Haiku Friday #10: Mommy Guilt

Lately on Twitter

I've followed momversation

A panel of moms

Who famously blog

Discussing certain issues

Important to us.

This week's discussion:

Mommy guilt over working

I also feel it.

Momversation is an interactive vlog between several bloggers from their panel of fairly well-known mommy bloggers. Selected bloggers discuss momversation's topic of the week, which is usually related to parenting and always provocative.

Their most recent discussion really resonated with me: mommy guilt over working. I spent the first nine months of my son's life as a stay-at-home mom while my husband worked at whatever substitute teaching jobs he could find. In that time, he was unable to find any permanent job a contracted position, so he went back to school to get a teaching certificate. Apparently a Master's degree in Education and a Bachelor's in English Lit do not qualify a person to teach English, either at the high school level or as an adjunct professor at the college level -- even community colleges.

With him back in school, I had to get a full-time job just to keep us afloat -- and some months, even buoyancy seems impossible. I'm sure many of you are familiar with this situation. So I applied at a few preschools and day care centers in the area, figuring that as an employee, I would have an easier time getting my son into one, and also would probably receive a tuition discount.

So here I am, working 40 hours a week with other people's kids, rather than being with my own son -- out of necessity, yes, but it's still enough to make me wish I was helping him grow and learn, and witnessing his milestones, not theirs.

Sometimes I wish that I could work from home, that I was brilliant enough to start my own little Etsy shop or something. But from what I hear from work-at-home moms (and dads) is that the guilt is still there -- and it's even harder to get work done, so they often feel like they fall short in both categories.

Here's the good news: I have recently learned of an open spot in one of the infant/toddler classrooms that he will be able to take. All we have to do is fill out the paperwork and get everything set up for him to go. This is such a weight off of my mind. Next semester, my husband will be student teaching, and if there wasn't a spot for my son I would have to quit, just when we're starting to become a little more financially stable. I'd exhausted all my other child care options, too. This is it.

So I'm super excited (and relieved) that he'll be coming to school with me. My mom will still watch him on Mondays and Fridays, since they could only guarantee me a part-time spot for him. But that's okay for now, because she doesn't work those days. I've got daughter guilt about this one, though. I hate that I'll now be bogarting two days every week out of my mom's schedule.

The lesson here? You do what you can with what you've got. And you forgive yourself for needing help. You forgive yourself for needing to work and being away from your kids.

What about you? Any moms or dads feeling the guilt out there? If you don't have kids, do you feel guilty about working for other reasons? Or do you feel guilty about something else entirely? Leave a comment. I'd love to hear what everyone feels about this.

It really is Einstein's work...

If I weren't already married, I would pledge my undying allegiance to the Baby Einstein exersaucer. That, and six months ago, our bouncer/swing combination. They have been the only way for me to get any dishes, laundry, or housecleaning done as the stay-at-home parent for almost nine months. My husband is also a fan, now that I'm back to work, and he has to play the role of both father and student.

The swing and bouncer mostly kept Adam quiet, or put him to sleep -- often faster than I could by sitting down with him and nursing. But I have picture after picture on our digital camera of him just staring up at the hanging animals on the swing's overhead bar, or looking around as if to say, "Where is that music coming from?"

And the Baby Einstein contraption keeps him occupied for (almost) hours now that he's older and needs a little something more to capture those ever-turning wheels in his head. Rattles, things to push and spin, animal pictures and noises, and even a puppet keep him entertained so that we can do homework, housework, and (gasp!) even something fun once in awhile.

So here's my question for you: What modern convenience(s) are you completely in love with? What could you do without? Feel free to comment below.

This is my (first!) post for Parent Bloggers' Network (PBN). This weekend's blog blast is sponsored by Yoplait Kids. Check out the links above for more information.

Lights Out

I've been meaning to post for almost 2 days. Surely, I thought, I would not be writing this tonight. All the problems will have been fixed by now, and I won't get a chance to discuss it.

But here we are, Wednesday night, and much of the city of Columbus, Ohio is still without power. For those not living in Ohio or the general area, Hurricane Ike was still pretty pissed off when he came to call on our calm state. Ike was still a Category I Tropical Storm with 75-mile-an-hour winds Sunday night when he ripped through the state, especially Central Ohio, with a vengeance. The "remnants" caused over half a million in Columbus and surrounding suburbs to lose electricity, with damage still being assessed.

