Why We Decided to Homeschool

About a month ago I decided to do something I never thought I’d do. I’m sharing my story in hopes that it helps someone else who feels the way I do, and who thinks the way I do, and/or who is struggling with a similar situation but doesn’t know what to do. Heck, I’m not even sure I know what I’m doing, but what I can tell you is I know I’m doing what is best for the time being, and we are going to figure it out and everything is going to be just fine.

December 14, 2021 was Atiana’s last day in 2^nd grade at a public school.  I pulled her out abruptly and didn’t have a plan.  All I knew is I was no longer going to tolerate what we had been through.  It had gone too far for too long and it was taking a toll on her emotional wellbeing.  While private school was an option, I also realized there was really only about 4 months left into the school year and after all she had gone through, I decided she needed a break.  A break from being in a daycare/school environment since the age of 3 months old.  She’s never had a break from that, and she is one of those kids that rarely gets sick and has only missed school maybe a handful of times ever. I decided she needed these next few months to build a strong bond with us and to heal mentally.  We decided to homeschool her for the time being and while the plan is a temporary plan for now until 3^rd grade, I am also open minded to wherever it takes us. 

Now, if you personally know me, and know me well, then you know I am not a homeschool mom.  My patience tends to run low and Atiana and I butt heads often, but if you also know me then you know that the day we found out we were having a daughter I was determined to make sure we had a great relationship.  I didn’t want her growing up feeling like my mom made me feel and I wanted to teach her all the things my mom never took the time to teach me.  It’s always been a fear of mine that she will grow up hating me for being too strict, or not having enough time for her, of feeling like I don’t understand her or not feeling heard etc.. To me, having a daughter meant that I had the chance to give her something I always wished I had with my mom. So, before you think I’m crazy for just abruptly pulling her out of school and homeschooling her and before you form your opinions then please listen…

Only a mother knows what is best for her child.  Let no one tell you any different.  Sometimes God leads us in the most unimaginable ways, but I can tell you this, there is a reason for it all.  These past two years God has spoken to us so directly and for once in our lives we have fully surrendered, listened, and followed his lead. Every time we follow his lead we are blessed in abundance in the craziest ways. We have had the craziest timeline of events since we have fully trusted the Lord and listened to what he was telling us, but that’s a whole other long blog I’ll have to write when I have time. 

Atiana had a great 1^st grade year. She transitioned perfectly from school in California to school in Tennessee and we loved her teacher. As most of you already know, she is my strong-willed child, she’s stubborn, full of personality (and attitude), always has to be right and is also very smart (too smart sometimes).  She was bilingual until she was almost 3! She has always excelled academically and socially but can often be misunderstood because she must have things done a certain way (OCD tendencies) or she gets extremely frustrated and often times a simple task can take her hours to complete because she’s easily distracted. You can often find her doing flips on the soccer field or watching TV upside down on her head.  She’s the last at the dinner table finishing her food and we have had to use timers sometimes, so she gets the concept of time.  She won’t back down from a fight and if someone makes her angry/upset/hurts her then she has no problem expressing how mad it made her. She’s independent, a true GO getter and won’t stop until she gets what she wants. She also never holds grudges, is great about saying sorry, loves hard, wants to be included in everything all the time and has a heart for those who are hurting, sad or alone. She’s a natural leader and I have no doubt that she’s meant to do big things one day (she will 100% be her own boss …..Mark.My.Words).

Unfortunately, this year in 2^nd grade she was placed with a teacher that I knew immediately was not a good fit for her.  When you have two similar personalities they tend to clash.  I knew within the first month this teacher was not a good fit and I had gone to the principal about my concerns. She was very understanding and while I immediately requested a new teacher for Atiana she talked me into trying to work it out and giving it another chance, so I did. The teacher and I did not start off on the right foot to begin with. I don’t need to put all of what happened on blast, but I can say she made us feel very unwelcomed from day 1.

After going to the principal my husband and I scheduled a meeting with the teacher, principal, and school counselor to address some of our concerns via Zoom.  This was the first time we met her teacher and not just communicated via e-mail/Remind so we were able to feel out her personality a little bit more.  Sometimes texts and e-mail can come across differently, so this was good for us all.  Some of the concerns I wanted to address regarding Atiana’s first month of school were: Tons of unfinished work being sent home (like over an hour worth of work we would have to finish at home with her on top of homework) and constant notes about behavioral issues she was having in class.  I reached out to her teacher multiple times asking why her work was not getting done and every answer was very vague making it hard to pinpoint and fix the problem.  The only response I would get was “there are multiple opportunities for her to finish work throughout the day.”

Some of the questions I asked the teacher were: What is causing Atiana to not finish her work?  Is she talking too much?  Is she just sitting there?  Do you think she has some sort of learning disability?  Does she not understand what she’s supposed to be doing? Do I need to request a full educational evaluation on her to see if she needs an IEP? Are you checking up on her to make sure she’s doing what she’s supposed to be doing and encouraging her to get her work done?  I got 0 answers to any of this.  She literally had no idea why her work wasn’t getting done.  She just told me she sits there and twirls her hair and then asked that I basically keep her hair out of her face so It doesn’t distract her. (This was the first of many requests on what to not allow Atiana to have or wear at school).

I also told the teacher she is only 7 and most 7 year olds cannot be trusted to just sit there and do their work quietly without getting distracted or someone reminding them to focus and get it done.  Not all kids work the same and I understand that she can get distracted easily and I also wanted her to know that I was not opposed to having her have consequences for not finishing her work such as maybe moving her closer to her desk (I found out this same day she had already moved Atiana closer to her desk, but I’ll go into detail about that here shortly) so she can monitor her further or having her skip recess occasionally to finish her work, but that I could not have her come home with hours of work on a nightly or even weekly basis. 

I was told by her teacher that unfinished work was supposed to be sent home on Fridays and returned Monday which is understandable because then we could have her do it over the weekend, but this was not happening for us. Atiana was being sent home with tons of unfinished work on Monday/Wednesday with no further instructions on when to return it and what pages needed to be done.  It was literally so much work that we were questioning what the heck she was doing in class all day.  It didn’t even make sense to us.

Another concern we had was that Atiana expressed that her feelings had been hurt by the teacher and that she was afraid to raise her hand and ask questions because she would get in trouble.  She said the teacher would crumble and throw away the work she worked hard on.  I think what Atiana meant is that she tossed it in a recycle bin, but in Atiana’s mind it felt like her work didn’t mean anything to the teacher because it was being tossed.  The teacher denied all of this and I still don’t know exactly what happened, but regardless if a teacher even made her feel like her work wasn’t important that alone was a red flag for me.  I’m still not sure what to believe.

We discussed all of this and after the meeting something still didn’t sit right with Josh.  I should have listened to him, but I believe in second chances, and I gave it a second chance. I decided I was going to force this teacher to overcommunicate with me since communication seemed to be a problem, and I was on top of everything.  What her teacher didn’t realize is I have all the time in the world to fight for my child, to check in and to show up to EVERYTHING.  I decided instead of being angry about the situation I would try and understand the situation and be as supportive as a I could to the teacher in hopes she would better understand Atiana and in hopes that she understood we were trying to work through whatever issues she was having with her.

Shortly after our ZOOM meeting we had parent teacher conferences.  This time we met the teacher in person, talked for a good 45 minutes.  Saw where Atiana was sitting (at a desk alone in front of the teacher while everyone else got to sit in groups of 5).  We were ok with that if that’s what needed to happen for the time being, but it was not supposed to be long term. We were a bit upset that she didn’t tell us she had decided to seat her alone until we met that day via Zoom.  Atiana never once mentioned it to us, probably because she thought we would be upset with her, so we had no idea. But again, we went with it and figured the teacher knew best.  She went over all her work with us and Atiana seemed to be doing fine academically.  The stuff she was struggling with she assured us was normal.  So, we were happy with that. We decided to make sure Atiana knew we were working together as a team because it would really help keep her inline, and for the most part it did.

After all that, unfinished work stopped coming home and behavioral issue sheets stopped coming home for the most part, but I would get little Remind messages letting me know that Atiana had a face mask, piece of jewelry, hair ties, water bottle etc…that distracted her and not to send her back to school with it. It was something new and different all the time. It was annoying, but we complied.

