My sweet little Levi is almost two and a half now which means I have been a stay at home mom for almost two and a half years. In recent days, I have begun to dip my toes in the water of returning to working outside of the home. It’s something that I always knew I would do and as Levi gets closer and closer to heading to pre-school, I have begun letting my mind toy around with what it is exactly I would like to get back to doing…but what that is exactly is for another post. As I have begun the process of figuring all of that out I have also been reminiscing about the journey that lead me to becoming a stay at home mom.
Obviously, it began with me discovering I was pregnant. This came as a little bit of a surprise to Greg and I but Greg handled it well. I, on the other hand, apparently required most of my 9 months of pregnancy to wrap my head around how drastically our lives were about to change. This, by the way, is a huge factor that you have to know before I go any further: I am supremely bad at dealing with change. I prefer to think of myself as steadfast or classic or reliable. But really, I just despise things changing….anything, honestly. I don’t like when the SuperTarget I shop at rearranges where the groceries are located in the store. I hate when my beloved Coca-Cola can gets all snazzied up for special events like the Olympics or whatever. Changing jobs, even if its of an upward trajectory or just makes me happier in general, will send me into a spiral of mourning for the loss that was my old job. And seriously, don’t even get me started on moving. Greg and I moved every year for the first 4 years of our marriage (moves I should say that kept us only miles from where we previously resided each time) and he had to put with weeks of me sobbing and sighing as if everything I had ever loved was now lost to me. So change is hard for me.
There were lots of reasons Greg and I decided that me staying home would be what is best for our family. Firstly, the sheer financial aspect was reason enough. While I loved the job I had before Levi was born, it really didn’t pay enough to merit paying for childcare. My whole paycheck would have gone straight to childcare and I didn’t LOVE that job enough to let that happen. Secondly, my mom had been a stay at home mom and that was pretty awesome for my siblings and me. She was always there for the big moments and that meant a lot to us and I wanted the opportunity for however long it might be. Those two reasons were definitely plenty enough to make the decision a no-brainer for Greg and me but there was one nagging reason in the back of my brain that kept tumbling around that let me know that I absolutely had to be a stay at home mom with Levi, at least for the first few years. And that reason was my dirty little secret for a long time, that for a while, even Greg didn’t know.
I needed to be a stay at home mom because that was the only way that I was going to fully accept the massive change that was about to hit our lives. It seems terrible to even see it written out but I needed to be fully immersed in my son’s life in order to be able to love him like he deserved to be loved. (Note: this is NOT to say that moms who also work out of the home don’t love their kids perfectly. This is MY story, not any one else’s.) And I knew, deep down in the dark corners of my heart that I would be pretty resentful of this bundle of joy when he finally arrived. I would want to mourn the loss of my past life of supposed freedom and self-fulfillment. And sure enough, when Levi arrived, I struggled….a whole lot. Not unlike those teenage moms that MTV showcases so nicely, I wanted my life to go back to how it was; before nursing schedules and lack of sleep schedules and colds. I was self-centered and frustrated and fighting the change that had occurred with all that was in me. This is not to say that I didn’t love Levi the moment he burst into the world. I loved him dearly and that made me feel even worse for fighting against his presence in our lives.
But slowly, over the course of his first year of life, I began to accept the change. And more than accept it, I realized that I loved what it brought to our lives. I think the wisest of women, those very few wise women, realize when they take that first glimpse of their beautiful new baby that they are really looking at one big countdown clock. The seconds are already ticking away to first teeth and first steps and first words and first days of school and first sleepovers and first dates and first drives and first dorm rooms and so on and so on. And the best of these women realize that this countdown isn’t something to be dreaded or feared but a reminder to live fully present in each of those moments.
Making the decision to be a stay at home mom was how I realized the importance of living my child’s life with him. A lesson that most women have ingrained in them when they hear that first cry, took me a solid year of doing battle with the biggest change of my life to fully understand. And so my dirty little secret has become my best friend. That nagging voice in the back of my head that told me I was going to need to “suck it up” and do this, was most likely Jesus giving me a little shove in the direction that only He would know I needed. I don’t know how much longer I will solely be a stay at home mom but I am so thankful that I evenhad the chance to do it. I am so thankful that my shameful secret lead to something so beautiful. I am grateful for mornings spent at Sea World and afternoons filled with drawing trucks….so so so many trucks.
I am sure our lives will soon spiral into a whirl of soccer practices and PTA meetings and one day Levi will have friends that he likes better than me and probably one day he’ll meet a girl he loves more than me but for now, my mourning has turned to laughing…with sharks and trucks.
