Another Month gone....

Another month over. Oh it's Harry Potter's birthday - totally noticed that this morning when I woke up. I just put the kids to bed. The cloth diapers are washing so they can dry overnight. I planned to get more done but my baby girl was needing cuddles and I am in more pain than I expected today. I made an awesome dinner tonight - it was yummy. My husband should be home soon to have his.

DD was diagnosed with hearing loss. We find out in three weeks if\when we'll need a hearing aid. Maybe this is why over a year of speech therapy has done little for her. Well that's not true. She makes gains and then has a big seizure and looses her progress. Then when her words come back [weeks or months down the line] she gets new words back, looses other words she once had. It's hard.

It's hot here. We've had little or no rain for months. We're on water restrictions but we're still allowed to water our lawns three times a week. What's up with that? Who cares about someone's stupid lawn? I let ours die. Don't even have to cut it.

In my boredom I began writing fanfic again. It feels like 2005. :P I have also been reading a lot of fanfic and here I was thinking I haven't picked up a book and then realize I read over 500, 000 words in fanfic in July.

Wife & Mother

Recently my son asked me why I don't work. My first thought was to think, "Hey I work! I never stop!". Then I had to step back and realize that most mothers he knows outside of me work outside the home. 

So I thought it was the perfect time to teach him [again] about how we all have roles within the family. How we all work together toward the good of the whole. Each part is important and worthy of praise and respect. Each job has his joys and his drawbacks.

We have two books on careers and what kids want to be when they grow up - neither give stay at home parent as an option. I wonder why. Many of us choose this for our lives our families for a number of reasons. My choice of "career" isn't less valid than if I chose to work outside the home.

This also seems to be a common belief among others. That I must be so bored to not work outside the home. I am waiting for the day I am bored. If I do get that day [my youngest will be in school half day] I wonder if this means I can take a nap since so many think I take a nap all the time!

I am in awe of the mothers of children with complex medical conditions\special needs who also keep outside jobs. How do they have the time? When do they wash the diapers or bake bread or fold laundry? I will gladly admit I couldn't do everything I do AND work a full time job. I am not super woman.

I have wondered if maybe in our quest to have equality - so women can work if the need to or choose or not have kids if they don't want to that we also in a way sold ourselves short. Now it seems a mother is expected to work full time, come home, cook meals from scratch every night, be on the PTA, take kids to lessons. Yet we never seem to put that type of pressure on Dad. Oh don't bug Daddy he's had a hard day at work but mom comes home to another job? Why is that? Is the job as home seen as less? Are we so used to taking on the whole world that people expect it of us? Do I have to do everything the world expects of me and perfectly in order to be a good mother or wife or woman?

On the flip side of that have we been taught by the world to expect less from men. It's a common joke oh Dad can't do this or that - he's Dad. My husband changes diapers - cloth ones no less. He's even getting better at remembering all the meds and times of Dad and learning how to play with our daughter is a way that's better for her. Now granted men used to do less with the kids but they also worked LONG hard days doing hard physical labor often working more than one trade. My Grandfather worked as a fisherman and worked his own small family farm...I'm sure he was very tired after a long day.

IDK but I like the idea of being reasonably confident that if I died my husband wouldn't be completely useless with his own children.      

So I hope by the time they are raised I will have instilled in my children the respect for motherhood and being a stay at home parent. I also hope I will give my future daughter in law a man who can run the washing machine, change a diaper or fix a meal as well as the normal "man chores".

 

The heat wave broke

It's over! It was actually in the 70s most of the day. Yesterday we got "rain" but it was more like a few drops. Just enough to bring my wash from drying outside and then it stopped. Of course. Today we got thunder and rumbles but no rain. Our plants and grass are dying and I think we'll be in a drought soon enough if we aren't already.

My poor baby girl is having a rough go of it. We meet the Neurologist Thursday to figure out what the heck we are supposed to do.

She is on the list to be measured for her first stroller-wheelchair at the end of the month. It will be easier than when she's more floppy than normal [she's low tone but much worse after seizures sometimes cannot even hold up her head] to not have to carry her. With my arthritis I cannot carry a 27 pound child all over let alone the huge hospital. I swear we walk miles.

Today was a good day. DD said a bunch of words: blanket, ball, blocks, uto [Pluto], star, apple, eat, and tree. A Good day. She loves flash cards. Most kids don't but she loves them so I think we have eight different sets now. She also worked on puzzles with Daddy. She also seems to be into motorcycles Vroom!!!

My son is being five - one second awesome the next second grumpy. I am so happy we'll get to go outside and play. Run off lots of energy. He's been making up words sounding them out and asking me if they are words. He discovered he could make fox and then  box he was very proud of himself. Then he made 'zurk' and asked me if it was a real word. He sounded out the letters correctly so I had to tell him it's not English but maybe it's Klingon or Romulan.