Another month went by (remember here the kids start school in August so all those initial complaints we had were within that first month and then parent teacher conferences were in September) and there was a Halloween event we attended at her school. Her classroom had a party and both Josh and I attended.  At this time, we realized Atiana was still sitting alone (so she had started in August and now we are at the end of October) and it broke our hearts.  All the kids were participating in games together and enjoying chatting amongst each other and even during a fun event like this her teacher had her sitting along and separated from everyone. I think we both had tears in our eyes because we both knew this wasn’t right, but again we let it go.  We both left that day with a sour taste in our mouth, but we were determined to show up to EVERYTHING.  I was not going to let a teacher bully us or our child in any way. 

November came and we started dealing with new behavioral issues with Atiana.  Apparently, she started saying bad words at school in the lunchroom, getting in trouble on the bus and then she started making up these elaborate lies about a girl at school that was bullying her not too long ago.  If you know Atiana then one thing you know about her is she is very honest, like too honest to where sometimes I have to let her know it could possibly hurt someone’s feelings.  So, this new lying thing/making up stories was very odd behavior and one day she called me from the nurse’s office saying she wasn’t feeling well and wanted to come home.  She came home and was just fine, but she told me this story about a bully at school, so I was immediately concerned that she came home because of this bully not because she was sick, and I contacted the principal immediately. Come to find out, after some more questioning, and digging, and after involving multiple people from school we found out the story she told was completely made up (parts of the story were true, but it was stuff that had happened weeks prior). I was so angry with Atiana.  I made her apologize to everyone involved the next day at school.  I got a call about ½ way through the day from her teacher saying Atiana was refusing to do work, crying, ignoring her teacher, and just overall not complying because I was making her apologize to everyone at school. I spoke to Atiana on the phone briefly and told her she needed to change her attitude, or she was in big trouble when she returned home from school. She came home and we put her in her room and made her think about her behavior.

About a week later I received yet another e-mail from her teacher about Atiana’s foul language in the lunchroom and at recess. She said whoever monitors the lunchroom/recess had informed her that Atiana was saying the F word and the B word and as a consequence they decided to give her an “assigned” lunch seat in the lunchroom.  Again, I told her this is new behavior and not something we have ever had to deal with, so I had no idea where it was coming from.  Apparently, she was using the bad words towards friends when she was upset, but no one could tell me exactly why she was upset or how she would even know to use words like B*tch and F*ck You. Atiana got home from school that day and was in a really good mood which isn’t normal if she knows she’s going to get in trouble.  I was fuming inside about her behavior at school, but before I spoke, I listened to her speak about her day which seemed to be a really great day.  After I listened, I told her that her teacher had e-mailed me about her language at school and I told her to go to her room for the night because I was so disappointed in her.  She immediately broke down in tears confused and upset and said “mom I promise I didn’t use bad words at lunch/recess today.  I sit alone at lunch, so I don’t even have anyone to talk to.” Wait, you sit ALONE at lunch? What???  How long have you been sitting alone????  She said that day was her first day sitting alone and she was so emotional over it. I immediately e-mailed her teacher for clarification… 

I e-mailed the teacher and found out Atiana did not use foul language the day she e-mailed me.  It had happened days before, however, she was just made aware of it (probably because she just found some time to gossip with the lunchroom lady) and decided to punish her days after the incident which is so wrong because kids live in the moment so you cannot punish them days after something they did and expect them to understand fully and be ok with it. Secondly who gave you permission to sit my kid ALONE at lunch and is this true? Because last we spoke you said she had a “assigned” seat.  Clearly you said “assigned” because you know what you did was WRONG. Well, it was true and from that moment on Josh and I decided we were not going to allow our child to sit ALONE. I was watching our niece so Josh showed up for lunch at Atiana’s school unannounced the next day.  What he saw was heartbreaking.  He watched Atiana go into the lunchroom with her class, go to the end of the table and sit and then the rest of her classmates sat down and scooted to the other end of the table as far away as they could from her.  Josh said she sat there alone with her head down.  He walked over and tapped her on the shoulder, and she was so excited to see him and they sat at ate lunch together.  He told her she will NEVER have to sit alone for lunch again and we would make sure of that. 

After that whole incident I once again e-mailed the principal and told her how disgusted I was with her teacher.  How what she was doing with my child was bullying and that we would be showing up every day for lunch that week to make sure Atiana did not sit alone. The principal had no idea that her teacher was even making her sit alone so this was all new news to her too. As the day went on and I got responses from both the teacher and principal I started getting more and more angry.  I found out that Atiana was not only sitting alone in the classroom for over 3 months, but was also kept in for weeks from recess to finish work and then was being forced to sit alone in the lunchroom.  And they wondered why my kid who never had issues with other kids before was suddenly lashing out at them? Because she was being made to look and feel different than everyone else and she was being made fun of it for it too.  What kind of teacher does that to an 8 year old?  I agreed to her sitting alone temporarily to get her back on track, not for 3+ months and keeping her in at recess occasionally was fine, but I found out from multiple friends of Atiana’s that they hadn’t seen her on the playground in weeks and then she had to sit alone at lunch too.  I could not believe what I was hearing.  I was so disgusted.  I suddenly felt this overwhelming message from God that I needed to pull her out of school and worry about what I was going to do later. So that’s what I did.   

The principal offered to put her in another class, but at this point it was too late.  She has so my friends at school, and everyone had already been making fun of her for sitting alone and I decided the best thing to do was to work on her self-esteem and rebuild her spirit.  She had turned into a whole different kid because of everything she was silently going through.  She went from my overly confident social kid to a kid that felt like she constantly needed to defend herself because she was made to feel different.  And because the teacher was a horrible communicator, I had no idea what was fully going on so when she would get in trouble at school, we would send her to her room and isolate her even more and now I feel terrible about that because I didn’t know what she was going through. 

I should also mention that within the week of this going on we decided to have Atiana evaluated through the school.  We are pretty sure she has ADHD and may be dyslexic too. We couldn’t get an appointment until the end of January, but I couldn’t let her continue to go through school that way, so we pulled her immediately.  Thankfully we are still eligible for the evaluation, but in the meantime at least I get to work on her overall wellbeing rather than have someone else damage her spirit.   

Our first thought was to put her in private school, but God has placed some of the most amazing friends in my life since moving here and they have guided me and have helped me step outside of my comfort zone in so many ways. When I told them what was going on they gave me the confidence to do something I never thought I’d do, homeschool. It has never been clearer that that’s what I’m supposed to be doing with Atiana at this time.  So after pulling her from school I immediately registered under an umbrella school for homeschool and we started our journey.  I knew, in order for me to commit, I had to sign her up and pay for everything immediately so that I wouldn’t change my mind.  So that’s exactly what I did.  

I think I forgot to mention that once I told the teacher I wanted her evaluated she went on to tell me she was also concerned because Atiana wasn’t comprehending what she was supposed to be doing in class.  This blew my mind because if you personally know Atiana you know how incredibly smart that kid is.  If anything, she was bored in that class because she already knows how to do all of it.  And guess what, since we have started homeschooling, she has continued to show me she is still just as smart as she has always been. She comprehends things that I can’t even comprehend sometimes.  How does a teacher not see that?!?! 

What frustrates me about all of this is I tried to be on teacher’s team, and I told her on multiple occasions that I understood Atiana was a hard personality to deal with, in the past Atiana has struggled with talking too much in class and being overly social, but all these new things she was doing didn’t make sense to me.  It took me forever to get to the bottom of what was really going on all because the teacher could never really give me any real answers or figure out that maybe isolating my child was causing bigger problems.  It truly made me question what she was doing with her students all day. 

