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Tag Archive for: being a mom

I Need to Take a Break

General, Me, Myself, and I, Mom Talk
Embracing Motherhood I Need to Take a Break

If you’ve seen my pictures on FaceBook, you’ll know that our family just had an incredible vacation at Wolf Creek Lodge. While it’s true that we had a great time and really bonded as a family, the bottom line is that it left me feeling physically and emotionally drained.

Ruby and Elliot are so sweet and independent…ready to take on the world with us as their guides. But Ophelia and Julian are still a bit timid and afraid, needing us to hold their hands a bit more. Going out into the world on this vacation was really fun for the older kids, but it was completely overwhelming for the little ones…and for me.

Cuddling with Julian (15 Months)

Cuddling with Julian (15 Months)

Being so close in age, Ophelia and Julian seem to constantly need me and compete for my attention. Being on vacation just exacerbated their needs, and now they are even more fragile and seem to need me even more than before we left!

Cuddling with Ophelia

Cuddling with Ophelia

The bottom line is that I am feeling completely overwhelmed. I need a break. And so I’m taking one!

As much as I enjoy Embracing Motherhood and as much as it fulfills me and gives me joy to create and share the things I am learning and creating, being there for my family gives me EVEN MORE joy! And so I am going to take a break from blogging. I am going to take a break from FaceBook, Instagram, Google Plus, and Twitter. I am going to unplug from these things so that I can focus on the most important aspect of my life. My family.

I will still be working on my flashcards and videos because they are a part of my daily homeschool routines, but I will not be blogging about them until my hiatus is complete.

Thank you in advance for understanding!

February 21, 2016/by Stacey Maaser
https://embracing-motherhood.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/me-and-my-babies.png 400 810 Stacey Maaser https://embracing-motherhood.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/EM_Logo.png Stacey Maaser2016-02-21 08:21:122024-06-06 14:25:51I Need to Take a Break

The Metamorphosis of Motherhood

Guest Blogs, Mom Stories
The Metamorphosis of Motherhood Embracing Motherhood

By Guest Blogger: Lisa Hogan

Ever since I was a little girl, I wanted to be a mother. It’s what I wanted to be when I “grew up”. Then I graduated college, got married, and my husband informed me that we were broke and had to work a few years until we could have children. That was hard, but I threw myself into my work and learned to enjoy the flow of it. It took longer than I wanted, but finally my husband said we could start trying for a baby. One month went by, then another, then another. Every month was a let down. I eventually thought we were infertile and became a bit depressed. But I just decided to focus on work, fashion, recipes, and travel, and time passed by. I liked my life.

After one year it finally happened. I was pregnant! I could hardly believe it. It was what I had always dreamed of. I was ecstatic! Everything was wonderful.

Then reality hit. I couldn’t exercise like before. I had to cut down on caffeine and sugar. I couldn’t eat all sorts of other things that were dangerous during pregnancy. Harumph! Besides that, I started to “show”. Everyone was telling me how my face looked different. They wanted to touch my growing bump. Then I started getting forgetful, gassy, bloated, and my acne got worse. Call it hormones, but it was a big reality check. As I approached the due date this baby made it hard to sleep, caused cramps in my legs, and I couldn’t even walk very long before I started to ache all over. I retired from work the last month and a half and tried to read all I could for the future that awaited me.

Then the day arrived. Labor! It was everything I expected and more! After trying for a home birth, I ended up in the hospital, and after 36 hours we finally got to meet Tristan. I was now a real MOTHER! It was amazing. I felt all those mama hormones start to surge through me. I loved this boy. He had been a part of me, and now on the outside he felt like he was still part of me. It’s like the umbilical cord was and is still there.

Again, reality soon set in. I didn’t get my body back as fast as I thought. I could no longer leave this little boy without leaking milk, feeling anxious about him, or missing him terribly. Going out to eat was no longer fun and relaxing. While at a restaurant, he would start to cry, we would get embarrassed, I would try to nurse him, the nursing cover would fall off, no one really got to eat their meal, and we realized that it just wasn’t working anymore. Don’t even get me started about sleep! That didn’t happen much with a small baby. Also, talking to other adults would typically end in some sort of small catastrophe with a crying baby at the end.

