The Accidental Stay at Home Mom...

So I have a confession for all of you.


Ready??

I didn't want to be a stay at home mom.  Surprised? Yeah. I'm probably just as surprised at the fact that I actually am a stay at home mom now as you are at the fact that I didn't want to be one.

Now I don't have anything against stay at home moms, in fact I admire them, a lot. For a while I just admired them from afar, thinking "I could never do that" so my admiration grew.  But I want to teach and as much as I knew I would love my kids, I couldn't imagine not teaching.  Plus, to be honest I had seen a lot of tired stay at home moms whose lives seemed to only consist of art projects, nap problems and diapers.  It seemed exhausting and kinda boring. (funny how I was working with 2's at the time we had Lizzie so I don't know what I thought I was avoiding....)

So when we got pregnant with Lizzie, I had a plan.  I was going to have Lizzie, take my maternity leave and then go right back to my teaching career.  And then things changed.

(quick side note, a few months before Lizzie was due, we found out that my daycare center was closing.  The company was really awesome and helped all of us relocate to new centers.  I'm not sure how much this contributed to my decision to stay home but I thought I would explain a little so there's no confusion when reading this next part :-) )

A few weeks into my maternity leave my new director e-mailed me and asked when I would be coming to work for them and what position and hours I wanted to work.  She also asked if I was sure I wanted to come back to work (not because she didn't want me to come but she understood that sometimes after you have a baby your mind can change about coming back to work.) and to be honest, I wasn't. I couldn't believe it...

Now to be fair, Lizzie had a considerable amount of stuff going on at the time (I'll share more later) and it was really hard to think of leaving her.  But I decided to still go back to work but only part time.  I told her and myself that it was because we had AMAZING friends who would watch Lizzie 3 days a week and then I had the other 2 days off.  But I was working 3 10 hour days, closing (so leaving at 6) and driving home to Crystal Lake (and hour to and hour and a half trip).

After a few months I was tired and frustrated and sad.  I wasn't enjoying my job any more because I was both frustrated with the situation and I sub-consciously wanted to be home with my baby girl.  And those 2 things fed off each other until I just couldn't handle it.  So we looked at our finances and found that if we were careful we could afford for me to stay home.  My awesome husband told me it was my choice and whatever I wanted/needed to do we would make work (that's right, he's amazing- be jealous.. just kidding...)

So I put in a month's notice and now my life is completely different and I wouldn't change it for anything. I still want to teach, someday, but now the thought of leaving Lizzie and the thought of not having the same experience with all our kids make me sad.  So for right now my job is being mommy.  The pay is awful and my boss is a hot mess sometimes but it really is the most rewarding job I've ever held.  No matter how many children's lives I have affected or will affect will ever equal the impact I can have on my own children.  They are the ones who need me most and and the children I need the most.