I share all of this with you guys in hopes it might help someone else.  Sometimes kids hide things from us in fear that we might get upset so please make sure you question your children when they come home from school and are acting different or if their behavior has suddenly changed. I had no idea Atiana was being isolated at school and once I finally figured it out all these new behavior issues made sense. When I initially went to the principal it was not only regarding her teacher, but also regarding a little girl that was bullying her at school. I had made it very clear to her both verbally and in writing that depression and anxiety run on both sides of our family so bullying was something I was not going to let go or tolerate. The bullying got resolved for the most part, but what her teacher was doing to her was also a form of bullying by isolating her and by making her look/feel different in front of other students.  She was setting Atiana up for failure emotionally in every way and I was not going to allow that to happen.  

Here's the thing about kids.  Each kid is different.  There is no one size fits all and some kids learn differently than others. What might work for one kid wont always work for another kid.  You can think you’re doing everything right by sending them off to school every day and hope that they are learning what they should be and that their emotional wellbeing is ok, but you just never know until you take the time to sit down and figure them out outside of all of that.  And most of the time we are so busy with work and sports that we don’t really take the time to figure out our kids outside of that small window we get with them from the time school gets out and their bedtime. Next thing you know our kids are grown and they have all these issues (depression, anxiety, fear) that they have to deal with on their own because we never really took the time to help them figure it out, or because we never realized what they had been battling all along silently.   Or maybe we did take the time to help them figure it out, but it still wasn’t enough. We live in a world now where money is valued as everything so we work work work and try to make ends meet and at the end of the day our children get very little of us (especially now with TV and social media being such huge distractions).

We are now two weeks into our homeschool journey (I pulled Atiana out of school during Winter break so we had some time to decompress) and we have noticed a HUGE change in Atiana’s overall wellbeing.  I have never felt so close to her.  I don’t think I would have ever had the chance to figure her out the way I have these last few weeks had I not pulled her out of school. I fully see her struggles and I fully see what she excels in and I’m able to teach her how to work through it all. She needs encouragement and one and one time and for the most part she powers through her work starting at 9:00 a.m. and is finished by Noon.  After her schoolwork she spends time doing music, learning to cook, learning to do laundry and dishes and or Artsy stuff.  Once 3:00pm rolls around she gets free time until dinner and she usually spends it playing with another little girl down the street that is also homeschooled. She has dinner around 5:30 and then takes a bath/shower, has a snack and some family time and then is usually in bed by 8:30/9.  We keep her on a schedule like this because she thrives on a schedule and is very routine with everything. Since we are only doing pretty much 4 months of homeschooling (the schools here get out in May and with Spring Break and random school days they get off here it comes out to about 4 months if that) we are primarily focusing on math and reading, writing, grammar etc (for those that have asked we are doing Kumon and Abeka for reading and math and then a few other books too to further advance her grammar and reading). Atiana used to love reading, but the teacher she had made her not like it anymore, so we are working on her regaining that love.  Every morning we meet as a family at the fireplace and read our daily devotionals together to help set the tone for our day. Right now, Atiana is doing a month-long study on the moon and its phases and she’s loving looking at the moon each night and describing what phase it’s in and explaining it through writing and then reading it to us.  The beauty of homeschooling is the options of what you choose to teach your child/children are endless.  It can be overwhelming because there is literally so much GOOD to teach our children that’s not being taught in schools.

I’m not going to lie, when God made it loud and clear that homeschooling was what I needed to do for Atiana I freaked out a bit.  Josh and I were at a point where we finally had two days a week to focus on just each other while both kids were in school.  We had gym dates and lunch dates and had adult conversations about our goals/dreams.  I was finally finding a good balance and was finally getting some much-needed alone time to catch up around the house and do the things I love with no interruptions, but God had different plans and I listened because clearly, he knew Atiana needed us in that moment more than we need our alone time.

Oddly enough having Atiana home and doing things the way we are now has brought me so much peace and has relieved so much stress from us all.  I no longer have to worry about what she got in trouble for at school each day, we no longer have to stress over homework and rushing through dinner so we can get to gymnastics/soccer, no one feels rushed and irritated in the morning, it’s taught us all to slow down, we have learned to be more patient, we are able to see exactly where she’s struggling and help her directly in those areas, Josh and I have found a good balance of taking turns with teaching her and having our own time.  It’s amazing what God does in your life when you fully surrender yourself to him.  I can’t even explain what it does to you and your family as a whole.   

Since having her home we have also realized we have taken a lot of stress off her.  She is my child that has always anxiously awoken at the crack of dawn.  Since having her home she sleeps in daily until 8/8:30 a.m.  This is unheard of with Atiana. We started realizing that the pressure of school was likely causing lack of sleep for her because of her Type A personality.  She would always wake up super early and be irritable and grumpy on school days and this would always make for a bad day at school.  Funny story.  I made a sign for her room the night before our official day of homeschool.  The sign told her what she needed to do before she came downstairs in the morning.  It said: Make your bed, brush your teeth, brush your hair, get dressed for the day and read your daily devotional.  Well at 2:00 a.m. that next morning Josh saw lights flickering downstairs in the kitchen.  He went downstairs to see what was going on and found Atiana sitting at the kitchen table fully dresses (shoes and all) teeth brushed, hair brushed, and she was reading her daily devotional.  I about died when he told me LOL, but all of a sudden I realized something.  Atiana is ME!  Atiana is Type A and the stress of the world weighs on her shoulders.  The fact that I put a sign in her room telling her what needed to happen in the morning before she started her day stressed her out and she couldn’t sleep that night because she couldn't stop thinking about what she needed to do in the morning. That’s 100% me and that’s 100% why I have sleeping issues! My poor child.  Who knows how many nights this happened while she was in school and we didn’t know about it because we were in a deep sleep and didn’t realize she woke up way earlier than she should have.  She typically gets up on the morning, heads straight downstairs into the living room, and always wakes up before her 7:00 a.m. alarm.  She was always awake before us when she was in school and we always questioned what time she got up.  Looking back now we are realizing a good night of sleep during the school week was likely not happening for her because of the way her brain functions.  It’s crazy witnessing her sleeping in until 8/8:30 daily now, but at the same time I feel like she needs this rest so bad and I’m so thankful she’s getting the sleep/rest she needs for her overall wellbeing. 

This is getting way too long.  I feel like I still have so much to say.  I want to close by saying, if any of you are on the fence about homeschooling and are worried about not being able to fit it in your schedule, take it from me that it is 100% possible!  If you want to just test it out to see if maybe it’s something you can handle, then I suggest trying it ½ way through the year so that you’re basically doing maintenance work with them and figuring out where your child possibly needs help.  Once you start, you’ll be amazed at how creative you can get teaching your own child and if what your doing is too easy for them then you can take it up a notch.  The options are literally endless.

I guess this is also God’s way of answering my prayers about striving for a different relationship with my daughter then I had with my own mom. He’s doing work in both my daughter and I to make sure we build a close bond, but never ever did I imagine it happening this way. God is so good friends.   

Lastly, don’t’ fear what others think or say. There’s no one size fits all in children and if anyone thinks that the way they are doing something is SO much better than everyone else then they are wrong. Not everyone will understand the choices you have made, but that’s because not everyone has the same story.  We all have a different story, and we are all made differently. That’s the beautiful thing about life.  We all have a unique story.  When you become confident in who God made you to be, and what he’s calling you to do, then you no longer worry about what others think and that’s a beautiful thing.  I can 100% say my trust in God has allowed me to soar in the most unimaginable ways and even when I hear people may not agree with a decision, I have chosen in life, I smile to myself, maybe vent a little to my husband (lol) and pray that one day they will experience the same kind of trust in God that we have.      

We are having her evaluated at the end of this month so I will keep you all posted on what her official diagnosis is.

Okay friends, that’s all for now.  Love you all and as always thank you for all your support.  

Stephani

14 Weeks Pregnant with Baby #2

Josh and I decided that 2018 would be the year we finally try for baby #2. We decided once we bought a new home we would start trying, but then we bought a home in our ideal neighborhood that needed lots of work so we kind of put it off for a bit. Then our sweet Kota passed away a couple months after moving so we pushed it back even more because after losing her I was so depressed. Nothing made me happy and I was having a hard time finding joy in anything. Then Josh's brother got married in September and all three of us were in the wedding. Then we planned a vacation out of the Country to Costa Rica. Our vacation got pushed back to October because of work so we decided to hold off on getting pregnant until after vacation. Two days after coming home from vacation I decided we needed to get a puppy to help heal my heart from losing Kota. We got a puppy and life instantly became chaotic again. November came around and we finally decided it was time to start trying for baby #2. I had gotten off my birth control in April so my body had plenty of time to detox and normalize itself this time around.