Anyways, this is where I think new mothers can learn a thing or two from the butterfly. A caterpillar might be happy and carefree, eating away, focused on herself and the needs of the moment for awhile, then at some point the desire for something more switches and she encases herself and becomes a pupa. In this stage the caterpillar sacrifices EVERYTHING from it’s past life. To move to the next stage, the caterpillar, and a new mother, has to sacrifice everything. There might be a bit of sadness and nostalgia as you realize you can never really go back to those carefree days of just eating leaves. A mother really does transform too. She becomes something totally different. Those first few months are crucial as she becomes forever bonded to this new little person. When the butterfly emerges after it’s encasement there’s a lot to learn and do. A butterfly now can dart around on the wind, pollinating flowers, finding a mate and producing more caterpillars. It’s an exciting new stage.

Metamorphosis_of_a_Butterfly_Merrian_1705

Metamorphosis of a Butterfly (Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons, by Merian Maria Sybilla, 1705)

Being a mother I feel like I have changed in so many ways. As my baby started to be content to stay on the blanket for while, and as he slept more, I could start to gain some of my “old” life back, but all of it with a different focus and appreciation. There is a different goal in life, and a lot of it revolves around this new little baby. There is so much to learn and do as a mother. It is difficult, and you do have to change the way you do just about EVERYTHING. But after this transformation, there is a new sense of duty and excitement to life. There’s so much fulfillment in wearing an outfit that suits crawling around on the floor above any expression of fashion.

Bottom line, once a baby is on the way, your life is beginning to change, and it’s a wonderful journey. Don’t yearn for the caterpillar stage once you’ve become a butterfly. Embracing motherhood means SO MUCH when you let it really change you. When you embrace these changes, you love your new wardrobe. You love dancing with your baby. Rocking them to sleep. Delighting them with a peekaboo or a tickle. When they are peacefully asleep after a day of adventures you feel so accomplished. I never thought I would find someone I would be so HAPPY to share my raspberries with (and I love raspberries by the way).

I am a mother, and I absolutely love that it defines me now.

The Metamorphosis of Motherhood Embracing Motherhood

The Metamorphosis of Motherhood

Bio: Little sister of Stacey Maaser. Mother of a tender-hearted 2-year-old boy. Resting somewhere between an all natural hippy, and a modern, super clean city girl.

February 9, 2016/by Stacey Maaser
https://embracing-motherhood.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/the-metamorphosis-of-motherhood.png 400 810 Stacey Maaser https://embracing-motherhood.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/EM_Logo.png Stacey Maaser2016-02-09 17:46:102020-11-20 15:31:42The Metamorphosis of Motherhood

How Motherhood has Changed Me: A Testimony

Guest Blogs, Mom Stories

By Guest Blogger: Renee Washburn

Up until the point where my husband and I considered starting a family, I never really gave motherhood that much thought.  However, when I was just a baby, I had a great infatuation with other babies and children.  One of my first words was “baby”, and I always migrated to other babies throughout my childhood and my preteen years.  I began babysitting on my own at 11 and tried starting my own babysitting business.  From that point on, I always had a job each week until I graduated high school.

It was just in me.  I loved babies and children and I felt like I could relate with them.  Throughout my 20s, I was always involved in the youth programs with our church, and to this day still have many young people around me.  I always thought that when the day came for my own baby, it would just be second nature, but there was something that I hadn’t thought about.  Pregnancy.  Labor.  Delivery.  Oh crap, I have heard nothing but horror stories!  I was scared to have a baby inside me growing and then have to “deliver” it?!  But it seems as thought God knew before the foundations of the world how much I would learn and learn to love this phase and the passion that would develop to help others see how amazing it truly is.

Planning for a Baby

About a year before our first born was conceived, I had inherited a whole stack of baby books from a friend.  She knew I had been thinking about having a baby so she thought it would be nice for me to understand a little of what I was getting into.  I was sure thankful for that!  I read the beginning of “What to Expect When You Are Expecting” and what options are available for expectant moms.  I did have some clue as to the options in regards to pain management, and I had heard that my mom was able to give birth naturally.  She spoke about it a lot while I was growing up and her choice of breastfeeding and how it was the most natural.  Well, me being a person who chooses the natural, God supplied route, I was interested in learning about natural birth.  I had heard about such a thing as “midwives’ and thought that might be nice since I didn’t really like medical doctors all that much.  In this section of the book I saw that there was such a thing as a “birth center” and a “certified nurse-midwife.”  I liked both those options so I instantly decided this was my choice.
Now to see if Dallas, Texas had either of those options.  (I am a planner, and I feel like I need to have a plan set before I start the actual journey.)  So sure enough, Dallas had both of those, and it seemed somewhat affordable.  But we first needed my husband to get a good job that would allow me stay home with our children.  This process lasted for months and months and months until it just became clear it was not available.  Then we found out that my mother was sick and my dad was having a challenging time taking care of her, my grandmother, and working full time.  Time to move.
So we packed up what we had and headed across the country to New England to live with my parents and grandmother!  It was a great change from the tiny apartment we were living in to a large 3,200+ square foot home with an apartment attached for my grandmother.  One evening after we had settled in, my husband and I were watching “Call the Midwife” (a show that we had both had grown to enjoy) when an advertisement for midwives in Connecticut came on the screen.  My heart warmed and I immediately knew this is who we would have a baby with!  Little did I know that they were indeed Nurse-Midwives, but they did ONLY home births!!!  Home birth?!?!  What age are we living in?  The early 1900s?  I didn’t know of anyone who had a home birth and thought it was a little crazy.  But I knew how God worked in me and I knew that I needed to give this a chance.  So I set up an appointment to visit their home quarters down on the shoreline and asked a million questions..and I wasn’t even pregnant!  But as I left, I felt peaceful and knew this was it.  I trusted them. I believed they knew what they were doing and had my best interest at heart.  So the next weekend we got pregnant and the journey began.

