Being a Fraud

There are many times in my life when I feel like a complete fraud.  Like the person people see is not the person I really am.  Boxing Day this year was a particularly challenging day for me, because the busyness of the Christmas season collided with my husband's need to be at work his normal working hours and on call for the hours in between.  We were wiped as we usually are after Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and though I had made plans to visit my parents on Boxing Day what I really wanted was to just stay home.  Not to be by myself getting all six kids ready, tearing them away from their toys and their friends.  Not to have my husband at work and missing him like crazy.  Not to have my house upside-down.  I felt the simultaneous pressure of both cleaning and organizing after a whirlwind holiday, and of taking it easy and letting the kids celebrate.  So I let them have a friend over for the morning while I busied myself with cleaning, then lamented the fact that when it was time to leave nobody was helping.  Of course they weren't, it was the first day they had spent at home this Christmas!  And their mother was sending mixed messages, because she really didn't know for herself what she wanted.  

Back At It

Today marked our official first day back to homeschooling after an extended Christmas vacation that took a lot out of me, and I'll be honest about the fact that I was not looking forward to it last night as I settled into bed.  Our Christmas this year was CR-AZY as crazy can be, definitely the busiest so far and one that has us looking forward to making some changes next year as kids get older and get up earlier (4:30 am this year for the first time ever - argh!  Haha!)  Add to that the fact that my husband was on call from December 22 to December 30 (during which time he worked his standard Monday-Friday schedule which blessedly did not include Christmas day, but did include Saturday and Sunday between Christmas and New Years, in addition to extra long days and a few late-night call-ins), a Boxing Day wedding and a New Year's Eve wedding (the latter of which my husband was a groomsmen in), the usual family get togethers and Christmas/New Year's Mass schedule that are busy all on their own, and we were needless to say exhausted.  Jeff was thankfully able to take the first week of January off, and when he asked that I not do school for the week so he could enjoy the family time he missed out on over the holidays let's just say it didn't take a lot of convincing.  That week overflowed as well with much joy as we had friends from out of town visiting for the first part, and Jeff's brother and girlfriend arriving from Toronto later in the week.  Christmas has grown to epic proportions around here and we were all living it up. I was not looking forward to getting back to the grind this morning.

Confessions of a Mom of Many

I spend much of my life, like I suppose most people do, being sized up.  Because I spend my days surrounded by little people, people naturally have varying assumptions they are often not afraid to share with me on a daily basis - some good, some not so good.  I suppose that's a function of the world we live in, everyone has an opinion about everything.  But there are many things people say to me that are way off base or simply not true and rather than make a laundry list, I thought it would be better to give a little glimpse into some of the things you may find surprising about a Mom of many.  Here are some of my biggest confessions:

My Kind of Crazy

My husband and I were out doing some Christmas shopping earlier this week.  It was the first time in years we've been able to shop together for Christmas, which is a big deal for us!  While we were out I bumped into an old colleague of mine that I worked with for many years.  We exchanged hellos and he updated me on life at the office, and then he asked me if I was working.  I casually answered no, that I was home with the kids and homeschooling, and carried on our conversation.  But after he had left I almost felt a twinge of regret that I hadn't mentioned the fact that I do freelance work on occasion.  This was the same person who, when I was pregnant with my third child and approaching maternity leave, asked me if I thought I'd get bored being home all day with nothing to do.  It was clear to me that he had no concept of what it means to be home raising a family and all the work that is involved, and that part of me felt the need to justify my current "career" choices as not a waste because I do, in fact, freelance occasionally.  I felt the nagging need to say something that showed my skills weren't being wasted, and that I did indeed have ambition.

New Normal

I have been meaning to write a post for the past three weeks now, since I discovered the blessed news that my husband and I are expecting our seventh baby in June of 2015.  We are ecstatic, and though my husband assures me it's not so, I think I'm already starting to show in the way that is obvious only to a woman's eyes about her own body.  I love seeing the signs of the new life that has only resided in my body a mere eight weeks already beginning to leave its unmistakable imprint.  Life is so beautiful.

Break

This is post I feel compelled to write, because it's not neat, and nice, and pretty.  As I sit here, typing, my kids are on their way to my mother's.  She was watching them so that I could do my part-time job of cleaning an office once a week, and she offered to keep them for the night.  Which is really a Godsend for all of us, because I think we all needed the break.

Homeschool Tweaks

We were facing some pretty significant problems at the end of the school year last June, not the least of which was one (or more) distracted students, a school day that dragged on well beyond the intended end time (and with no additions to the curriculum), and an overly busy schedule.  At the time I chalked it up to it being the end of the year, and the kids and I needing a break.  When September rolled around and we started with all of the same problems however, I knew something had to change.  I'd love to say that this happened without a major meltdown from me, but it's not true.  After my very first (first!) day of school this year I lamented to my husband, "I caaaaan't do this for another year!!!"  A couple of days later at a meeting of homeschool Moms I shared the same thoughts.  I prayed and cried and prayed some more, and eventually God helped me to see the areas I could improve upon.  I share them with you in the event that they may be helpful, knowing of course that every family, like every child, is different.