January 3, 2019 was my dad’s birthday. I was supposed to get my period that day around 2:00 p.m. (yes, my periods are that prompt LOL). Anyway, I had been sick for almost a week. I had this horrible cold that I couldn’t shake and my dad was sick too so we decided that I would make him dinner at home. As the night went on I realized it was already 8 p.m. and I still had not started my period. My boobs had been sore all day so I thought for sure it was coming. However, within the past week I had grown super tired often and very forgetful which is not like me at all so I decided I should probably take a pregnancy test. I snuck away to the bathroom, took a pregnancy test and a few minutes later it came up positive. I quietly told my husband to come to the bathroom and shared the news with him : ) I’m one of those lucky women that always finds out she’s pregnant just a few weeks in (insert eye roll here). It’s a blessing and a curse. A blessing because it goes to show how in tune I am with my own body, but a curse because it makes the first trimester seem that much damn longer lol.

We decided to announce our pregnancy to immediate family during Super Bowl since we were hosting it at our house this year, but we still wanted to make it a special announcement for Atiana too. Atiana is obsessed with her elf on the shelf, Sparkle, and even though Christmas is over and done with, she still talks about him. So we decided to have Sparkle make a special appearance telling her she was going to be a big sister and we recorded the whole thing. Right before the game started Josh gathered everyone in the living room to watch the video : ) Atiana was so excited to be in on this secret we were about to share with everyone. Afterwards she lifted up my shirt and lifted up her own shirt and sucked her stomach in and said “mommy, how could you have a baby in your tummy when your stomach looks like this?” - haha

This will be my last pregnancy so I want to document it as much of it as possible. It’s so fun to go back and re-read my first pregnancy updates and now to be able to compare the two.

I started this pregnancy at 113 lbs. A little less than what I weighed when I got pregnant with Atiana. Hoping I can maintain workouts and decedent eating once again so that I have another easy pregnancy. I’ve been consistent with working out at least 5 days a week this far no matter how crappy I have felt. I try and run 5 miles 3 days a week (40 minutes of running) and full body workouts the other two days. Sometimes I workout 6 days and get 3 days of lifting in. It just depends on how the week goes, but running always makes a world of a difference on how I feel so I try to not to skip my running days.

I‘m 14 weeks as of March 14. Sunday, March 17, we find out the gender. When I was pregnant the first time we wanted a girl so bad. This time around I don’t mind what we have either way. We thought about waiting until birth to find out the gender, but Atiana really wants to know if she’s having a brother or sister and I want her to be able to connect to the baby before he/she is born so we decided to find out for her.

I’m still feeling pretty exhausted. Josh started his new job a couple of weeks ago and has been working crazy hours. He’s gone before I wake up in the morning and home right before Atiana needs to go to bed 6 days a week. So working fulltime and juggling the house, animals and Atiana alone all while being pregnant has been rough. I’m also not sleeping well at night. I do a lot of tossing and turning because my back is uncomfortable. Other than that I’m finally feeling normal. The first trimester was so rough on me this time around. I didn’t have morning sickness, I had ALL DAY sickness. I was nauseated 24/7 and would sometimes wake up around 2:00 a.m. feeling like I was going to puke. Hopefully that is all in the past now.

My cravings with Atiana were pizza, pasta and tacos. This time around I dislike pizza, pasta, tacos and Chinese food. I crave find myself craving pineapple and cottage cheese, cheese, crackers and grapes and salt and vinegar anything.

My stomach looks super bloated by the end of the day. I definitely look more pregnant this early on than I did with Atiana at this stage. My boobs are on another level and constantly feel hot and feverish because they are so big. Kinda makes me regret getting my boobs done before being done having kids because now I’m carrying even more weight there.

Well, that’s all I have to update for now.

Everyone has an Addiction of some sort......

They say everyone has an addiction of some sort. Addiction runs in my family, not a good addiction, drug and alcohol addiction. Actually sitting here thinking about it, no addiction is a good addiction, some are just way more harmful than others. My addiction has never been drugs or alcohol, in fact I’m anti-drugs. (Although I do understand people using marijuana for pain and sleep, I just don’t agree with people abusing it and functioning daily on it.) I like my champagne at night, but I’m not a big drinker either. I can only handle two glasses of champagne, the third glass puts me over the edge and I feel like crap the next day. My addiction is working out. I’ve probably mentioned this before but I grew up going to the gym with my mom. When I became of age, my mom would take me to the gym with her and I would hop on the treadmill next to her and jog. Once I was in high school I had my first serious boyfriend who was really into fitness because he played football. We started going to the gym together and he taught me how to use a few of the weight machines, we would also play racquet ball and ventured out to different cardio machines too. A few of my girlfriends eventually joined the same gym so it became a hobby for me and a place I would spend a few hours at because I knew everyone there and it was something to do when everyone else was out partying.

When I went to the gym in high school I pretty much ate whatever I wanted and then I’d workout casually. I took my time while there and would socially interact while using each machine. My mom always cooked clean and healthy meals so it’s not like I was eating horribly bad, except for the fact that I would binge eat hot cheetos and slurpees from 711 directly after the gym. However, once my parents divorced I became the woman of the house. I would cook heavy, hearty, pasta dishes and if I wasn’t cooking dinner then I was going out to dinner eating Mexican food or pizza and lunch was always fast food during that time in my life. I didn’t work the first year out of high school so my boyfriend at the time would bring me lunch every day on his lunch break. You’re not going to believe what I would eat on a typical day. He would either bring me McDonald’s and I would eat a 20 piece chicken nugget, large fry, two cheese burgers and a soda or he would bring Wienerschnitzel and I would have a chili cheese fry, mini corn dogs, chili cheese burger, chili dog and a soda. Then we would either go out to dinner that night or I would cook unhealthy meals. GROSS! I haven’t eaten at either of those fast food places in years and I haven’t touched a soda in probably 15 years. Needless to say I gained weight. It wasn’t a crazy amount of weight, just unhealthy looking weight. I think I went from weighing 105 lbs right out of high school and at my heaviest weighed 117 but it was bad weight. I’ll attach a picture below.

When I started becoming unhappy in my relationship is when I started becoming addicted to running. At the time I was battling some sort of depression. I started hating myself and who I had become. I became ant-social and no longer wanted to go to the gym so I asked for a treadmill for Christmas and started running on it every night in my room when I got off work. I stopped drinking soda and I would run six miles every single night and started seeing results after a few weeks. I started loving my body again. However, what I didn’t realize is I had also started to gain unhealthy eating habits. I was so addicted to how running made me feel and the results I was seeing, that I wanted more, and stopped eating meals. Instead I would only have Jamba Juice for dinner and nothing more. I can’t remember how I was eating throughout the day but I know it wasn’t much. I was finally back down to 105 lbs, finally felt confident again and that’s around the time I gained enough courage to leave the relationship I was in, for good.

Running stayed with me for years. My unhealthy eating habits (eating little to nothing + Jamba Juice) only lasted for a few months. Once my husband and I started dating and I was having fun again I was eating normal but became much more health conscious about what I was putting in my body. Josh was in shape so I felt I needed to be in good shape for him too. He started running with me and found a love for running too. I went on to run two marathons and a ½ marathon all within 1 ½ years and then decided I needed to take a break and try something new. As much as I loved how running made me feel, I also know the damage it does on your knees and I wanted to be able to have options on how to stay in shape.

That’s when I became addicted to weight lifting and HIT. I started doing Insanity and loved the results I got from it. I started adding in some weight lifting and some running directly after doing Insanity. I found myself working out 2+ hours a day. I was addicted to the results and the way I felt. I cleaned up my eating even more and became extremely strict on myself by restricting carbs (both simple and complex), fat and probably calories too (although I have never been one to count calories so I don’t know that for sure). At this point I had the body I had always wanted… the body I envied when I looked through workout magazines (minus the boobs because I lost mine along the way of losing fat haha) but I had also developed anxiety, low blood pressure and started to seclude myself from any activities with friends in fear that I’d be tempted to “eat bad.”

