SPWH

Been doing the SPWH thing for the last few days.

Single Parent with Husband. That's the phrase a friend coined a few years ago when we were commiserating over our traveling husbands who seemed to be gone every time a toilet clogged, a tire went flat and a kid was barfing over my shoulder. We knew we were blessed to have great husbands who worked so hard to support us and missed us when they were gone...  but sometimes that's hard to remember when you're knee deep in puke!

The Hub has been up in the great state of New York (Utica, specifically) for work and was expected to be home tomorrow. While currently he doesn't travel quite as much as he has at other times in our marriage, I really miss him when he's gone! His travel schedule was one of the first things we considered when I quit my last job - and I can laugh now about how hard I thought it was to manage ONE kid on my own! As I always say, it's all about perspective, and my perspective with four school-age kids is a bit different these days. 

When Blaine left home on Wednesday we were pretty confident Hurricane Irene had veered away from Florida and we would be just fine. Neither of us really believed she was heading towards New York! Fortunately, he's in the middle of the state, riding out the storm in an oh-so-glamorous Best Western and hoping to get a flight out on Sunday morning. If he doesn't make it out on Sunday this will mark the longest we've been apart since the earliest days of our marriage. (Ever hear the one about the married fraternity boy who lived in a fraternity house? I'll tell ya about it someday.)

Now, I don't know about other spouses of travelers, but when Blaine is gone there is a certain of amount of, shall we say, laxness that tends to come over me. Not relaxation, because I miss him, the kids miss him, and the effort to be The Responsible One all the time is hard. But I do tend to let some things go - the laundry piles up, dinner might come from a blue-and-yellow box (or a delivery guy), and I might let one of the kids sleep in my bed. Aww, who am I kidding, that happens when he's here too! Maybe I just don't feel as guilty about it? I don't know. In any event, when he's gone just a few days at a time it's manageable. 

Five days (or more) stinks. 

Hugs & God Bless,

Bev

P.S. I'm praying for all the people who are in Irene's path. May you all stay safe, dry, and together while she does her business. 

No Easy Button

One of the first things I realized when I decided to make some life changes was that I'd made some mistakes over the years.

Coloring my own hair (oh, the pictures!). Carpeting the living room (owners of little dogs understand why). Tequila shots (always a mistake. Always.) My four kids? Always and forever, never a mistake! I LOVE my life and have enjoyed every minute of momhood (well, maybe not the ones that involved poopy diapers!)

But looking back, I did use my children as an excuse to avoid keeping up with my "outside" education. In fact, I made lots of excuses for not taking the classes that would have kept me up-to-date in my field. I think the biggest issue here was that by the time I quit working, I was so over my chosen field that I had no desire to ever go back to it. I realized that when I was in college, I'd probably made a mistake choosing journalism as a major. I  loved to write, but I enjoyed creative writing more than any kind of hard-hitting journalistic endeavors, and I found there wasn't a lot of money to be made writing poetry (amazing, huh?). For me, journalism was the "easy" major - the writing and editing came naturally to me but wasn't what I loved to do (and it wasn't exactly lucrative either!) 

I was fortunate that raising children became a career in and of itself. By the time I had my third child I figured this parenting thing was my true calling. When I did go back to work - as a teacher's assistant at my children's preschool - it was in a field that was a natural extension of raising children. Please know - I am not saying that only moms make good preschool teachers. I'm saying that for me, working with little kids was second nature... I understood the art of making playdough. I valued the chaos-to-stillness of resttime. I loved being "home base" when the kiddies played tag on the playground. Mom to "Mrs. Johnson" was an easy, easy transition. Nowadays I realize that while the little guys are fun, I'm not sure if it's something that will lend itself to a lifelong career. Easy? For me, probably more so than picking something else. 

But these days, I'm starting to figure out that maybe it's time to stop looking for the "easy button."

