Family First

 So, I've been thinking about this post for a while now.  It's about my family.  Not the one I created but the one that created me.  I miss them.

They live right down the road and we are very very close.  They are super supportive of me, my husband and our children, they are always there for me, they call me all the time, and I see each of them at least once a week when they aren't traveling.  So, how is it that I can miss them so much?
Here's how:  my life is 150% consumed by the family I've created.  Literally everything I do morning 'til night revolves around my husband, my three kids, and my dog.  Which is awesome in a lot of ways because without a shadow of a doubt -- I am ALL IN.  I will not look back at this time in my life and have any regrets or missed opportunities.  I will never say I was being pulled in a million directions and could never give childrearing my full attention.  There will be no regrets of having missed anyone's first steps or first words.  I was there.  I've been the person to help them learn to walk, to talk, to sooth themselves, and more recently I am now the center of their universe in learning right from wrong (otherwise known as "good job!" and "don't ever do that again!"  My relationship with my husband has gone from planning the occasional night out or vacation together while negotiating different work schedules, travel schedules, and our combined finances to spending close to 100% of our time within the four walls of our home and negotiating things like how best to load the dishwasher, what's for dinner, where are my socks, and how are we going to split up the night feeds.

I don't work -- so I can't even say that I'm also forced to share a part of myself within the larger workforce.  I don't have "work" friends anymore or colleagues to lunch with and/or dish about current events.  Now wait -- that's not entirely true, I do have colleagues that I lunch with -- it's just they have awful table manners, speak in extremely loud voices, they never pick up the tab (or anything else for that matter) and the conversation is usually extremely repetitive and one-sided.  They NEVER ask me what I think about anything. They just talk at me.  They are adorable, yes -- but mentally they tend to be more mind numbing than brain stimulating if you catch my drift.

So, back to my family.  How can they be such an integral part of my day-to-day or week-to-week and I can still miss them so much?  Unlike my former work colleagues, they never "stopped" working with me.  My parents and my brother are still very much a part of the job I do.  They give me solid advice when I need it, they give me constructive criticism when I ask for it, they cheer me up when I'm down, and they laugh, love and celebrate my successes and the successes of my kids and my husband.  It sounds like a perfect relationship doesn't it?  That's because it is.  The imperfection lies within me and within the imbalance that comes with being 150% consumed by ANYTHING -- work, a relationship, kids -- whatever it may be.  For me it's my kids right now and getting our family up and off the ground these last three years.

Almost every interaction I have with myself or with anyone around me is about my kids.  From little things like "can you pass me that burp cloth" to "can you take Haven and Ronan to the zoo while I nap with the baby?" to "can you find me a used basketball hoop or a pink booster seat the next time you're out shopping?" to big things like can you move in with us after my daughter with the heart condition isborn to to provide extra support we will need to forge ahead through the unknown of both having our first child, and having our first child be very sick.  It's been all about the kids.  All of the time.

I used to sit down and have dinner with them.  We used to grab the occasional drink together and talk about the news, our different jobs, our friends, our extended family, or travel plans for Thanksgiving or Christmas.  Not anymore.  Now it's just texts and voicemails about dropping shit off that I need, babysitting the kids, checking in on me to see how I'm "managing" everything, and hearing about holidays and travel plans that don't necessarily involve me and my growing, impossible-to-travel-with-right-now brood.

If we do get the off chance to talk about current events or family -- I am either half listening because I'm too tired to even shift my focus to something outside of my everyday wash-rinse-repeat with the kids, or I am so out of the loop on family stuff I have to spend most of conversation asking them to remind which cousin they are talking about, or I have to admit half way through a semi-interesting current events story that I have the news DVR'd but I'm three weeks behind on the evening news so if it's happened in the last several days, I don't know about it yet.  I'm even behind on the weather.  When you find out you are the last person to know about the weather, you know things have gotten pretty bad.

They bring me meals because I can barely get around to cooking.  They come over and garden or build me a shed  -- because while I must admit I do occasionally make it outside with all three kids to hang in the backyard -- I sure as hell don't have time to tend to our own garden or find storage for all our accumulating kid crap.  Every last thing they interact with me around is not only about the kids -- it's about bailing me out.  I just don't contribute anymore.  Not because I'm an asshole -- more just because I don'thave anything to bring right now to the"metaphoric" table -- except for the amazing children I have created who I have to logistically bring to almost every literal and actual table I am ever invited to sit at -- and as cute and as wonderful as they are -- it's always a shit show of managing behavior and trying to force feed vegetables while trying not to spill anything liquid all over the place -- all while I'm breastfeeding instead of eating myself.