This restrictive diet and 2+ hour workout obsession went on for about 2/3 months. There were times where I would get done working out and would almost pass out because my blood sugar levels would drop so low. I would have to sit down until Josh could bring me something that had sugar in it so that I would feel normal again. There was also a night (the first night out with friends since I had changed my eating habits and workout habits) where we were out with friends and I had a horrible panic attack. I literally thought I was dying, my hearing started fading, my vision was blurred, my heart was beating super fast, I felt like I was going to puke and I was so light-headed I couldn't even stand or walk. I wanted to go to the hospital. We were down at a bar down by the beach about 30 minutes away from home. Our car was parked about 10 minutes away from where we were but I couldn’t even walk, so we had to leave our car there and catch a Taxi home because I needed to leave before I passed out. Once we were in the Taxi Josh knew what was going on. I was having a full-blown panic attack, something I’ve never experienced before.

That night was the night I knew I had taken dieting and exercising too far and from the day forward I vowed to love my body, nourish my body properly and show women that being healthy is not all about having this perfect flawless body because you’ll never feel content living life that way. And just because you may look healthy or ridiculously lean on the outside, does NOT mean that you’re body is healthy on the inside.

So the point of this blog post is to show people that addiction of any sort can be really bad. Don’t miss out on life because you’re caught up in looking a certain way. Learn to love your body, learn what’s healthy for your body, learn to nourish the body you were given by feeding it foods that heal the inside and limit your time in the gym because anything in excessive amounts just isn’t good for you. Practice a lifestyle that’s forever maintainable. You have to think long term rather than short term. Long term as in what’s going to happen when you get older (think 60s) and you’ve spent years working out for 2+ hours a day. Are you going to be able to maintain that at that age? Probably not, and you’ve spent so many years overworking your body that your body’s not going to know how to function correctly if you don’t keep it up. Are you going to be able to restrict calories, carbs or whatever for the rest of your life too? Because if you don’t, I can guarantee you’re going to struggle with some major weight gain and one point or another. And who wants to live a life full of restrictions, you cannot fully LIVE like that.

I’ve never been one to follow any of the fad diet plans out there but I have been guilty of working out too much and not eating enough and I know the damage it does to your body internally.

My body has carried a baby and my body has breastfed a baby and I can honestly say that those two things alone have really allowed me to gain a whole new respect for my body. I take pride in fueling my body with healthy nutritious foods that help heal from the inside out rather than just eating foods or restricting foods that I think are going to give me this “ideal” body. My workouts are maintainable, no more than 45 minutes and I do what I feel like doing day to day based on my energy. I no longer shame myself for taking days off or eating too much of something and this has given me so much freedom.

My view on being healthy went from focusing on the outside to focusing on the inside. I eat foods that I know heal the body which is something I’ve been doing for a long time now but without crazy restrictions. I eat a lot of plant based foods, and animal protein once maybe twice a day. I eat lots of healthy fats, nuts, avocado, egg yolks etc.. and carbs like oats/granola, brown rice, potatoes of all kinds, etc… I also indulge in some of my favorite guilty pleasures (hot cheetos, cheez-its, sour patch kids) whenever I crave those things too. I no longer schedule out my meals, instead I eat when I’m hungry. I do however try and make water a priority. I’m the kind of person who can eat meals without having anything to drink, so I have to force myself to drink water or I can go all day without it. I try and get in at least 60 ounces a day. I think a gallon of water a day is too much and there is such a thing as being over hydrated.

Working out relives stress for me, it keeps me sane, it makes me happy, it makes me an all around better me and because of that I make it a priority in my life. 45 minutes a day is realistic long-term and an effective amount of time to see results. My body now may not be as “lean” as it was when I was restricting foods/calories but it still looks just as good, if not better, and internally I know I’m healthy.

Unless you’re a personal trainer, 2+ hours a day is unrealistic long-term wise (and now if you have kids and a family) and does a lot of wear and tear on the body. Find a way to condense your workouts so that they are still just as effective and so that you can maintain them in the future when you’re much older.

For me, 25 minutes of cardio and 20 minutes of circuit training is the perfect balance. I’ve been doing this for probably 4 years now. I started working out this way when I became pregnant and have done so ever since. It’s worked very well for me and even when I have weeks of eating bad or weeks I take off from working out to allow my body to rest, I bounce back immediately when I get back on track again. When I was spending hours working out and restricting my foods, a few “mess up” days would cause me to bloat,add on extra pounds right away and would be hard to get rid of. That’s how you know I was going about things in an unhealthy way. Your body should not respond like that if you are doing things the healthy way.

On that note, I thought I would share what a normal morning of eating looks like for me:


• First thing when I wake up - 16.7 ounces of water, B12 and Biotin.
• Coffee with creamer and marshmallows on top (I only drink ½ the cup, I’m just not a big coffee drinker)
• 15 ounces of Juice – My typical juice that I juice in bulk (Beets, cucumber, ginger, celery, carrots, spinach and lemon) JUICING IS EVERYTHING!
• 6 oz Greek yogurt 0%, one green apple and granola
• A cup of peppermint tea

I like to keep my morning routine of eating on track. The rest of the day can be kind of random but I always drink at least 60 ounces of water, I always have my champagne at night and I always have a protein of some sort with my lunch and dinner. My goal at the end of the day isn’t to track calories, protein, carbs etc…but to try and feed my body as many different veggies (and a few fruits too) as I can at the end of the day. To me that is what being healthy is all about, healing my insides rather than focusing so much on the outside. In doing so, I feel like the outside has just kind of fallen in place perfectly : )

To wrap this up, be kind to your body, it’s the only one you’ll ever have, so treat it well and try not to overwork it, underfeed it and restrict it of foods that heal you from the inside out. When you’re healthy on the inside it shows on the outside, your skin, your hair etc…

Me 13 years ago before I started changing my eating habits and working out consistently

Me now: healthy and doing nothing restrictive or crazy:

Sometimes I feel like a bad mom…

Yesterday I had a bad day. It all started with my morning, my morning set the tone for my day and all I wanted to do was go back to bed and start all over again. I hate when my mornings start off crappy because it screws up my whole day, mentally I just can’t get into that positive mindset and I know I’m not working at my full potential like that, not as employee, mom, wife or friend.

Atiana woke me up at 5:45 a.m. She typically sleeps from 8:00 p.m. – 6:30 a.m. so usually when she’s up that early consistently for a week or so she’s battling a sickness or some sort of change that’s going on in her routine. When she wakes up at 5:45 a.m. and comes into my room I make her play quietly with the dogs on the bed or I ask her to lay down with me until the sun comes up. She’s pretty good at doing one of the two so I can get my 15 extra minutes of sleep. See, I’m a horrible sleeper and sometimes my best sleep happens from 2:00 a.m. until it’s time to get up so I hate being woken up when I’m finally in that deep sleep mode.

Anyway, I gave Atiana options for breakfast that morning. Yogurt, granola bar, oatmeal, hardboiled eggs, scrambled eggs etc..she wanted scrambled eggs, so that’s what I made her along with some cut up fruit. She asked if she could watch TV while she ate it and I said yes and then started to get myself ready for work. 15 minutes later nothing on her plate had been touched. So I gave her a warning “Atiana, eat your breakfast or you’re going to school hungry because we need to leave in 30 minutes and you’re not even dressed for school yet.” She responded with “ok mommy.” 10 minutes go by and she still hasn’t touched anything on her plate so I raise my voice “Atiana, eat your breakfast or the TV is getting shut off and you’re going to school hungry.” Five minutes later all hell breaks loose because guess what? She still hasn’t touched her food! So, the TV goes off and I force her to go in her room and get herself dressed and she’s screaming and crying “but I’m hungry, I need to eat.” I dealt with a 30 minute long tantrum that had me so frustrated. I had to force her clothes on her, force brush her teeth (this is all stuff she normally does on her own but refused to do because she was upset) and yank her hair up into a ponytail while she tried running away. She’s crying and talking back, I’m yelling at her to stop talking to me the rudely and being disrespectful, then she proceeds to yell “I’m not rude and I’m not disrespectful…stop saying that…I’m not rude, you’re rude.” She just wouldn’t stop so in her room she went AGAIN and she screamed so loud for an additional 15 minutes that I was sure the neighbors were going to come over and ask if everything was ok. I was done. We left the house at 9:00 a.m. (she’s supposed to be at school by 9:00) and I didn’t get to work until almost 9:45 a.m. (I normally get in around 9:00). She went to school hungry and probably missed snack time because we were so late. I drove to work angry and sad. Angry because at times there is no getting through to my kid, anyone that knows Atiana knows exactly what I mean. She is literally the most stubborn kid I have ever encountered. She will argue with you about EVERYTHING and I mean EVERYTHING and does not like being told what to do. Well news flash kid, I am your MOM and I will tell you what to do and you WILL listen.