Pregnancy

After the 7 weeks of morning sickness (which I now know is due to a lack of protein in my diet), I began my research on how to best grow this being inside me, take care of myself, and have a successful delivery at home.  One of my midwives suggested looking into a birthing class when I was about 12 weeks along because I had so many questions!  So I found the closest Bradley Method teacher, for the best price, and boy did I find the BEST teacher!  She was a mother of 4, had a home birth, and was studying to become a midwife!  She had loads and loads of information and really just helped my husband and I immensely.  I felt so blessed to have had her.  God is sure good!!  Every time we learned something new, I felt like my brain grew and my eyes were enlightened.  And each time I gave glory to my Heavenly Father because I knew that this is His will for all women and He knew how bad I wanted it!
As the months crept along, the anticipation grew, and we were more prepared than ever.  I would only let positive images and thoughts and stories into my mind and heart.  I would not listen to anything negative, and I really believe that this is why I had such an amazing birth experience.  I just believed and trusted God whole heartedly for everything to be the best, and not just me, but my husband as well.  We were completely like-minded about everything which in turn helped our marriage by being more on the same page about just about everything than we ever had been.  This “baby” was bringing us closer together!
My due date came and went and Baby Washburn did not show himself until 2 weeks later. (We did not know it was a boy at the time. We stayed away from all ultrasounds because it has been proven to affect the fetus, and health insurance did not cover them.)  So we were surprised when we found out it was a boy, although we both deeply wanted a boy and internally knew it was one.

Birth

My active labor lasted less than 10 hours, and everything moved along at a nice pace.  I was in the shower, in the kiddie pool, and then standing over the toilet pushing!  There was one moment when I said while sitting up in the pool, “Now I understand while people want epidurals!”  But I was glad I didn’t get one because I would rather have this beautiful experience than lying on my back in a bright hospital room pushing whenever the doctor says to push.

Breastfeeding

Breastfeeding went extremely well.  Again, I read credible books, and I trusted God that I would be able to do it. My milk came in early and my son gained all the weight he needed. He was and still is incredibly happy and healthy.  I have never pumped or given him a bottle.  I have never left him with someone else.  I strongly believe that breast is the best and my needs are second to his needs right now.  It is only for a short period of time and I would rather have this time with him now than regret that I didn’t spend enough time with him when he was a baby.  I rarely get tired.  And if I do need a shower or bath break, my husband or my parents are in the house to spend some quality time with him.  When he has weened himself then I will treat myself to a spa day.

Circumcision

There was a debate between my husband and I about whether or not to circumcise.  I really did not see the need as I had heard and read that in the Bible they were circumcised on the 8th day because that is
when Vitamin K was being produced. But when was this circumcision happening?  In the Old Testament, and we know that this was for this specific group of people.  It does not say in the New Testament, after Jesus Christ, for us to circumcise.  There was a significance for this ritual, and we do not need it now.  But what about keeping it clean?  Why not just teach him to clean it!  Why would God have the foreskin there to begin with if He wanted you to cut it off?  And why aren’t girls circumcised?  They have foreskin too… So yeah, there is a big debate in the world about this.  But I am glad my husband realized the unnecessary means for this ritual and decided to keep all my baby’s body parts.

