I'm Back

I fell off the blogging wagon late last year. I also fell off the Twitter and Facebook wagon. I really got into a funk and it got worse the closer we got to Hannah's 1st birthday. To sum it up, she laughed and I cried.

I had a really hard time with her turning 1. I'm not a sentimental person at all and generally avoid any and all emotional scenes but with my husband refusing to consider having a second child I started to think that she might be the only one I'd ever have and it just broke my heart. I have 2 sisters and 13 aunts and uncles so I come from a fairly large family. I always thought I would have 3 or 4 kids so Hubby's refusal to have another has really messed with my brain.

My job has also turned into a soul sucking endeavor so there's no relief there either.

Anyway, to sum up the end of the year we had 1 birthday, my grandfather in law died and we ended up making 3 trips to South Carolina in the space of 4 weeks. By Christmas I was ready to get back to my own home. My MIL is nice but we ran out of things to say after about 2.5 days. That's the crazy thing about vacations, nothing like one to make work look good.

Anyway, we have entered new toddler territory- fighting over solid food (which she won't eat), naps (which she won't take) and Nighttime screaming fits (which she has every night). So now I'm sleep deprived and working on this blog at 1 AM. Happy New Year.

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I Don't Care If I'm Not Perfect

Today CNN spent an stupid amount of time with various guest trying to figure out why women are less happy now than in previous years. They postulated on the theoretical and waxed poetic on the realities of being a woman and finally I just turned it off. I could do that because my one and only baby girl was napping and I was blowing away precious cleaning time by watching TV.

I had a meltdown last week in front of my hubby (or at him depending on who you ask). One of the rants coming out of my mouth was that if I had known growing up that I could go to school, get my degrees, get a job and still be primary caretaker of a household with little help from him then I wouldn't have bothered with all the student loans. Mind you, this was just a rant. I love the hubby dearly but he works long hours and the majority of all work in any way related to the household falls to me.

My husband, like all good men when faced with the irrational, just stared at me blankly and kept his mouth shut.

The ideas that have screwed the women of my generation over are the ones where we have to be a perfect mom or our kids will be wrecks and that one that says we can have it all. It's just not possible. When I hit the point where exhaustion set in and I sobbed into my Cabernet one night I just decided that the key to her being happy was me being happy.

I stopped reading the baby book around month 5. I now only ask my mother and some grandmothers I know for advice. In the mornings when I'm trying to get me, her and the dog ready for our day I put her down in the play pen in front of the Disney Channel. I'm sorry but it is one less tantrum in my morning and I hate mornings. I've never been an amazing housekeeper. I work on the 90% rule. If it is 90% clean I can live with it. My hubby being a totally type A personality has a hard time with this. My solution; let him clean the last 10%.

We belong to no baby and mommy groups as I find those women oppressive. My version of a baby gym are age inappropriate toys from Ikea that let her crawl, climb and slide and when that's done we chase the dog. I don't freak out if I run out of time to run a bath and if she falls asleep in her clothes I just leave it.

And She's Happy
And I'm Happy
And my Husband is Happy Nobody Screams at Him

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