For those reading this judging what I’m saying and how I choose to respond to my kid’s behavior, let me just say this. Yes, I understand that my kid is a strong willed kid, yes I know that it’s important to allow a strong willed child to be who they are, but, I will NOT allow my kid to walk all over me, have “options” on how she wants to listen to what I tell her to do, and I will not allow her to disrespect me by ignoring me or talking back. Talking calmly to my kid gives her the upper hand in a situation and she starts to manipulate, I’ve learned this about her, and it does not correct her behavior. Yelling upsets her because she hates when she’s made me mad. Spanking works, although I’m not good at spanking, her dad is and she responds quickly to it. But sometimes NONE of these things work and I am left frustrated and defeated. I refuse to raise a spoiled brat who feels entitled to having everything and everything her way. This is a common behavior problem for kids that are the only child and later when they become adults they still feel entitled. I also refuse to raise a kid that feels like she shouldn’t be disciplined for her actions/not listening, and time outs do not work for my kid.

My whole drive into work yesterday morning was awful. I was so tempted to just call in sick, go home, go back to bed and just take a day to myself. I drove to work thinking about the way I handled everything, thinking about what I could have done differently to make the morning smoother, thinking about if I was too hard on her, thinking about how much I love her and how much I miss her when our mornings aren’t enjoyable together (after all I work all day so I don’t get a lot of time with her), thinking about my own frustrations that morning, etc…I texted my husband about how our morning went and he responded “I’m sorry love, we really need to sit down and talk to her tonight and figure something out, I’m tired of yelling at her constantly too.” Then he tried to talk me into taking the day off work to relax but I had too much going on at work to do that. He offered to make dinner when he got home and told me to just relax so I did just that until Atiana came home from school…..

Josh walks through the door with a crying Atiana and says “Well, she screamed the whole way home. I got to school to pick her up and she was on timeout for not listening to the teachers. They said she was on timeout a lot today, wasn’t listening, not napping or doing anything she was told to do.” As much as I didn’t want to hear more crying and yelling after the morning I had with her, she needed to be punished for disrespecting her teachers, so we took away cartoons and snacks for the night. She was allowed to listen to music and eat her dinner but nothing more. So, as you can imagine, that led to another hour long tantrum while trying to get her to eat the dinner I made her that she also complained about not wanting to eat.

Bedtime couldn’t come soon enough…..

She went straight to bed at 8:00 p.m. Josh made us dinner (a really really good healthy dinner) but I was craving pizza and mentioned it to him. He said “let’s order pizza, I’ll pack this for our lunches tomorrow” and he ordered us pizza! We sat on the couch, caught up on our day, cuddled with the dogs, had champagne and pizza and went to bed at 9:30. Somehow that last 1 ½ hour of my day made my whole day. It was what I needed to feel better and when we went to bed together that night I couldn’t help but feel thankful that God has given me a husband that truly knows what I need to feel better on days where I feel like I’m failing as a mother.

I know I’m not failing as a mother, I’m doing the best job I can, but when my daughter acts out and is disrespectful I blame myself for her behavior rather than realizing she’s 3 and she’s testing boundaries and pushing buttons because that’s what 3 year olds do…. I’ve been told that Atiana is very smart for her age and I think sometimes I expect better behavior from her because I know she comprehends everything just fine and I know the kid she’s capable of being. She has great manners but she also has this tendency to say hurtful things to people that don’t want to do what she wants. She’s also very good at ignoring things we ask her to do and that just doesn’t fly with me. I know this is just the beginning of what’s to come. With each passing year she’s going to get smarter and harder to deal with so we have to be consistent with our disciplining regardless of how shitty of a mom I feel some days. It’s a part of life and I wouldn’t be doing it if I didn’t love, care and want her to turn out to be an amazing woman one day.

Parenting a strong willed stubborn child is hard. Every day is a battle of working on trying to raise a decent human being while also working on bettering yourself as a person/parent. I don’t know if I’ll ever feel like I’m doing an AMAZING job as a mom, my kid is hard, and she makes feeling like I’m doing awesome with her hard. What I do know is I have the best support system around, and together I feel like we balance it all out pretty dang well.

Wednesday, October 5, 2016

Why date nights are important as a married couple.

Not too long ago I received a message from a friend in regards to a picture I posted of Josh and I on Facebook that I titled “never stop dressing up for each other.” I didn’t post the picture to make anyone feel bad for not finding the time to dress up for their husband but rather to remind all of the women and men out there that dressing up and making time to have a night out together is important to keep your relationship alive. I’ve asked this friend for her permission to blog in regards to her message to me without mentioning her name and she was perfectly ok with it. My reason for this is that I know plenty of women feel just like she does and so rather than write privately about it I’d like to open up about why finding time for one another is important.

In her message she basically said that with her working full-time, taking care of 2 kids and going back to school she can hardly find time to think about herself, let alone how to dress up and get out the door. She wanted to know how Josh and I have the time/energy/strength to go out. Her child care options after hours are limited, and she often feels like her and her husband are more like roommates.

WARNING: This will probably be a very long blog.

When Josh and I first got together we weren’t certain if we wanted children. We were so in love and so selfish with our time together. We hated being apart and spent all our free time together. I think one of my biggest fears about having a baby was that it would change us and the way we were with each other (as selfish as that sounds it was true). We were together two years before getting married and married almost 5 when we got pregnant with Atiana. We had 7 years of fun together, 7 years of traveling, making memories, learning one another, living together, spending all our time together and then one random night we decided we were ready for something more. We were ready to share our world and we were ready to become even closer by bringing a baby into the world. We knew having a baby would be life changing. We knew it would change our world and possibly challenge us in so many ways, but one thing we talked about repeatedly is that if we were going to do this together, then we needed to make sure we were going to continue to be US and always keep our relationship alive and healthy (vacations, date nights, taking random days off work to have a day together etc..). We had these conversations all the time during my pregnancy and even while pregnant we continued to maintain our weekly date nights.

I never let myself go during pregnancy. I worked out, I tried to eat as healthy as I could, I put myself together fully every single day and I think I even wore heals up until a few days before giving birth to our daughter. I wanted to feel beautiful when I was pregnant and I wanted my husband to always see me at my best no matter how exhausted or swollen I felt some days.

When Josh and I fell in love we were 23. He fell in love with a girl that worked hard to maintain her figure (I think at that time I was running 6 miles a day), a girl that had a full time job she had to look presentable at daily, a girl that had her own money and a brand new car she had just bought herself, a girl that had just learned to become independent and confident and was doing life for herself and no one else. I fell in love with a man that had his shit together. At 23 he was not only the hottest thing I had ever laid eyes on but he was outgoing, fun, funny, had his own apartment since the age of 18 and was already established in his career. Falling in love with each other only made us want to better ourselves for one another even more. We were always trying to impress each other.

10 years later that still has not changed. I truly believe that you should always try to impress your husband and that there really is no excuse not to. I want to remain the person Josh fell in love with and if anything I want to be better than I was when he met me. Just because I’m a mom, I work full-time and we’ve been together for 10 years does not mean I get to give up on looking good and feeling good for my husband. We are growing together, we are aging, life is constantly changing but I will never give up trying to impress him just because the years are flying by and just because we have a child that demands a lot of our attention.