Sleeping

Sleep arrangements have been another debate in our family.  We have a large dog and in my mind there was no way a baby was going to sleep in our bed because of him.  Over and over I had heard mothers telling me that co-sleeping is best, but I could not fathom it!  I did not want my dumb dog to accidentally sleep on him.  How horrible!  At first, we had a bassinet that would be next to me, and I planned that I would just pick him up whenever he needed to nurse.  But then 3 days before he was born, I had this thought that I needed to sleep with him in the bed, for at least the first few days.  So we trained our dog to sleep in the living room, and it worked!
A few days of baby in bed with us as turned into weeks, then months, and now he is almost 10 months old and still sleeps with us.  I have thought about moving him to his crib because it was getting a little uncomfortable for me, but really, he is still feeding at least 2 or 3 times at night and it just didn’t seem right.  So he is still with us and I enjoy every night with him.  I have read and have heard from other moms that they will leave the bed, eventually, on their own, then they are ready.  So I am still learning about this one.

Vaccines

Boy that was a hard choice to make.  I read for weeks and prayed for months to find the best information and advice on whether or not to vaccinate, and this is what we decided.  Since I am a stay at home mom who plans on home schooling my children, there is really no point to inject them with a serum composed of mercury, formaldehyde, aluminum, and cells from monkeys.  Again, my philosophy of God had it figured out in the beginning of how are bodies can fight and fend for itself.  Go natural- go God’s way.  “We are fearfully and wonderfully made…”

In Conclusion

In my day to day life as a mother, I really just go back to simplicity and doing it the natural way.  God’s way.  Everything from our marriage, to personal decisions on finances (living debt-free and living within our means), to being a stay at home mom, to daily time in God’s Word, to daily prayer, meditation, exercise, walking, yoga, stretching, home school, having a naturopathic pediatrician, eating an organic, balanced diet, drinking and making kombucha, avoiding processed foods and sugar…
This new role of motherhood has changed me for the better.  It is something that I love and feel confident about. It’s like my whole life up until the day I gave birth to my son was for this purpose.  So why not do it RIGHT.  Every day I pray that God will show me how to do it the right way the first time.  I don’t want to have to correct a whole bunch of bad habits.  I want to do it right.  I am not saying that everything that I do is the right way, but so far it has worked for me incredibly.
I am not someone to just do it my own way and close all doors to what other mothers are doing.  I seek, I ask, I explore, I observe, and I absorb.  I want to be the mother that God originally designed from the beginning.  This is my desire and this is my quest.  Initially my husband and I wanted 4 children, but not really knowing what that means, we will take it one at a time.  We love our first child with everything we have and do have room for another in our heart.  So we will just take it from

Author Bio: Renee is a married stay at home mother of one sweet 10 month old boy. She loves learning new things, living a natural life, and is passionate about her faith.

February 2, 2016/by Stacey Maaser
https://embracing-motherhood.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/motherhood.png 400 810 Stacey Maaser https://embracing-motherhood.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/EM_Logo.png Stacey Maaser2016-02-02 18:03:202018-11-03 16:10:11How Motherhood has Changed Me: A Testimony

The Story of How I Became a Stay at Home Mom

General, Me, Myself, and I, Mom Talk
Embracing Motherhood The Story of How I Became a Stay at Home Mom

I worked full time until my children were 6 and 18 months old, and choosing to be a stay at home mom was the best decision I ever made. I often wonder and regret why I didn’t do it sooner, but I did it nonetheless. Here’s my story.

I’ll always remember what it felt like the first day I went back to work after spending a glorious three months uninterrupted with my sweet first baby girl, Ruby. As I walked down the long hallway to my classroom, I was greeted with hugs and sympathetic sentiments.

One teacher even said,

“It’s okay to cry. I cried at first too.”

And I thought, yes I probably should cry. But oddly enough, I didn’t feel any tears. I wondered what was wrong with me that I wouldn’t be crying at the mere thought of leaving my sweet, precious, exclusively breastfed little infant in the arms of someone else.

I mean, it was my mom watching her, but still…

So, as I stood there in my classroom, all set up and ready for the students that had been waiting patiently with a substitute during the first three months of school for me to return, and I tried to see if I could cry.

But before I could get at my true feelings, I had to peel back a few layers that were covering them up.

First, I peeled back the excuse that I had to do this because we couldn’t afford to make ends meet any other way, then I scraped away the sentiments that she was in good hands with my mother, and finally I sloughed off the guilty feelings about how bored I sometimes felt being home without any adult interaction, and how hard it actually was to be a mother.

What I found buried underneath was a very fresh wound that was very sensitive to these probing thoughts.