We were lucky. We only lost power from around 7 PM or so Sunday night to 5 PM on Monday. We only lost the contents of our fridge (which needed to be cleaned out in a bad way anyway); most of our meat and veggies stayed frozen in the back of the freezer, and we're able to cook what didn't. We were able to do laundry, take showers, and hang out at my parents' house (where they only lost power for maybe 20 minutes while AEP was hooking things back up) for awhile. The power outages meant the JCC was closed on Monday, and I didn't have to work; Brandon doesn't have class until tomorrow morning (and my mom is still off work tomorrow from teaching at Columbus Public Schools), so we didn't need to find a new babysitter this week -- my dad is recovering from foot surgery.

My friend's family got power back on yesterday afternoon, and my father-in-law still does not have working cable or internet in Cincinnati, even though his electricity has come back on. We're all lucky that the wind didn't cause any major damage to our cars or homes -- my parents lost a few shingles, and the porch swing tried to leave, but other than that, everything held down pretty well.

Some are not so lucky. Because the hurricane hit Texas so hard, many of our electric crews were sent there to help out. Not that Texas doesn't need them, but they never anticipated being needed back home to return power to much of the city. I keep hearing at work how other teachers recently spent $100 to $200 on groceries Saturday or Sunday, just to have it all go bad in their refrigerator or freezer.

Folks, this is not a religious blog, by any means. In fact, I've been aiming to keep just about anything religious out of this blog -- maybe I'll create another one for thoughts on spirituality. There are so many other things that need discussion on this one. But whether you're religious or spiritual or ambivalent, please take thirty seconds to send out a prayer, a thought, positive energy or just some good ju-ju to anyone affected by Ike.

I'll be sending my own good thoughts to all of you who are still patiently waiting for life to return to something approaching normal. Good luck!

I'm in the money!

...or at least I will be in about two weeks.

Since we moved back to Ohio from Boston back in February, my husband has been substitute teaching and looking for work that will actually support our family of three (subs are paid per day of work, whereas full-time teachers have a yearly salary divided up over the twelve months; subs do not get paid over the summer, and during the year, they only receive a total of about half of a regular teacher's salary anyway). The original plan was that he would find a job as a full-time teacher, and I would be a stay-at-home-mom until the summer, when Adam would be 6 months old, and then I would go back to work while he stayed home with the baby.

We have both been searching for the last seven months and thus far, have been unable to find work. About a month ago or so, my husband decided that since he wasn't getting anywhere (and I do mean anywhere -- he looked for jobs in high schools, colleges, libraries, the Department of Defense, and put his resume up on Monster) in the job search, that he would go back to school. In the meantime, I kept looking for work as a secretary, and then as a daycare worker/preschool teacher (in the hopes that Adam could be cared for in my place of employment, at a discounted price).

Two weeks ago we got a break. My sister Sara works at the Jewish Community Center, and has for the past three years. She was assigned there for her freshman observation (she's in school for early childhood education), and they liked her so much, they hired her Monday through Friday after classes and also for their summer camp. Then we found out that Aaron's aunt is the director of the center. I was a little nervous about putting myself out there for the open position, because I have "some college coursework completed," none of which is in education. The one thing I have going for me is 10+ years of babysitting experience, and informal child care/supervision of youth activities at both my church and in the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism, more about that later).

I've been trying to get paperwork done for this job, and silently freaking out about getting a physical and a TB test done (we can't find a general family doctor, either -- but at least Adam has a wonderful pediatrician). I wanted so badly to post the good news about the possibility of a job, but I didn't want to jinx it. And then today I got a call from the director. The original position I applied for was one that someone else had left, and this person apparently came back to it in the past few weeks. But I can still work two eight-hour days and be a floating sub for the rest of the week! I hung up with the director, and danced around my kitchen/living room until my quads hurt.

Deep sigh of relief. Damn, did we need this. I won't be getting a huge salary or anything, and they don't have a place for Adam now, but as the child of an employee, he is at the top of the waiting list. And it's something. Especially when we're fighting with the loan company to disburse the money for Brandon's first semester so he can actually, you know, pay for books (he's been in class for nearly two weeks already). Happy little dance!

Edited to add: Sorry, folks. I know I promised this would be shorter, but I just couldn't contain my excitement!

Further edited to add: Upon reflection, I think the reason my posts are so long is because I feel the need to explain EVERYTHING, since you all know practically nothing about me (personal friends excluded). Hopefully this will get better with time.

Geeky weekend

I know what you're thinking. Oh, so she's actually going to live up to her blog title now, is she? Yeah right. Well, I am, dammit! I am a geek, just like I said. And now I'm going to prove it to you.

