Do I stay or do I go now?

... If I go there might be trouble. If I stay there will be double. Do I stay or do I go now?

To all unknowing eyes, I'm living the dream. I have an amazing home in the Vermont countryside. I drink my coffee in the morning on the deck as I listen to the sounds of the birds singing and the river gracefully flowing by. I kiss my gorgeous husband and adorable babies goodbye and I head off to a job that is well paying. In fact, so well paying that it affords us the luxury of a one-parent working household. I work in the fulfilling healthcare industry, taking care of those who are dependent on me. I come home each night to dinner made by my adorable husband. I drink wine on the same deck that I drank my coffee on earlier that day. We are not rich, by any means, but we get by... comfortably.

Sounds pretty amazing, right? So what's the problem?

Someone once told me that I am never happy. That I'm always looking for the next best thing. I took massive issue with that statement years ago. Fortunately, or unfortunately, age has caused me to grow wiser. Maybe she was right?

I miss my kids. Yes, these annoying little creatures who wake me up all night. The same beings who pluck my last nerve and cause me to wonder what in the hell I was thinking when getting knocked up. The same little people who have given me bags under my eyes and constant stress in my heart. The exact human beings who are so needy that the sound of getting in a car alone and driving non-stop for 30 hours sounds appealing. I miss those little fuckers. (Don't fault me for saying that, you know it's meant in the most endearing way possible! You have little fuckers too... and you know it!)

I just read back to one of my posts in which I was racing down the road to get to work when Gabe was 8 weeks old. I don't know if it's maturity or just experiencing the 'other side' of working full time, but I have had a total change of heart. I don't care about the vacations, the cars, the house. I want to experience the everyday. The daily nuances of life. I want to clean the bathroom, and make dinners... and grocery lists... oh how I miss grocery lists!

So, the question is: Do I continue working in a job where I am not entirely happy or do we sell our home and buy something much smaller so that I can stay home?

Do I stay or do I go now?

To be continued...........................................................

Two years, seriously? Good thing I have no expectations

I really should change the title of my blog to Parenting without Expectations, but it just doesn't have the same appealing 'ring' to it. I fully expect that I'm yet to be discovered and certainly the title of my blog is a real eye catcher.

I'm not sure how I ended up letting this blog go for two years, but life happens. A couple years, a few states away, and two toddlers later... I'm back. I can't make any promises that I wont disappear again for several years, but tonight I am fully here. I'm all yours. Well, that's not true... I'm all theirs. My husband and I have already negotiated who will be taking which child tonight. He'll take Thing #2. She'll be up by 11:00 pm. She's getting way too attached to mommy, who is now working full time and is WAY too tired to be up for an hour in the night. I'll take Thing #1. Hopefully he'll sleep through the night, although it's hit or miss. Last week was nightmares, this week it's vomiting. Honestly, it's a crapshoot. My husband and I wake up in the morning and instead of the good morning kisses and greetings we used to enjoy, it's a game of who had the worse night. It goes something like this:

Me: "Did you put the coffee on?"

Him: "Not yet, Julia just woke up."

Me: "Nice, I've been up since 5:30.. glad you slept in."

Him: "Since when is getting up at 6:15 sleeping in? Besides, she was up from 2 to 3:30. How did Gabe sleep?"

Me: "He slept on the floor again, ended up waking himself up when he rolled under his bed and got stuck. I'm exhausted, can you put the coffee on?"

I'll never forget when Gabe was a newborn and one of my girlfriends told me about her six year old who was sleeping in her room. My self control must have escaped me with the placenta and without a filter I exclaimed, "What the fuck? Your kid isn't sleeping through the night at six?" She smiled with that 'knowing' mother look and calmly replied, "No". Clearly not satisfied with that answer I asked, "Will I ever sleep normally again?" Her response: "You will sleep normally again, but it will be a new normal." Um.... a new normal? What the hell does that mean, I wondered? Two years later I finally GET it. New normal = You get used to functioning on 6, maybe 7, hours of interrupted sleep for the rest of your life. Lack of sleep becomes such a way of life that over time it becomes your new 'normal'. Long gone are the days of sleeping 'in'. Alarm clock? Dude, the Things that wake us up in the morning have no 'snooze' button.

Goodnight.