Just poking at that wound brought back a sudden flood of memories. And as I stood there remembering what it felt like to hold her the moment after she was born, the way she was always happiest to lay inbetween us cooing early in the mornings, the sweet smell of breast milk that was always on her skin, the softness of her little fingers as they would grasp at my face, and the way her eyes would widen and how she would reach for me desperately even when she merely glanced at me from across the room…

I suddenly felt like I couldn’t breath and the tears started to flow noiselessly in a stream down my cheek.

I was just about to start heaving and sobbing when I heard the shuffle of footsteps in the hallway. As I looked at the clock, I noticed that I only had a few more minutes to pull things together before I needed to greet my students for the day.

So, I took all of those memories and all of those feelings, and I buried them deep down into the pit of my soul.

Then I packed all of my excuses back on top until the feelings of pain became but a vague memory. And I felt something grow within me that would only grow stronger as time went on. It wasn’t really a feeling of anything, but the absence of feeling. It was a numbness that allowed me to focus on the tasks in front of me while burying an instinct that I just couldn’t let out.

A teacher who saw me crying ran in for a quick hug.


“Don’t worry,” she said expertly. “It will get easier.” And she was right. It did get easier.

With each passing day, I got better at burying my true emotions, and the painful wound of our separation began to heal into a weird disfigured scar. Every time I would hear my sweet precious daughter cry as I slipped out the door to go to work in the morning or back to work after nursing her at lunch, I would pack more excuses like a salve onto my wound.

Everyone that watched her at our home during the rest of the school year would always tell me,

“She always stops crying a few minutes after you’re gone,” as if that was supposed to console me. But it did.

I knew she was in good hands and that she was being loved and cared for. My mom would even bring her into the classroom for me to nurse her during every break that I had and would even hang out for hours in the back of the room playing quietly for the first month that I was back to work. But they weren’t MY hands taking care of her, and that was a fact that gnawed at me constantly.

When the family was done caring for Ruby and she had to be put into daycare, it really was the best possible scenario. A coworker’s mother in law did day care one mile from where I was teaching, and I was able to go and breastfeed her to sleep during my lunch break every single day. But even though Ruby was happy there and well cared for, I felt like I was missing out.

I would try to linger after dropping her off just to be able to spend a little more time with her, but the pressures of work were calling me, and I had to go. She still cried every day as I left, and it never stop hurting to leave her.

At the end of the day, the eight hours we were apart were summarized in a few sentences.

As I got a report of what she ate, whether or not she pooped, and any other milestones she accomplished, my mind was really only half listening because all I really wanted to do was just whisk her away so that I could be with her as much as I could for the remainder of the day. But there were always errands to run, dinner to prepare, and things to do around the house, and it just felt like there was never enough TIME.

After a tough and emotional return to work, I decided that a position utilizing my Master’s degree in Language Acquisition at another school would allow me more flexibility and freedom to be a better working mother. In my new job as ESL Instructional Coach the following year, I found that it was definitely a better blend of my two worlds.

But little did I know that even as I was interviewing for this new job, I was pregnant with our second child, and he was about to change everything.

Elliot was born peacefully in front of the fireplace of our little one bedroom condo in December, and after only four weeks of maternity leave (we couldn’t afford to have my pay docked like we had with Ruby), I went back to work. (Did you know that every other industrialized nation except for America mandates full paid maternity leave? Go figure.)

Elliot was quite different from his independent, happy-with-anyone big sister. He was born ten days overdue, but he probably would have preferred to stay in there indefinitely. Even after he had been earthside for over a day, he still didn’t want to open his eyes and preferred instead to bury himself in my bosom and nurse constantly.

If a little bit of me died having to leave Ruby behind, leaving Elliot behind almost destroyed me. He needed me so much and my only consolation was that he slept most of the day and was up with me to nurse constantly throughout the night.

I almost didn’t even want to sleep inbetween feedings because I just wanted to hold on to each moment where the two of us could be snuggled up together soaking in the feel of his skin against mine and feeling his little body rise and fall with each breath.

Just as with Ruby, we had an onslaught of family visitors who moved in with us and helped take care of Elliot during my first six weeks back at work. After that, I only had to put him in day care for three months until the end of the school year. Throughout it all, he was always really close to my work and even though he would never take a bottle, I was able to go to him and nurse him every four hours.

Right up until before he was born, I had assumed that he would be taken care of by the sweet grandmotherly lady who lovingly took care of Ruby. But due to some unforeseen hip problems, she told me that she wouldn’t be able to take care of a new baby after all. That left me scrambling at the last minute to find someone else. I thought I found the perfect place right next to the school with a busy day care mom who had room for both Ruby and Elliot. I was sad to take Ruby out of her current placement, but happy to have both of my kids together.