On Saturday (yes, I know it was days ago, I've been trying to sit down and write this for like two days), my husband and I played in a Star Wars RPG. For those who don't know, a role-playing game, or RPG, is a game in which players create characters, roll dice (to make it more realistic by adding the element of chance), and are led on a series of adventures by someone who writes a story for them, or GM (for game master). Yes, like Dungeons and Dragons, only that's not the only RPG. Far from it. They can be about pretty much anything you want them to be about, but really a good one will include some elements of a mystery, some combat, and some good acting (which happens to be my favorite part, an amateur aspiring unpolished dabbling actress myself). My husband and I have participated in everything from Dungeons and Dragons to Call of Cthulu to superheroes (his personal favorite) to Shadowpact (a fantasy-type world that is more like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and my personal favorite -- I mean, I get to play a slayer [who is not unlike Faith, for those familiar with the show], and how cool is that?).

Lately the only games I've played have been run by my friend Aaron. He is an excellent storyteller, and he does not put too much emphasis on rules, both of which make for a good GM. He runs the Shadowpact games (and soon, superheroes), but his current campaign (like a novel or movie in which individual games are like chapters) is a Star Wars game. It takes place roughly 100 years after the original trilogy, so the only familiar character in the story is R2D2.

Anyway, the game was the shortest I've ever participated in, lasting around 3 hours. I didn't even have time for my ADD to kick in! It was a lot of fun, as Aaron's games always are, and I even got an extra character point (these are a reward from GM to players for awesomeness, and are used to "buy" new skills or improve existing ones; an example would be if someone was a martial artist skilled in karate, s/he could use those points to get better at karate or maybe pick up judo. Like in the real world, when you have a teacher, you can get better at something you're good at over time, or learn new skills from him/her). I was very excited about my extra character point, because he gave it for a "really cool bit of roleplaying" in which my character and my husband's character had a really intense argument. I must mention that my husband and I were not arguing, but our characters were, much like in a play. This is why it's my favorite part. Stage fright is not an issue when you're acting in front of less than 10 of your friends. Well, and buying pretty dice is fun. Yes, I'm a geek. But I'm a girl geek.

After the game, we stayed for dinner and then watched some Firefly after the kids went to bed. Sunday Brandon went to play a Dungeons and Dragons game by himself. He invited me to join in, but I just wasn't in the mood to play D&D with a bunch of guys I don't know very well (most of them not at all, actually). I didn't know that they would be playing two games. Note: Most games last a really long time. See the bit above where I say that the three-hour game was the shortest I've ever played in. I've played in several that last upwards of eight hours. Also see the bit above where I mention my ADD*. Fortunately, these games were designed to each run a total of 4 hours. Still kind of annoyed me that I didn't know about it. But what really pissed me off is that after his first nap, Adam decided that he was going to be the crankiest fussbudget ever. He wouldn't sit, he wouldn't play, he wouldn't nap, he just whined. I could have really used another pair of hands, and my whole family was at my cousin's wedding in Massachusetts. We couldn't afford to go, so I was stuck in my apartment for 12 hours with a whining infant. Brandon called twice to tell me he would be later than he thought. The thought going through my head was, I am so blogging about this.

But like I said, I've been trying to write this post for about two days, and I didn't get the chance to whine at all of you. :) After he finished playing the D&D games, he went out (at nearly midnight) to go grocery shopping for a bunch of foody-type items we needed, and when he came back, he also had ice cream, chocolate milk, and flowers. The flowers were alstroemerias, which mean "I'm sorry". Awesome. Ice cream = even better. Chocolate milk = OMG. No no no. You don't understand. I am a chocolate milk FIEND. Nine times out of ten, I will choose chocolate milk over alcohol -- even if I wasn't still nursing. It's truly like crack to me. And then all day Monday he was doing nice things for me, favors and such. Almost like having a personal slave. Almost. He did have schoolwork he had to get done for class today.

Good weekend.

P.S.: Tonight, because apparently we did not get enough Star Wars in our geeky diet, we watched A New Hope. Sigh. There is no chance that my son will not be a geek.

P.P.S.: I want to apologize for this incredibly verbose post. I will endeavor to write future posts earlier in the day, in an effort to rein in my rambling nature.

*I do tend to talk about ADD casually sometimes, but in this case, I am actually one of the roughly 4% of Americans who suffers from Adult Attention Deficit Disorder. Not ADHD, Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder -- I'm not bouncing off the walls, I just have a hard time concentrating, paying attention, remembering things, and procrastinating. A hard enough time that when I was in high school, I did see a behavioral specialist (against my will, at first) and take medication to treat it. Not Ritalin, but Adderall, which is milder (Ritalin is usually for ADHD).