I get so much sympathy from my family.  If it's not looks of "gee, Molly -- I don't know how you do it" it's actually verbalized comments they make to me like -- "well, you can only do the best you can, and you are doing a hell of a job, honey."  Which believe me, is like music to my ears when I am second guessing everything I'm doing or am just so damn tired I don't even know which end is up anymore.  And while they are always the first three people to sing my praises -- they also have a front row seat to view the worst of my parenting, too.

Knowing that my parents made the decision to only have two kids, and I have now gone into uncharted territory with three -- they can look at how physically, emotionally, and financially strapped I am and even my brother can feel a little bit like, well you did bring this on yourself -- you chose to have this family -- you're going to have to man-up and deal.  Which I am.  And they would be the first to defend the fact that I am.  We make this choices in our lives and we have to stand by them.  I definitely stand by my choices to have this family.  I just get sad sometimes about the consequences, I guess.

Unfortunately, parenting isn't one of those things where you ever feel like you are functioning at your optimal level.  You don't randomly wake up one morning, three years in and three kids later saying, you know what?  This week I am definitely operating at the top of my game!  Instead it's fundamentally embarrassing and down right upsetting when your family (or let's just also add the loving husband into this argument for kicks) "helps" you out by taking the kids for an overnight, or out for a walk, so you can rest or "recharge your battery" -- and they STILL come back to a disheveled, frazzled, tired, wreck.  I feel bad about that.  I feel bad that one part relief doesn't always equal two parts refreshed.  It's hard to EVER feel refreshed inside this long haul.  No matter how much help you get, no matter how many compliments, or reassuring comments, or random pats on the back -- even after HELP has arrived and taken over -- you still somehow look like you're about five minutes from spontaneously combusting into a pile of dust on the kitchen floor.

But it's frustrating for me on a personal level that my relationship with my mother, my father, and my brother have changed so much since I started having kids.  All of our conversations are short.  Or interrupted.  Or about the kids.  Or about help that I need.  Or about something I can't figure out how to do without their help.  Or me just asking them to talk about themselves and the amazing things that are going on in their lives, with their friends or at their jobs because I don't have any of that to share with them anymore.  It's a consequence of becoming a parent I completely did not see coming.  I feel like I've had to trade in my own family to have a family of my own.  I miss them.  And as cliche as it is for a stay-at-home mom to say over and over again....I miss me.

And I know, I have a newborn right now, and I'm in it to win it and currently knee deep in breast milk and mustard colored shit.  I have enough experience this time around to remind myself that once again, in time, things will eventually get better -- but the thing about having kids later in life is that you don't really know how much time you have left with your own parents.  Now, jesus, it's not to say that both of my parents have one foot in the grave or that my 32 year old brother is going to kick the bucket anytime soon.  But holy crap have I had to let go of something I loved SO MUCH in having a close relationship with my family in order to start a family of my own and I guess I really and truly do regret that piece of it.  I miss MY family.  My family of four.  I don't want to reemerge from this "young kids" time of my life to one or both of my parents not being as "active" anymore or just generally unable to for a variety of reasons to do some of the stuff we've always been able to do together as a foursome.  And by the time I do reemerge from this -- my one and only sibling will be underwater with his own wife and kids.  So what will that relationship be like after all these years of me being underwater?

Maybe this is just a feeling of wanting to stop the clock a little bit that we all go through as we reach middle age or almost 40 or whatever the hell you want to call it.  Maybe it's a side effect of having chosen to stay at home with my kids -- knowing that given the option tomorrow to return to work, or lunch with my colleagues or go on vacation with my family --  I would probably have to say no -- partially because I don't know how I could EVER go back to the person I was before kids and partially because I know as hard and as isolating as this is right now -- I only have this one chance to put 150% into this stay-at-home-mom-gig-- because the second they are grown up -- they'll go through something like what I'm going through now -- a pulling away from the original family.  Guess it all comes full circle in a way.

I guess, I just needed to get this off my chest.  And since my actual chest is currently engorged engaged, yet again, in the extreme sport of of both breastfeeding and pumping -- I had to throw this up on this here blog rather than carry the additional weight around on top of the three little monkeys I have hanging off my every limb already :)