Here’s a funny little story:

The other night Josh and I were heading out to an engagement party at my future sister-in-laws house. I wore this $10 solid color olive green dress I got from Forever 21 and dressed it up with some fun gold jewelry and some chunky heals. It was nothing expensive or fancy just something that I threw together that was comfortable and easy. Josh comes out of our bedroom dressed in nice slacks, nice shoes and a button up shirt. My first reaction was ok he is making me feel way under dressed for this event. I seriously thought about changing my outfit. So I said to him “wow you got really dressed up for this” and he responded with “I was just basing my outfit off of yours. You’re dressed really nice so I wanted to look nice too.” The funny part was I thought my outfit was casual because it was a $10 outfit but in his eyes I looked like we were going somewhere fancy for the night. Just goes to show that you don’t need to spend a bunch of money to look amazing in your husband’s eyes. A little hair, makeup and accessorized outfit go a long way…

I can’t even count the number of times we have gotten ready for date night and one of us changes our outfit to try and keep up with the other if we feel “undressed.” That’s one thing I love about our relationship, we never stop trying to impress one another rather instead we try to keep up with each other.

Two of biggest excuses I hear about couples that don’t make time to date each other is #1 Our child care is limited. We only have like one person we trust with our kid/kids and #2 We are just too busy, we work too much and our weekends are busy. Let me just say this. You will make time for what is important to you. If your marriage is important to you then you will make time to nourish it. Yes, Josh and I pay for Atiana to attend preschool but outside of that our options for babysitters are limited too. His mom and dad are the only other people that watch her so we can have a date night and if they aren’t available for a few weekends in a row, we take a day off work together, take Atiana to school, and spend a whole entire day together doing things we love. Our relationship is valuable and important to us and I’m a true believer that when you give up on nourishing ANY relationship it will slowly fall apart.

I listen to a lot of Podcasts while I do cardio or during my drives to/from work. This morning I was listening to Heather Dubrow’s podcast (No I do not watch any of the housewives shows, yes I know these people are rich and have help but that is not an excuse) where she was interviewing her husband Terry Dubrow. These two are an amazing couple and I have so much respect for them and the love they have for each other. They have 4 kids (two are twins) and they both have full-time demanding jobs but they always make time for each other. They constantly lift each other up, date, communicate, joke around and encourage each other even after 4 kids and 20 years of marriage. She said that she always makes sure she looks nice when her husband gets home even if it’s a quick 10 minutes of throwing herself together, they schedule sex because sex is important and she finds time every single day to work out despite how busy she is with 4 kids so she can look good and feel good for herself too. I don’t know much about this woman but I know I can 100% relate to the podcast I listened to this morning.

It’s so important to stay connected in a marriage. You have to make an effort to spend time together, communicate about everything, have date nights without the kids, alone time when the kids go to bed, make time for sex and find things that you enjoy doing together whether it be working on projects around the house together, working out together etc… If you neglect your marriage, your spouse’s needs, your ability to connect to one another and lose your desire to serve each other you’re going to set your marriage up to fail. I’m not saying I know everything about marriage but these are the things that have kept our marriage happy and alive.

When Josh transitioned into his new job a few months ago I felt disconnected from him for a short time. His mind was so wrapped up in work that I felt like our life literally revolved around work and our time together was kind of pushed to the side. This wasn’t something I was used to because we always make time to connect at the end of the day. I tried being understanding at first, I knew he was stressed out and I didn’t want to burden him with how I was feeling because I felt selfish for feeling the way I felt. I knew it would pass once he settled into his new position but then part of me thought if I didn’t communicate how I was feeling now, it might get worse later. Josh and I always communicate about everything but I was trying not to burden him so early on in his new career. It didn’t take long before I opened up to him about how I was feeling and I am so thankful I did because I can honestly say it has made us even stronger and I feel like we’ve connected even more now. He makes me feel included in what goes on at work (not that he needs to but it gives me a better understanding of how hard his job is) and I’m able to give him my perspective on things so that when he thinks about work at night or talks about work at night I feel like I’m doing it with him rather than not understanding what the hell is going through his mind when he’s stressed. I’m thankful for our open communication because it’s made our marriage so strong.

My point is there is no excuse for not making time to date your spouse and dress up for your spouse even when you don’t have plans to go anywhere that night! I mean who knows, maybe he will come home one night to you all dolled up and decide to take you out : ) Men are visual, they want to come home to someone that takes the time to look presentable and it makes them feel good knowing you took the time to look good for them. Make time for sex, make time to fulfill each other’s needs and desires and don’t ever stop trying to impress one another because it’s one of the best things you can do for your marriage aside from communication. Always remember that whatever you’re not willing to do for the person you’re with, someone else will be willing to do it.

If you’ve reached a point in your marriage where date nights no longer exist, sex is minimal and you feel like you’re just roommates with your spouse, then I challenge you to make some changes today. #1 Once the kids are in bed for the night put down the phones, videogames, turn off the TV, stop working on projects, whatever is distracting you guys from communicating and start communicating with your husband about your wants and needs and what makes you happy as a couple. Communication really is everything. Without it you have a marriage that can easily be torn apart. #2 Make a conscious effort to look good for your husband and remember men are visual, they don’t want to come home to someone that hasn’t taken the time to look presentable for them when they come home. Everyone has 10/15 minutes to look presentable before their man gets home, it really not that much work. #3 Be the initiator and plan a night for you two if your husband isn’t the type to initiate. Find a sitter (maybe a grandparent or someone that can come after hours when the kids are already in bed and stop making the excuse of not having anyone to watch your kids. You will make it happen if your marriage is important enough to you.) and plan a night out with your husband. Get all dolled up and when he gets home tell him you have plans for the two of you that night. Research some sexy restaurants to go to and make it a romantic non-rushed night out. Or plan a sex night. Go out and buy some candles, find some relaxing music, set the room up all nice and relaxing and tell him once the kids go to bed you want some alone time with him. It is so important to make time for sex because it truly makes you both happier people. Sex releases endorphins and it’s truly amazing how much closer sex can bring you together as a couple and how it puts you on this amazing high of feeling like you can take on the world. (yes, that’s how good sex should make you feel lol).

Your marriage should remain a priority in your life just as your kids are a priority in your life. You married your husband because you were in love with him, you desired him and he you, you guys saw a future together and because of that you guys chose to have children together. As life continues to fly on by its important that you continue to grow together as a couple. Continue to learn what makes each other happy, what pleases one another and how to manage your time so that you never fall astray from one another. One day your kids will be grown and they will leave and you two will be left to pick up right where you left off before having kids so it’s important to keep your relationship alive and full of love.

Stephani

P.s My blog is my place to vent, to share stories and to help other women that may be feeling the same way. My intentions of blogging are not to offend anyone and/or to make anyone feel bad about whatever situation they are going through. Some women tend to think that just because we have different views on life/situations it means we can’t be friends/associated with one another. That’s not me, we can agree to disagree and still be friends.

Thursday, September 22, 2016

Why I choose to be a working mom...

The beginning of 2016 was rough. We were basically forced to find new child care for Atiana. She had just turned 2 and the thought of taking her from the place she had been at since she was 3 months old broke my heart. I spent two weeks crying over the situation wondering if I was doing the right thing. I interviewed a few schools and found one that felt right almost immediately. The thought of putting her in an actual school scared me shitless. I was so afraid my baby was going to be thrown out into this much bigger world and not be able to adjust. It took her a few weeks to stop crying when I dropped her off. I would call the school after I left to see how she was doing and they always assured me that she was fine once I walked out the door. I knew she loved the school because when we would arrive to pick her up she didn’t want to leave. I think the hard part for her was that she’s a natural leader and she came from a daycare where she pretty much bossed all the kids around so this was a huge adjustment for her. She felt vulnerable and unfamiliar with her surroundings all of a sudden. It didn’t take long before she regained her dominate personality in this new school.

