Surviving Single Motherhood

I'm sure I'm not not only one who, at some point, will go through single motherhood whether temporary or permanant. In the six weeks I've been single-momming it, here's what I have learned. Hopefully it will help someone else survive. =)

1) Accept any and all help offered. Being a mom is hard even when you have live-in husband-type help... it get exponentially harder and your "To Do List" will grown infinantly longer without the help. Accept any offered help. Let your neighbor watch your kids so you can have some recharge time. Let your friend bring you a meal. Let your husband's friend mow the lawn.

2) Let it go. Doing it on your own, things get crazy, and you'll go crazy if you try to do everything (without help) all the time. Your kids and your sanity are most important. Let thing of lesser importance go.

3) Get out and talk to adults every day. I work, so thats where I got this one in. If you are lucky enough to a full-time, stay home mom make sure you get out every day and get to talk to someone who can form complete, coherant sentences. Take a walk, get to a play group, call a friend and go to the park... anything to get you adult interaction that you need.

4) Make plans. The lonliness can get intense when you're missing your hubby, even when you've for your cute kids around. Plan some fun activites to do with the kids that you can all look forward to. Having plans will help break up monotony and help the time pass more quickly.

5) When necessary, take a break. If you're overwhelmed, if you're upset, if you need a good cry, put your kid(s) somewhere safe and have it out. Theres no shame in putting your baby in the crib, the pack and play, their room and taking a mommy-moment... even if all they do is scream while you take your moment. Also, if you need some time out on your own, call a friend, ask for a babysitting favor and go to the mall, go see a movie, go get a pedicure. Anything that will make you feel better, recharge your batteries and help you get through tomorrow.

Taggies

We don't actually have any of this brand of thing, but whoever thought of it was a genius. Seriously, Rachel loves tags.

And I know she's not the only one because my friend Autumn's baby likes to chew on them as well.

Basically this mother noticed that her child liked to chew on the tags of his blankets/toys/clothes and so she made a blanket with an assortment of tags on it.

Now really, why didn't I think of that?

Infant Carrier Deal!!

I visit shnoop.com pretty much everyday. I got my stroller through them around christmas time for only $100, and I've LOVED it. their items are all new, I think they're just overstock items.

Anyway, today they have this infant water carrier for their deal. Yeah, I bought it. It's only $12.99!! I couldn't pass that up.

Mothers vs. Fathers

Last week we had FHE at Andrew's parents' place and his sister Emily gave a lesson, a lesson that demonstrated how very little we actually knew about each other.

She gave little quizzes about all of us, asking what our favorite colors are, what kind of food we like, what we do for a living, and so on.

Answering Andrew's questions were easy. I got almost everything right. And so did everyone else. He is a very predictable person.

Answering my questions were harder than hard. I don't really have a lot of "favorites." So much depends on my mood. Mexican or Italian? It depends on the day. Blue or pink? It depends on my mood. I took the longest on my own quiz.

Answering everyone else's quizzes was so-so. I didn't get a lot of the questions right but neither did anyone else.

Anyway, that's not really what this post is about. What it is about is how mothers and fathers differ.

I noticed that for both Karen and myself, everyone wrote down "Mother" as occupation, in addition to secretarial work. Karen works as a secretary, and we both do contract work for Harman Music.

It is true that being a mother is a job, I think. Goodness knows being a mother takes up the majority of my time every day.

But no one wrote down "Father" as a job for Reid or Andrew.

It was interesting for me to see how we view those roles. Mothering, we all seem to believe, is a full-time job. Whether you work full time or stay at home all day, being a mother is a job. Your children always need access to you via phone, via email, via sitting on your lap...you're always a mother.

But fathers are fathers when they come home from work, so isn't that like a job for them, too? Why don't we recognize them as such?

Crazy Multitasking

Copied from my blog to reach a bigger audience:

My friend, Toni was over at my house for a little while today, and we started talking about the crazy things you can do while nursing a baby. I wondered out loud what the craziest thing all of you mothers have done while breastfeeding and decided to ask. Please comment so we can all know how cool you are.

Mine: Chopping onions.

I don't remember why making dinner couldn't wait, but it couldn't. And of course Amy's dinner couldn't wait. I hate chopping onions; I cry a lot. And I was a little nervous about the knife right by Amy, but we managed. She got her meal, and I finished dinner.

OK, your turn. :)

Teething solutions

I'm on the hunt for tricks to help Katryn! She's almost 4 months old now, and is in the throes of teething. It's turned my happy little girl into a screaming girl. I just don't know what to do and I need some advice from people who have been there! I'm not expecting her to get any teeth for another few months, but I've heard they move up and down, causing more pain at some times, than at others.

Any body have any tips? She won't really take her paci anymore, and prefers to just chomp on my fingers/knuckles. And boy howdy, do I mean CHOMP. I have some teething rings, but they say not to freeze them, so they don't stay cold very long.

I want my happy girl back!!!