When I came to nurse Elliot (10 weeks old) on my first break during their first day at this new place, I noticed that Ruby (17 months) was in her high chair eating food. I thought nothing of it until I came back at lunch only to see her nodding off, still in her high chair. When I came back at the end of the day, she was STILL in her high chair.

I was very upset, and the day care mom tried desperately to console me saying that she fell asleep there and had only just woken up. I was just like, “Why didn’t you put her in bed after she fell asleep in the high chair?” but she had no response.

The next day, I knew that I couldn’t take Ruby back there again, so I called Ruby’s sweet grandmotherly caretaker in tears and asked if she could take Ruby for the remainder of the year. She graciously agreed, but reminded me again that she wouldn’t be able to take care of Elliot too. Elliot seemed to do fine with the busy day care mom because he pretty much slept all day, and I had no other options, so that was that.

I’ll always remember the African lullaby songs that I would listen to every morning as I first dropped off Ruby, then Elliot to a parking lot near his drop off home where I would nurse him. When I hear that cd to this day, it still brings tears to my eyes.

I was desperately trying to juggle having a career, being a mom, being a wife, and taking care of myself, but I never had enough to give to everyone and so it felt like I was failing in all areas of my life.

When summer break finally came, I was in total and absolute heaven! I could finally be with my sweet babies all day and all night without any interruptions. We got into a nice little routine, and I really started to feel like not only was I surviving; I was thriving!

Instead of just worrying about our basic needs, I could actually spend time each day thinking of new ways to arrange our little house for the best play and learning opportunities, I had time to cook healthy meals for everyone, I could sleep when the kids slept without worrying about a clock, and most importantly, I could nurse my 6 month old Elliot on demand. He was VERY happy about that!

When we traveled back to our Michigan stomping ground that summer, we fell in love with being a family and being surrounded by family. When we came back to our Colorado home and our third floor condo with no air conditioning in 100° F weather, it just didn’t feel right. It felt empty and lonely, and I just couldn’t imagine what it would be like trying to get through another year while working. When we looked at our finances and saw that with two kids in daycare, it was hardly worth it for my husband to work, we made a big decision to have him be a stay at home dad and take care of the kids while I continued to work.

After those wheels were set in motion, and with the start date of my next school year quickly approaching, I just woke up one day and knew I couldn’t go back. Elliot was just getting used to me being around all the time, and I couldn’t bear to be apart from him again.

It felt like my heart would most certainly break into a thousand pieces if I couldn’t continue breastfeeding him on demand.

And then there was my sweet little Ruby who was already growing up so fast! At 18 months, she knew all of her letters and numbers and she was already starting to read. I wanted to be with her during every milestone, every cuddle, every naptime, and every tear. I wanted to be there for both of them, and I wanted to ENJOY my time with them, not just get through it.

After I made the phone call resigning from my position, I felt giddy with excitement! I was so happy to have finally made the decision to be with my little ones and set up a new life as a stay at home mom, but this in itself is another journey with its own story. 🙂

While we waited on the short sale of our condo, we packed up all of our things, said goodbye to the beautiful state of Colorado, our family there, our friends, and what had been our home for the last 6 years and moved into my parent’s house in Michigan.

After a few months, Scott got a job as a computer tech in a little rural town we had never heard of. He commuted over an hour every day until we finally accepted that even though it was a little farther from family than we would have liked, it was still a heck of a lot closer than Colorado, and it was really a great job in a nice location. So, we moved there. Now, we own an amazing house on a nice piece of land that’s much much cheaper than our condo in Colorado, and with two more kids, we couldn’t be happier!

I’ll always be a little bit sad about the times that I lost with Ruby and Elliot, but it was all a part of my journey and a part of our story, and I am so proud of how far we have come and what we have become.

At first, we tried to make our kids fit into our lives, just like trying to fit a round peg into a square hole. But now that we have centered every aspect of our lives around our children and me being a stay at home mom, I couldn’t imagine a simpler, happier, or more fulfilling way to spend these years.

Our babies are only babies for a short little while. Why is there so much pressure and such a hurried rush for women to “get back to work”?

Now, I totally understand that the life of a stay at home mom isn’t for everyone, and I am completely and totally fine sharing the same arena with mothers who choose to work or have no choice but to work, but

I feel like the voices that are out there cheering on the working mothers are MUCH LOUDER than the voices cheering on the stay at home mothers.