Transferring her to a new school and bigger environment ended up being the best thing we’ve done thus far. Her aggressive behavior (biting, hitting, and pushing) stopped immediately, her naps became consistent and while I was afraid she would backtrack in her development she actually improved even more. I’ve always given her previous daycare provider all the credit for how smart Atiana is. She spent a lot of one and one time teaching her so much. At the age of one she already knew all her shapes and how to say them all. She also knew her vowels, the alphabet, numbers 1-10, each emotion and her five senses. She was bilingual and according to her pediatrician her vocabulary was very advanced. Daycare would always tell us how smart she was and how special she was. I’m her momma so of course I felt the same way but it always made me feel good to hear it from her daycare provider and her pediatrician.

It’s been almost 7 months since we transferred Atiana to pre-school and we are constantly receiving positive feedback from her teachers and the principal on her wide vocabulary, ability to lead others, her manners and how much she already knows for her age. Last week we were told they use Atiana to sell their school to other parents. Apparently every time new parents come to look at the school the teachers will call Atiana to come help show them around because she impresses everyone with her vocabulary and how smart she is. We also have Atiana enlisted in a sports program that comes to her school every Tuesday and teaches them different sports. The past Tuesday we found out that her coach uses Atiana as his helper/example during sports class because she’s the only one that can fully communicate in the class and participates in each exercise they do. I’m starting to think the school should give us some sort of discount for using my kid all the time LOL.

The point of this whole blog is to be able to look back and remember what I felt at one time. How scary change can be but how awesome the outcome can be sometimes which brings me to the topic of being a working mom.

I’m pretty sure I blogged when I first returned to work and how hard it was for me. I stayed home with Atiana the first 3 months of her life and it was hard for me. I wanted to come back to work after 6 weeks but my boss convinced me that I would regret it. Then she turned 3 months and I didn’t want to leave her. The first day I left her at daycare I left work early to pick her up because I couldn’t stop crying. I eased into the transition by working part time that whole week. Once I got into a routine it became much easier and I started working fulltime again. Daycare put Atiana on a schedule for me and when she wasn’t at daycare I followed the schedule at home to insure she was getting proper and rest and staying on schedule so that when she returned after the weekend she would transition again easily. Her daycare made my job as a working mom so easy on me because it was like she was at her second home. They made her breakfast, lunch and snacks, homemade her baby food, helped potty train her at a young age, made sure she napped and showed her unconditional love. The only hard part about it all was how often she got sick within the first year or two of her life and the time I had to take off work to stay home with her. It felt like every month she had some new illness. Although I’m thankful now because she rarely gets sick now and if she does get sick it only lasts a few days as opposed to a whole week or two. Since she’s been at this new school she’s only been sick to where I’ve had to keep her home one time.

I’m constantly seeing posts, articles and comparisons on working moms v. stay at home moms. People like to elaborate on how “hard” their job is whether it be working or staying home and I’m not quite sure what the purpose of that is. Maybe it makes them feel important or maybe they feel the need to explain themselves to people for reassurance that whatever they are doing is right? Whatever the reason may be, I think women tend to forget that we are all trying to do the same thing here, raise healthy happy kids. Both jobs are hard and not one job is harder than the other so it drives me nuts when people compare and try to say that their job (working/staying home) is so much harder than the other job. The truth of the matter is every woman is different. What may be harder for one woman is easier for another and vice versa. If you’re not happy doing what you’re doing, then do something about it. Stop complaining about how hard you have it, stop saying “it must be nice” to those who choose to raise their kids differently or live a different lifestyle than you do. You control your own life so do what make you and your family happy and screw what everyone else thinks. Unless you have a kid with special needs or you are a single mom trying to make ends meet I don’t want to hear it.

Most of you know that I work because I choose to work not because I have to work. My husband always encourages me to do what makes me happy and working makes me happy. Some moms out there are probably reading this thinking how could she say such a thing, if you didn’t have to work why wouldn’t you want to be with your kid. I shouldn’t have to explain that to anyone just as a stay at home mom shouldn’t have to explain why she stays home with her kid/kids. Everyone is different and different things make different people happy. We all have different goals, different ways of thinking, different views etc…all that matters is that YOU are happy and that your kid/kids are happy at the end of the day. I’m an open person and anyone that knows me knows that about me. There aren’t very may topics/conversations that make me feel uncomfortable and for the most part I have no problem expressing how I feel because I’m also a very honest person. With that being said I’m going to share why I choose to work.

I choose to work for many different reasons. One reason is because I know it makes me a happier person all around. Working makes me a better mom, wife and person because I feel like I’m being utilized to my full potential. I like being busy and actually hate downtime. I feel like I need to be doing something constantly in order to feel like I’ve made the most out of my day. Not saying that stay at home moms have all this downtime, but when I stayed home those first few months Atiana was born I found myself more unproductive than when I worked. That’s my own issue, I just couldn’t function when I stayed home. I thrive off a schedule, getting up at a certain time and having a routine and when I stayed home I pretty much just went with the day and at my own pace which didn’t work very well for me. Once I started working again I was back on a schedule, up by 5:30/6 a.m. and from that moment on there was something I needed to accomplish in a short amount of time in order to get to work at a decedent time. I pretty much don’t even sit down when I am home until Atiana goes to bed (8 pm) but I enjoy that busy schedule and I also enjoy the fact that once she goes to bed Josh and I get two hours of alone time to catch up on one another’s day. I honestly feel like our marriage is so strong because of the time we set aside for each other at the end of each day. I also love knowing that by me working I am contributing to our future, our day to day life, the way we choose to live, the nice things we choose to have and the food we love to spend money on. It just makes me feel good.

I also choose to work because I want to set an example for Atiana. Growing up my mom stayed home with me and my brother. My dad owned his own business and my mom worked for him part time so they had the freedom of bringing us to work with them. I felt like in a way I grew up very sheltered. Even though I had a lot of friends that lived on our block that I played with, I still felt like I was home so much that it made me very shy and when I did start elementary school I had a very hard time transitioning and feeling confident in who I was as a person because I spent so much time with my parents. I also had no desire to get my driver’s licenses early on or get a job until after high school because my parent’s never built up that confidence in me early on.

I grew up thinking women didn’t have to work that hard. I grew up thinking that one day a man would just come along and take care of me just like dad took care of my mom. It wasn’t until I got my first real job (the place I still work at to this day) that I realized women are totally capable of having a career. I want Atiana to grow up to be a strong female with the desire to become anything she wants to be. I want her to continue to be a strong fearless female that’s not afraid to overcome obstacles and is completely capable of taking care of herself. I know me continuing to work is impacting her future greatly.

When I get home at the end of the day I look forward to seeing my baby girl. I’m not frustrated with her and/or annoyed that I got nothing done that day and she misses me too so our time together is valued. She’s happy because she’s had a full day of fun interaction with children her age and she’s learning. When she’s happy our household flows very smoothly so it’s a win for us all.

Don’t get me wrong, there are days where I feel like I have so much I need to catch up on, but who doesn’t feel that way whether you stay home or work. Not only do I have a daughter but I also have three big older dogs and a Macaw that all require attention. At one point I felt like the weekends were spent on catching up on the things I didn’t do throughout the week (cleaning the house, laundry, errands etc..) but over time we’ve learned to manage that better by hiring someone to clean our house, managing laundry throughout the week and together so it doesn’t pile up, taking turns cooking/cooking together. It’s all about teamwork when both parents are working and that way neither of us gets resentful of the other person either. And because I work we have the option of hiring people to help with the things I can’t find time to get to. So for me personally, working makes for a happier me all around.

But, just because I work does not mean I judge those who stay home nor do I compare my life to their life. I know what it’s like to stay home with a little one because I’ve done it and my husband works every other Saturday. So from 6am until 7pm it’s just me and Atiana those Saturday’s. Both jobs are equally as hard. And props to the mommas out there that are juggling staying home with their kiddos and starting up their own business! Now that is true dedication and super mom status! Those are the moms that personally influence me the most and make me want to continue to do even more for my little family.

In conclusion, stop judging other moms. Stop comparing and PLEASE stop living your life through social media. Not everything you read/see on the damn internet is true. Working mom v. stay at home, neither of you are better moms than the other so just stop. We are all doing the best job we can and doing what's best for our OWN families.