara, is here. After a wonderful birth and a subsequent rough couple of weeks, we are home from the hospital, settling in, and enjoying the heck out of her. Earlier today, my husband, mid-Clara-snuggle, said “Let’s have another!”
He was joking. Sort of. But the truth is that we love having babies in the house. I know it isn’t like this for every couple, but our relationship is never better than when we have a newborn. I love watching all her brothers falling in love with her just as we are. I love the slowed-down, sleepy pace our family life takes on when there’s an itty-bitty baby in the house.
It’s addictive.
I know we can’t stay in this mode forever–sooner or later, we’re all going to have to come out of the house and get back to normal life, and oh, by the way, this snuggly baby is going to grow up into a wandering toddler and then a feisty two-year-old and later a strong-willed preschooler. We are in it for the long haul, not just the first few weeks; and for the most part, we love all those other phases too. But toddlerhood and preschoolerhood and big-kid-hood seem to last a lot longer than this fleeting tiny baby stage does, and I wonder how I’ll ever be able to make peace with the idea that there will be no more newborns in our house. Looking at her and knowing I’ve only got a few more weeks of this kind of baby-ness left just about breaks my heart…and yet, I have no desire to go through pregnancy and birth and all that again, and all the logical reasons for stopping here still stand. It’s just that logic sometimes sounds weak when considered alongside a milky, warm and sweet little bundle of baby.
Did you experience this kind of intense baby lust? Did it ever go away? And if you’ve decided how many children you’d like to have, how did you arrive at that number?
–Meagan is a mom of five and author of Table for Eight: Raising a Large Family in a Small-Family World. She blogs about her life, her work and her family at www.meaganfrancis.com/blog