When I was struggling as a working mom, I got A LOT of encouragement from co-workers, family, friends, strangers, and the internet that what I was doing was ok, that it was hard but it would get easier, that my kids would be fine, and that I would be fine.

Only one brave soul, one of those grandmothers who become a mother again due to unfortunate circumstances, told me the truth.

“You never get those years back,”

she said to me one day. I felt offended and angry that she would suggest something that I felt at the time was impossible, but her words haunted me and were possibly the catalyst for me leaving my job to begin this wonderful career as a stay at home mom.

Comments like, “I could never do what you do.” or “Don’t you feel like you’re wasting your Master’s level education?” are sentiments that my husband and I have heard on more than one occasion. But worse than the negative comments are the absence of comments.

At times, my voice is soft, too soft perhaps, because I don’t want to offend anybody. We live in an age where everyone is fighting for women to have equal rights and equal pay, but who is fighting for the moms who want to stay home and raise their families?

We are looked at as ancient relics from our grandmother’s era, something that our progressive society has tried to do away with.

But I don’t want to be silent anymore. I want to shout from the top of a mountain (or at least blog through the channels of the Internet) that it’s okay to be a stay at home mom.

I’m not saying it’s better than being a working mom or that all moms should be stay at home moms, I’m just saying that being a stay at home mom isn’t a step down, or something we all do because we couldn’t do anything else. I see it as a privilege, an honor, and the best career move I could have ever made, and something I will never ever ever regret.

September 4, 2015/by Stacey Maaser
https://embracing-motherhood.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/stay-at-home-mom.jpg 400 400 Stacey Maaser https://embracing-motherhood.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/EM_Logo.png Stacey Maaser2015-09-04 10:13:012020-12-27 19:07:02The Story of How I Became a Stay at Home Mom

What Happened When My Daughter Told Me She Only Half Loved Me

General, Me, Myself, and I, Mom Talk
my five year old daughter outside wearing a winter coat and a serious look on her face

Ever since our fourth child has been born, I’ve kind of been in survival mode, trying to navigate the life of stay at home mom with an extra little person attached to my boob 24/7. My oldest daughter is 5 and our fourth child is 4 months old now, so needless to say, I’m a busy woman! But even though I’m very busy, I always try to make giving each child a lot of attention my top priority, or at least, I thought I did…

a picture my five year old drew to show how much she loves her daddy

I Love My Dad and My Dad Loves Me

for 100s day Ruby said she wished she had 100 dads

I Wish I Had 100 Dads

 

It all started one morning when I was talking to our oldest daughter, Ruby, about the kindergarten conference I had had with her teacher the evening before, and I asked her why she only wrote stories in class about her Dad and about how much she loves him. To be honest, I thought this “Daddy love” started because she felt sorry for him not getting enough attention, and I just thought it was cute that she wanted to wear her “Daddy Rocks” t-shirt every day, but I didn’t actually think it meant that she loved me any less.

I mean, come on! I carried her for 9 months, I went through 36 hours of labor to meet her, I nursed her every two hours day and night until she was a year old, I gave up my career to stay at home and take care of her…of course I’m her favorite! …or so I thought.

So I asked her. “Ruby, why do always write stories about your dad?”

“Because I love him more than anything in the world,” she replied matter of factly.

“Well, you love me too, right?” I asked. At that point, I expected a quick, “Of course mom!” and then we would all be on our way and I could stop being paranoid. But that’s not what happened. What happened is that she paused. For a looooooong time. “Oh no!” I thought, “This can’t be good!”

And then she scrunched up her face like she always does when she’s deep in thought and she said, “Well, I only half love you.”

“What do you mean,” I stammered, sure that I had misunderstood her somehow.

“I only half love you mom. It’s just what’s in my heart,” she explained without any remorse.

As the weight of those words sank in, I had no response. “Oh, ok,” was all that I could muster before she rushed off to play.

So of course, I let my world crumble around me and reflected on all of the ways that I was failing as a mother. I thought about how busy I’ve been, and I knew that I had all of the excuses in the world! I mean, we’ve only been living in this new house less than a year and there are still an endless amount of projects to be done, my baby is only 4 months old and there are some nights when I only get a few hours of sleep (and the days of me being able to take a nap during the day are long gone), I spend a lot of time preparing healthy food, and then I have this blog that I love, but which also pulls me away.

And then there’s Ruby, so resilient and so strong. She’s been through five moves in the last five years, adjusted to three new babies in her life, and then after we finally got settled in our new home and new routines, she started kindergarten, moved to a new school halfway through the year, and had to get used to spending the majority of the day away from me, from us.