I mention this because I don't mind sharing bits of my personal life with you, but I want to spell out the facts, rather than throw around terms carelessly. Occasional casual references are fine, but continual misuse of the terms really bothers me. I assume that people are, at least at their core, decent human beings, and if someone misuses these terms, I assume it is because they misunderstand. Thus, if one of these terms comes up, I try to educate the user. If the terms are abused, I get pissy. Just sayin'.

Haiku Friday

Time for something new:
A fresh, fun game on my blog
Called Haiku Friday

From Christina's blog,
An alternative to posts
Long and hard to write.

Some weeks have a theme
Others are purely random
This week is "School Time."

My husband teaches,
Substituting for many
Local school districts.

He also went back
To get his certificate
For high school English

This week was the start
Of both learning and teaching
I think I'll miss him.

Christina over at A Mommy Story started doing Haiku Friday with Jennifer over a year ago as an alternative to spending the first part of the weekend writing a long, detailed blog post. Still going strong, this week's batch had over 40 participants! Although I'm late as usual, I'm participating this week. Of course, I'm sending my husband off to school this week, not my son -- that day will come (not soon enough).

Anyone else who feels so inclined should join in as well. If you have never written haiku before, it's not hard. The only requirements: three lines long, first line is five syllables long, second is seven, third is five. It just takes a few extra minutes (or a good thesaurus -- I recommend Thesaurus.com). Christina explains how you can participate and put one of those cute little buttons on the post or on your sidebar, and you can get added to the list. Come on, it'll be fun, and you might even find some new cool blogs to frequent or get some new traffic to your own (woot!).

Peace out!

Helping Bloggers Everywhere

I am a newbie blogger.

In case I haven't mentioned that yet. I mean, I've done some LiveJournal-ing before, but this is my first "real live blog," per se. A friend of mine does a lot of blogging (she's a really good writer!). I've been checking out her blog, A Mommy Story, and came across this:





Do what now?

So I clicked on it. It took me to Motherhood Uncensored (Note: when she says uncensored, she means it! That said, her blog is also very good, and very funny).

This is Kristen's amazingly brilliant and clever idea:


If you read blogs, then for the month of August, make the "pledge" to click through from your feed reader. No obligation to leave a hilarious comment or send a long stalkerish email (although both, within reason, are always lovely). Just click through to the blog (not on ads unless you are so led) and if you're feeling generous, click around to their older posts.

Just those extra page views can make a big difference for bloggers who could really use the help, or in my case, where page views don't matter so much, a big fat ego boost.


Sure, I'll join in (better late than never, right? and of course, I'm a geek -- I wanna do what all the cool kids are doing). Now that you mention it, this year has not gone so well -- my husband is going back to school for a teaching certificate in the hopes that this time next year, it will make him more employable. I'm looking for work, despite the knowledge that most of that income will go to pay for childcare. And I know everyone out there has similar problems right now. So go ahead and click that button, read some blogs, every click to an older page counts. I mean, you're gonna read them anyway, right? Just take that extra minute to go to the blog itself and help your fellow bloggers out.

And if you like what you see here, feel free to keep reading into September, too. :)

Until next time!

Mission Statement: Part II

I do actually want to write something here about who I am, what I do, and what I want to accomplish here. Last night's post was really just about getting my blog up and running. I was tired, but I wanted to put up anything, even as short and sweet as that was. Figuring out where to start is always the hardest part for me. In fact, when I was in school and writing papers, I would frequently write the middle first and then go back later to put in the introduction.

But I digress.

First up: Who the hell are you?
Hi! I don't think we've been formally introduced. I'm Melissa (Mel for short), a twenty-something SAHM, SCA participant, gamer, comic book reader, musician of sorts, knitter, sewer, and other crafter, and general all-around nerd. But in a good way, I think. I am also wife to Brandon, a teacher and perpetual student (also a geek), and mother to Adam, an 8-month-old who will most likely end up a geek himself. Poor kid. Hopefully we won't screw him up more than that.

And why should I care?
Well, like many of you (maybe all of you), I'm a mom. It's up to each of us to support one another, and to look to each other for support when we need it. I hope this becomes a source for support, for the give and take of advice, a place to read and anticipate or reminisce. In the short term, maybe just a fun place to visit for a laugh. Kids are usually pretty good at providing comedic material.

So that's a starting place. More to come soon!