Stay-At-Home Momming: Not What I Imagined!

Sweet B has gotten me the job that I always wanted: Stay-At-Home Mom.

If my pregnancy had gone normally I would still be working. We wouldn't have sold our home. Our lives would look so incredibly different. We might not be struggling financially like we are now and we wouldn't have to worry about health insurance.

But my little Sweet B needs lots of attention, and not to mention that the cost of a medical daycare (for her g-tube) would be horrendous. So here I am, at home.

I had always wanted this job, but thought that I would have to continue working to continue owning our home. God certainly had other plans! And let me just tell you that I am thrilled about this. This is what I had always wanted, but it just came to me in a different way than I had daydreamed about. (My daydream consisted of me staying at home with a baby while our business provided enough for me to stay at home, with no worries at all. We would own that home fifteen minutes away from the beach in one of the most expensive areas in the United States, and would even have extra money to take family vacations.) This daydream of mine now makes me laugh hysterically!

So now I find myself being that stay-at-home mom that I always wanted to be. I had pictured myself being involved in a moms groups and cooking all of our meals and sitting down as a family to eat three times a day. I was going to be a real Martha Stewart and do one load of laundry a day while working out during my baby's naps and getting to bed at a decent hour. I was also going to be fabulously in shape as I would have lots of time to focus on cooking and eating right and exercising. My husband and I would have people over every weekend for cook-outs and I would play a very active role in my church.

Well, you know where I am heading with this post...

This is not how my staying at home has turned out. Really, the only part that has come true is that I am in a moms group. That's it! I now realize that the life that I described probably doesn't exist for many stay-at-home moms. If it does, kudos to them!

The reality is that I'm a different kind of stay-at-home mom. Sweet B has many appointments. She has physical therapy once a week. Her teacher teaches her for one hour a week. She also has feeding therapy. Up until now we have had bi-weekly weight-ins to insure her putting on weight. Of course, I can't forget to mention the hospital stays.

The things that "normal" moms just see happen, such as watch their baby drink a bottle or teach themselves to crawl, are things that Sweet B and I work for.

I have homework from her teacher, as well as from her physical and occupational therapist. I must ensure that I am giving her every opportunity to catch up and be the most that she can be. Every week I am given homework by the specialists that I mentioned above, and it is very important to me that I do it. I respect them and their knowledge immensely, and know that it is my responsibility to give Sweet B everything that she needs to grow into her full potential.

My homework for this week consists of:
-Thirty minutes per day of tummy time. She has to be actively raising herself up on her arms or at least turning her head to the right, as she tends to favor the left.
-I have to work on her reflexes with her as she sits, and help her to understand how to catch herself if she falls.
-I have to do something with her called the "tall kneel" which is when she kneels, in order to get her ready to pull herself to a standing position.
-I have to work with her honey bear cup at least three times a day and do solids three times a day, even though 99% of the time it ends unsuccessfully and I end up giving her the whole feed through her tube.
-I have to put a cold carrot in her mouth to push back her gag reflex, and I have to buy a vibrating toothbrush to try to desensitize her orally.
-I have to work on cause and effect with her using various toys.
-I have to work on sensory experiences for her such as putting her feet on the grass or in the sand.

-I have to get her used to laying in all directions. Today we went to the park to swing to help her with vestibular issues.

I also have to ensure that she gets at least twenty-four ounces of formula a day, somehow, and make up for what she throws up during the day with her feeding pump throughout the night.

I love doing these things for her. I love her teacher and her physical therapist. I love that they trust me enough to give me homework and know that I will follow through.

But it's tough. One thing that I have to do is have balance. I struggle with the feeling that I have to make every. single. second of Sweet B's life a productive one. There are so many things for me to practice with her and so many opportunities. Unfortunately this kind of thought process leads to two things happening: I get stressed out and I miss out on happy, stress-free moments that I need to cherish because Sweet B will never be a one year-old again.

Today I put her down for her afternoon nap and laid on the bed with my dogs while reading blogs. My three-legged dog hurt herself and cried so loudly that she woke Sweet B up way too early. I picked her up, feeling that I should do something productive with her, but instead I put her on my bed with the dogs, brought her some toys, and continued my blog reading. At first I felt guilty, but then I felt...happy...relaxed...calm. I loved looking at her beautiful face. I noticed how she loved rubbing her feet against the soft comforter. I put her on her tummy and watched her squirm around and raise herself up on her arms to look at me and laugh, over and over again. And what do you know? She did much more than her required thirty minutes of tummy time, and I got to enjoy just laying with her on my bed!

So this is my goal and I'm putting it out here for you to see: I want to have balance in my life and I want to enjoy Sweet B, and not feel the absolute need for every minute to be productive for her. I also want to cook and have cook-outs and exercise during her nap. I want to realize what is most important, such as exercising and cooking and socializing and spending sweet moments with Sweet B, and what is not, such as doing a load of laundry a day or having a perfectly clean home.

Is this doable? I think it is. I'm up for it.

Is my hard work with Sweet B paying off? You bet it is!

Her teacher says that she is a completely different baby than when she first met her a few months ago. She willingly touches things that are weird such as shaving cream with beans and rice mixed in and she puts it on her face, but of course not in her mouth! She understands up and down and dog and mommy and daddy and knows how to push buttons on her toys to make things happen. She can point out an apple on a flashcard (I kid you not!) She doesn't like it when her teacher gives her a cool toy and then takes it away, which is very developmentally appropriate. She gets our silly jokes and plays peek-a-boo with us and doesn't allow me to walk in the other room without her.

Her physical therapist has seen her in six weeks go from not wanting to lay on her side and not sitting at all, to rolling, sitting on her own, and completely extending herself on her arms.

Both of these specialists have had to come up with new goals for Sweet B, because she already met her old goals in such a short period of time! She is blossoming. She is intelligent. She is demonstrating her will to live a fulfilling life.

The specialists give me praise for my follow-through at home. I give them praise for teaching me how to do physical therapy with her and showing me how to play with her and teach her cause and effect. Although my degree is in child development, I don't remember a thing that I learned about babies, and these specialists are brilliant, and show me how to help Sweet B grow in all ways. We all give the most credit to Sweet B though. She is the one having to do all of this work. She is the one who had such a hard gestation and then a NICU stay and had to deal with being tiny and weak and not allowed to go out during the winter because of the danger of RSV and the flu.

*Side note: We left her old feeding therapist who was over an hours drive away, and are waiting to be evaluated in three weeks with the new one. This means that I am her feeding therapist for now. And being that I know nada about feeding therapy, I really suck at it. But hey, I've gotten her to drink an ounce out of her honey bear cup at each feeding, and for that, I am thrilled! That took three months for her stubborn little self to finally succumb to!

I love staying at home with Sweet B. Our finances are a deep source of stress for us. Keeping all of these appointments and doing all of our homework is hard. But I wouldn't trade it for the world. She is worth every gray hair and the one million minutes that I have spent unsuccessfully trying to get her to suck on the straw. She is worth every single pureed pea that she spits from her mouth, and every drama queen cry that I have to listen to because she doesn't want to do tummy time.

She is worth all of this and so much more.

Rest assured, it's not all homework around here! And school isn't boring either. Mrs. Allison brought some shaving cream over and had Sweet B play in it, something that she would never have done a month or two ago!

We introduced Sweet B to the slide too, and she loved it.

My promise to you and to Sweet B is that we will always take the time to put our toes in the sand...