And then my thoughts went in the other direction, and I thought, hey, I’m the mom, not the friend, and if in doing what’s best for her and meeting her needs in the best way I know how means that I’m not always her favorite, well then so be it. Sometimes a mom’s job is hard because we need to see the whole picture, not just get through each individual moment.

But then my thoughts went back in the other direction, and it just hit me like a ton of bricks how I had been putting her on the back burner because I knew that she could handle it. When she started kindergarten, I gave her all of the attention in the world as she made the adjustment, but then my attention drifted to the new baby as we figured each other out and then our other baby, Ophelia, who is 20 months now, needed me more than ever as she adjusted to having to share my lap. And then there was Elliot who finally got to be the oldest while Ruby was at school and his needs were always in the forefront of my mind as I would think about the ways in which I could challenge him and help him grow in this last year and a half that I get him at home before he goes away too.

So after looking into my soul and seeing all of this, I knew that something needed to change. Not a drastic “scrap everything and do a complete 180” change, but a minor tweak that could bring this family back into balance. I knew that I needed to put Ruby back in the forefront of my mind, and when I did, I almost cried because I had missed her being there so much. I thought about her as a little baby and how I would look deep into her soulful eyes wondering what she would be like when she was older, and then I looked at her now, and she is so amazing and so wonderful and my heart felt like it was about to burst with how much I loved her.

And then I found her playing quietly with her My Little Ponies and I just scooped her onto my lap in a big bear hug. I nestled my nose into her hair and told her how much I loved her. And then we just started talking about everything and she said something so amazing and profound. She said, “Mom, I just don’t know where my heart belongs – at school or at home.” We went on to talk about how yes, she spends more time during the week at school, but when you count up the hours at night and on the weekend that she actually spends much more time at home. And then I explained how you can pack up your heart and take it with you where ever you go, but that when you’re home is when your heart is truly at peace and can breathe a big sigh of release knowing that it is safe and sound.

I told her how sorry I was that I had let her slip through the cracks lately, and I told her how I had gotten a little too busy lately, but that she was always in my heart and that I loved her more than anything in the world. I also explained to her that I thought that we were spending a lot of time together because she was always helping me with projects like sewing or making cookies, but I told her that I would spend some time every day doing what she wanted to do like playing a game or something. I also decided to let her ride up front with me on her way home from school (in her booster seat with the airbag turned off) so that we could have more time to chat.

I could just see her soften before my very eyes the more we talked. It was almost like she had started holding her breath ever since Julian was born and now she was finally letting it out. She hugged me tighter than ever, and I felt so close and so connected to her in that moment. The next morning while her, Daddy, and I had breakfast together, the mood was different somehow. Scott and I both clearly noticed the difference in her.

my daughter and I sorting through her school papers

Ruby and I Bonding While Sorting Through Her School Work

It’s been two weeks since that day, and I feel like Ruby and I are closer than ever. Our daily chats in the car after school are getting more and more interesting and complex and I am finally hearing about her school day in ways I never did before. When we get home, I take some time to just be with her doing whatever she wants and when her tank is full, she rushes off to play happy as can be.

Being a mom is a balancing act. It’s like I have all of these plates spinning all the time, and I have to know which ones to tend to next so that they don’t all fall. I let Ruby’s plate wobble dangerously close to toppling over, but I was able to get her spinning again just in time. In doing so, I had to let all of the other plates wobble just a fraction of a second longer as I re-calibrated my time, but now we are in a nice comfortable routine where everyone’s needs are being met…for now that is. As we get comfortable in this new normal, I am keeping one watchful eye out for the next plate that starts to wobble, and so the cycle will continue because that is what is being a good mom is all about.

March 24, 2015/by Stacey Maaser
https://embracing-motherhood.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/embracing-motherhood.com-310.png 400 810 Stacey Maaser https://embracing-motherhood.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/EM_Logo.png Stacey Maaser2015-03-24 22:13:092020-11-20 18:47:30What Happened When My Daughter Told Me She Only Half Loved Me

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Stacey Maaser

Stacey Maaser author of Embracing Motherhood

Author of Embracing Motherhood

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Hi, I’m Stacey Maaser,

author of Embracing Motherhood! I am a stay at home mother of 5 with 7 years of teaching experience and a Master’s degree in Curriculum and Instruction. I am passionate about teaching my children, feeding them healthy food, learning the truth about things (not just what is popular opinion or counter culture), and sharing what I’ve learned and experienced with others. Thanks for stopping by!

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