Nee-ew Life, Nee-ew Life

Background to random title- since everyone other than my husband and possibly my sisters don't understand whats going on in my head: Title says "New Life" in English Depeche Mode accent; sung to the tune of their hit from their first album Speak and Spell titled, "New Life".

Either way- we have a new life. It consists of Ross working at least 50 hours a week and me working 24 hours a week. In his spare time he sleeps, does yard work, hugs me, hangs with the fam, or tries to process his new job; if he's not working overtime giving a test drive to someone who walked on the lot 10 minutes before closing time.

I spend 24 hours at work. As for the other 144 hours in the week, I am: Sleeping approximately 7 hours each night, taking care of Maddy, spring cleaning, usual house cleaning, laundry, dishes, making dinner, grocery shopping....etc, etc.

I'm not complaining or asking for sympathy in any way. My house actually looks better than ever because I have become way more efficient with my time. Since it is the change of a season, the bugs are out. Those who know me know that I am almost pathologically bug-phobic. So once a see a bug in the house, every square inch gets cleaned to make sure I destroy any of its little friends and family.

Work is pretty good. Getting into the groove of having babysitters is a new adjustment. I had a mini-meltdown yesterday that caused me to re-evaulate everything. Here's a peek into our life (which I am very thankful for, by the way!):

I work Tue, Wed, Fri. Ross works Wed-Sun. That leaves us with Monday off together, Ross home with her Tuesday while I'm at work, and babysitters required for Wednesday and Friday. Ross's mom has commited to watching Maddy most Wednesdays. So Friday is up for grabs. My sisters fill in the blanks as possible with their jobs (I am SO blessed to have family watching her most of the time!!!!). When my sisters or Ross's mom can't watch her on Friday, our good friend Jenni has watched her (I totally trust Jenni and she is basically family; Ross has known her since he was little). However; this week Jenni is out of town and my sisters are super busy with work due to spring break. So two weeks into our new life of both of us working; we are without a babysitter. Long story short, I had a good talk with my new manager who I am just getting to know. She is being super supportive (Thank You Lord)and told me to take this Friday off like it was no big deal. THIS is the kind of thing that keeps me working. Working for a good company with supportive staff makes all the difference.

I can't deny that all these stressors have made me comtemplate taking a hiatus from work and being a stay at home mom. Maddy is growing like a weed and changing ev-ery-day. She is such an awesome person and I love getting to know her and don't want to miss a second with her. I worked hard throughout my pregnancy to support our family; and now that Ross has a job I feel like I can pass the torch to him. Right now I am providing our health insurance (damn good insurance at that) so I will obviously keep at it. At 90 days, Ross will have benefits, but I'm not sure if they will be as good as mine. Also, this is a new career for him, and who knows how long he will be there. Also, who knows how much he will make, and how steady in the flow of his income will be as a car salesman? Its a feast and famine type of deal. Me, on the other hand? I have a sweet job working with the greatest patients you could imagine. I get paid well, get awesome benefits for only working 24 hours a week, and I will always have weekends and holidays off. I also happen to love being a housewife and mommy, and would like to start thinking about Maddy getting a little brother or sister. Without the second (and then third, and...maybe fourth???) kid, I am already running off of adrenaline every day, because now that Ross is working so much I have ALL of the baby and home resonsibilities, WITH 24 hours a week of work.

Welcome to the inside of my head.

Again, I am not compaining. We are literally overflowing with blessings. We have blessings coming out of our ears. I just am constantly thinking about this dilemma. In so many ways I should stay home. But in so many ways I shouldn't stop working. I didn't even mention how important it is for me to keep up my skills as an RN, and I don't think I would be completely happy if I wasn't being a nurse at all for a while. ALSO, Madelyn is getting very special time with her grandma Kris and her aunts Emily and Pam. When she is at Jenni's, she gets to be around Jenni's daughter Lilly (age 2) and experience some valuable lessons in independence in being away from her family.

It could go either way, really. For now, obviously the best option is to keep working. In the meantime, many prayers will be said. My mind is awfully tired, and I need to turn this over to God.

***EDIT*** I forgot to mention, that my natural mothering choices are causing a bit of a strain in my life. My milk supply is not keeping up with Maddy for her bedtime feedings, so this is how it goes: She used to nurse at night for 20-30 minutes and fall asleep at the end. It was beautiful. Now she nurses for 30-45 minutes and then almost falls asleep, but then spazzes out because she is still hungry and I don't make enough milk for her for bedtime (daytime nursing seems to be fine). So she punches my boob and fusses (seriously). So I set her down in the crib, go downstairs, heat up formula or pumped milk, and then try to calm her down after she's pissed off from not filling her stomach as she pleased earlier. The, she GULPS down about 3 oz of breast milk or formula in the bottle, and I am cursing my boobs and wondering why I just nursed her for 45 freaking minutes minutes in the first place. Also, after 6 months, my cloth diapers have stink build up and I now have to "strip" them. "Stripping" cloth diapers = washing and then boiling them in a pot of water on the stove for 15 minutes; 4 diapers in a pot at a time. We have approximately 50 cloth diapers. This has been very time consuming in my already busy life. Venting aside: I still want to breastfeed and cloth diaper her, and its worth it so far.