Your Feedback
One of the things I've discovered since starting this whole project is there are many, many people out there looking to be something different when They Grow Up. I don't think this is a phenomenon limited to stay-at-home moms or any other population, but that there are lots of people in my age category and beyond (40+ thank you!) who are realizing that maybe the job they've been doing for the last 10-15-20 years is not paying the bills and/or allowing them to save towards retirement. Some are being forced to enter other career areas because their jobs have been outsourced to other countries. Some are watching their children grow up and thinking that maybe, just maybe, it's time to do what they "always wanted to do" instead of slogging away at a job that pays the financial bills but is taking a mental/emotional toll in return.

Whatever the reason, we're going to explore some of the options out there for continuing education, for changing jobs entirely, and for just adding in some hobbies that maybe make the rest of life a bit more palatable. Along the way I hope you will feel compelled to share your journey and tell us what's making your life a little more interesting or enjoyable, whether it's a class, reading a great book, starting a new job, or just something awesome that your kids or grandkids might say or accomplish. 

When I Grow Up....

After months and months of kicking this around in the privacy of my own brain (which is scary enough), I'm taking the big leap to blogging. Out loud. In public. For anyone to see.

I'm a little nervous. Be nice, please.

A little about me... my name is Beverly, and I'm the wife of a great guy and the mother of four incredible kids. I "stopped working" about 12 years ago to stay home and raise our children. I put the phrase "stopped working" in quotes because being a stay-at-home mom is definitely not for the faint of heart. Of course you don't ever stop working when you're a mom  -- employed outside the home or not -- but having four little mini-yous as your sole employer adds a whole new dimension  is to the term "job security." Although my husband and I did not take this decision to go to a one-income life lightly, I'm not sure either of us ever expected this season of our lives to last as long as it has. Around this time last year I started realizing that maybe it was time to make a change. Our youngest child was in kindergarten and I knew I needed to consider that maybe it was time to go back to work. Outside the home.

I started my adult career life as a newspaper reporter and ended it as a PR wonk for a senior services agency, but haven't really kept up any kinds of certifications or skills that would help me go back to either of those careers. Not that I really want to spend my days back in the PR field. I'd had enough of that in 1998, I can't imagine it would be more fun now.

So in an effort to ease my transition back into the world of the worker, we decided I would take Kylie's kindergarten year as a kind-of last hurrah as a stay-at-home mom. I would volunteer. Take classes. Do. Stuff.

Figure out What I Want to Be When I Grow Up.

Huh. A year later and I'm still at a loss about that last thing. I think I've done a fair amount of volunteering, although I wouldn't consider myself an overachiever in that way ;) Haven't done a lot in terms of the "take classes" area either. Rather,  I've spent hours doing "center time" activities with the kindergarteners in my daughter's class. And going over math problems and doing busy work for my third-grader's teacher. Sometimes, if I'm really lucky, I get to chaperone a field trip. I've also taught sixth-graders Catholic catechism, attended room mom meetings, and organized a fledgling, foundering Bunco group. In short, I've done a lot of "stuff" but haven't really worked on figuring out the career thing.

So. I'm wondering now if this is a situation unique to me, or if there are other moms, dads, whomever out there in this season of life, wondering exactly what they're going to do next. Please don't misunderstand - I wouldn't change a bit of what I've done over the past 13 years. I have been blessed with an awesome life, I love my family desperately and would do anything for them. I am a happy mom. But I know that at some point, being a mom may no longer be enough to define me. So rather than wait for that happen, I figure it would be a good idea to really explore what I want to be When I Grow Up. I'm hoping you come along on this journey with me as I work toward this goal. I may study for a certification as a pharmacy technician. Or continue some long-abandoned plans to teach preschool. Maybe I'll just end up working at the Hallmark Store (gosh I love the Hallmark Store.)

It may not be easy but I think it's going to be a lot of fun. Come along with me and feel free to let me know what you're thinking. But like I said before... be nice!