Mommin’ Ain’t Easy

Blog post by KeaMommy: Heather Rocha

My husband and I have three beautiful, spunky kids. Our oldest, Teddy (Theodore) is five, our middle daughter, Nora (Eleanor) is three, and our youngest girl, Odie (Odette) is four months old.

Let me preface the rest of this post with the fact that I love my children. They are the greatest joy in my life and hold the biggest pieces of my heart. Now with that being said, being a mom is the single most difficult thing I have ever done in my life. What has been a real challenge for me personally is being a stay at home mother (SAHM).

I worked full time when Teddy and Nora were babies. To be honest I was probably working quite a bit more than full time. I was a food and beverage supervisor at a dude ranch resort in Tucson, Arizona and I loved every minute of it. The hectic, fast-paced food and beverage world juxtaposed with the serene tranquility of the desert was heaven. My days were filled with schmoozing guests and making sure that they were enjoying their stays with us. I also adored my staff. From the front of the house to the back, everyone was so different and yet we got along so well. They were my family away from my family and that made my days fly by. I was so busy at work that, although I missed my kids, I simply didn’t have time to let it consume me.

When I got home, I had my sweet little babies to take care and love on. I missed them so much during the day, that the little things didn’t seem to bother me as much. So what if I had laundry to do? Who cared that a few dishes were dirty in the sink or that the kids rooms were a hot mess? I had worked all day and wanted to spend some quality time with my gingersnaps. That’s not to say that our house was disgusting all of the time. We made it work. We split the housework and had an understanding that our house wasn’t going to be perfect.

Fast forward to our move to Oklahoma. One of my major stipulations for moving away from my hometown, family and large support system was that my husband needed to be able to make enough to support our family without me working. We weren’t going to know anyone where we were moving, and I didn’t want to leave my kids with people that I didn’t know and no back up for 500 miles (my in-laws live in San Antonio). Honestly, I didn’t that that was ever going to happen. My husband is a chef. Yes he went to culinary school, but unless you are a celebrity chef, know somebody wealthy or are independently wealthy, it’s not a really high paying industry. So needless to say I was not worried.

Never in a million years did I think it was going to happen, so when it did I had mixed emotions. I was horribly sad to leave, but excited for the prospect of something new. At the time I was very excited at the idea of getting to stay home with the kids. Teddy would be starting preschool in the fall (we moved in March), so I would get to spend a lot of time with him before then. I would also get to love on my Nora everyday, and get to take the kids to the park and on all of these great adventures that I had been cooking up in my head. I would have all of the time to do the things that I wanted to do with them while I was working. I was trading my love for my job for days filled with the love for my children. Or so I thought.

I am not exaggerating when I say that I cried almost the entire way out of Arizona. My sadness overwhelmed my excitement and then turned into panic. I didn’t know how I was going to live so far away from my life! Knowing firsthand how demanding my husbands career was frightened me. Although I had my kids, I would be primarily spending my time alone and I am a person that thrives on other people (adults more specifically). I’ve always been a very social person. I enjoy intelligent conversation and healthy debates. I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t contemplate driving the kids and I back to Arizona on more than one occasion that first week.

I had never been a SAHM before. For the first couple of weeks I had unpacking and organizing to do which, between that and taking care of Teddy and Nora, kept me pretty busy. I didn’t have time to concentrate on my loneliness or the deep ache I was feeling for home. After everything was put away and our pictures were hung on the walls I fell into a funk. A deep funk.

I didn’t know what to do with my days. Taking care of the kids and cleaning was all I did. My days began to run together. My husband was working horribly long, 6 day weeks. On his days off we would have to grocery shop and mow the lawn and do all of the errands that had piled up during the week. We were sharing our one car and if the errands weren’t pressing, they would wait. It didn’t make any sense for me to take the car to get one thing done and have to drag the kids out at midnight or one in the morning to go pick him back up. We spent all of our time cooped up in the house. We would go outside occasionally, but we were adjusting to one, the humidity (it’s no joke!) and two, all of the new allergens in the air (I’m allergic to nature.).

I found myself sleeping in later and later. I didn’t have anywhere to be, so why get up? I never got myself ready. I wasn’t going anywhere, so why shower everyday and do my hair? Guys, I stopped taking care of myself! I let taking care of the kids and the house and my husband be all consuming and it was making me a resentful, depressed person!

It took a conversation with my momma to set me straight. Rather than being in that rotten place, I needed to put myself in a place of gratitude. Although I was missing home and lonely, I couldn’t let myself focus on that. I had to flood my days with thanks. I had to be thankful that my husband was working so much so that I could stay home with my babies. I had to be thankful that they still needed me so much, one day they won’t. I had to be thankful for the things that I felt were pulling me down, and I needed to start giving a little TLC to myself! How could I take care of everyone else if I wasn’t taking care of me?

Let me tell you something, it worked! I started getting up in the mornings and showering, or at least fixing my hair and washing my face. I started doing yoga daily, sometimes twice a day if I could fit it in. I started reading a new book. When before my days had been so full with everyone else that I couldn’t fathom me time, I made time. I also started having some real conversations with my husband about how I was feeling. I had been keeping everything inside and all that negativity was toxic for my headspace. When things began to bother me I spoke up, and slowly but surely I was feeling more and more like myself!

This is not to say that I don’t still have those days, because I do. Everyone does. But now I am taking the steps to make sure that those days are few and far between. Mommin’ ain’t easy for sure, but by taking care of myself I am better equipped to handle it!

Contributed by: https://desertsagemomma.wordpress.com/2018/09/17/mommin-aint-easy/

Parenting is Awesome. Sleep is Overrated. Every day is an Adventure.