Podcast

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Are you the type of person who likes to listen to Podcast? I’m married to a man who isn’t a fan of podcasts and he has his reasons but I’ll spare you the details. I honestly can’t remember word from word the reasoning so I don’t want to misquote him. I don’t always listen to them but I do enjoy listening to them when I am doing stuff and I don’t want to listen to an audiobook. I have a list of podcasts that I have subscribed to but I haven’t had a chance to listen to them lately. I have been making myself listen to audiobooks because I am on my phone so much I need to do something that makes me feel like I’m not completely wasting my time. I know I haven’t even touched the tip of what is out there in the Podcast world.

I think it’s fun to listen to certain podcast – this is how I come to learn about books, other Podcasts, and hear a different point of view on certain topic. As of right now here is my list of Podcasts I have subscribe to:

Read Aloud Revival by Sarah Mackenzie
No Place Like Home by Mike and Megan Knorpp
Teachers off Duty
#One Fear
The Funny Things About Parenting by Tj & Melissa
Cleaning Up The Mess by Dr. Caroline Leaf
The Rise & Fall of Mars Hill

I have a handful that I have subscribe to but I haven’t even listened to one Podcast such as:

The Unschooling Life
Exploring Unschooling
Nutrition Facts with Dr. Greger
The Tim Hawkins Podcast
Just Ingredients
Unschooling Mom2Mom with Sue Patterson
The Life Withou School Home Education

I am also subscribed to church podcast which I typically will download one or two when I know I won’t have access to YouTube. Now there is some Podcast that have been going for a while so if I want to get caught up it’s going to take me awhile. Then there are some that have only done a few shows because it’s based off one topic. This is the case The Rise & Fall of Mars Hill – which I found interesting but there is only one “season” and if they do another season I’m pretty sure it would have to be on a different topic. I think I will unsubscribe to a few now that I have them written out because I can’t do the Unschooling concept for my kids because I am respecting the wishes of my husband. I follow a group people on Instagram and I joined their Podcast but haven’t taken the time to listen.

Are you the type of person who likes to listen to Podcasts?
If so what do you normally look for in a Podcasts?

32 Weeks + Update

I am currently 32 weeks pregnant and I feel pretty tired over all. I am starting to get stretch marks which I have a had four other kids and no stretch marks. I am officially the biggest I have ever been but this make sense because I now have two 3LBS 12OZ babies with all the other stuff that is included when pregnant. The babies are doing well and it was confirmed that three ultrasound ago they mixed up the babies locations and we fixed it for the charts. Fluids look good and I haven’t had any signs of early labor. Warning: TMI – I am starting to lose my operculum but it was a few days ago and I haven’t seen any signs since which it normal. I started to lose mine with my fourth a month before I went into labor. I didn’t truly understand the full concept of losing the operculum until I was in active labor with my second child when I realized what I was seeing for a week was my body getting ready to go into labor. I get it that it’s not always a sign but for me it’s the beginning of the end.

I still don’t feel fully ready for these twins and we are hoping that I can keep them in until the end of May because we will have help with the other kids. I am slowly getting the house into a place that I can manage it with little effort. I am truly physically ready to have these babies but in other ways not so much. We have come to term we won’t have a biggest enough vehicle when we have the babies and we will make it work until September. Baby A has a lot of hair which doesn’t surprise me because all my babies came out with hair. They are always moving around like crazy and Baby B is still breech but Baby A is where he needs to be so I will continue down the path of vaginal birth with no epidural. This has been an interesting experience. I am hoping to get a few more things before they get here but over all we are ready. Then again I feel I am forgetting something major.

31 Weeks + Real Moments (Low moments)

I am so disappointed in myself because I am not handling being 31 weeks pregnant very well and I don’t like it. Overall I am feeling pretty good for being as far along as I am with twins. I am still able to walk and do stuff – it may take me awhile but I am not on bed rest or couch rest (I just heard this from another mom to be). I am a doer and I can’t do as much as I like and it’s making me crazy. I feel like I am failing my kids daily and my husband tries to tell me that is not the case. I am also dealing with a lot of emotions on top of being hormonal and feeling unprepared for the twins. I don’t have my hospital bag packed – we don’t have a lot of luggage and the one bag we have may not be usable since the apartment my husband lived in smelled like weed because of the other tenants. He had to get rid of 80% of the stuff he had in that apartment due to the smell and other things.

I have been looking at bags but I wanted one that is hard, has wheels, and zips up. I don’t want to pay close to $100 dollars for a bag that may only be used once or twice. I have always done a small bag that I don’t even think I have anymore but this time I am making sure I have enough snacks to get me through my time in the hospital. The stay for my daughter was the hardest for me and mostly because I was hungry most of the time. I don’t know if I have just been lucky in the other two hospitals I had my boys in or if due to COVID the hospital food was the worse. They didn’t give you any options and most of the food I didn’t eat. I was hungry pretty much the whole time I was in the hospital. I also was alone for most of the time which didn’t help. I have no idea what to expect with the place I’m delivery at and not sure how to find out. I have to much stuff and I’m angry that I didn’t get taken care before I got this far along. I am about to pack everything up in the play room and just let the boys have the few toys they play with on a regular basis. Which makes me angry because I want them to have more choices but I just can’t right now.

I can’t really move stuff and that is hard because if I don’t do it – it often takes a long time to get to where it needs to go. It’s been a week since we have gotten our new couch and the twin mattress is still in the dining room area. I haven’t done any form of lessons with the kids and it’s making me feel sad and a failure. Then today I was having back spasms and I had this happen with my daughter pregnancy and I didn’t have her for weeks afterward. I also know that I most likely did to much yesterday but I needed ONE AREA clean and I cleared out the van. I vacuumed, I cleaned out the glove box, and the drawer that allows you to store things under the passenger seat. The feeling of being unloved, unwanted, and ugly has been a struggle for a long time and now it’s just worse with all the hormones. I need physical touch and since I have only been ok with physical touch by a partner it’s not like I can get that anywhere. My husband is around but he has to work and he is trying to figure out more ways to bring in more money so we can get out of the crushing debt we have due to a lot of things but mostly school loans (don’t get me started on that).

I am on my phone 90% of the day and I HATE myself for it. I am feeling so overwhelmed and lonely that I use it to distract me. I play one flash game, listen to audiobooks, scroll Facebook/Instagram, watch random videos on those platforms, and listen to videos on YouTube. I feel so far away from what I believe and I don’t know how to stop feeling this way. I am still processing through stuff that I should of been processing over the last few years. I find myself just crying over things that I wish I was over already. Then there all the things I have to process that has nothing to do with me. A phone call from someone to inform me about someone and being left to wonder why in the world I was told about that but couldn’t be told about health issues and a hospital stay. Wondering if I am being set up because they assumed stuff but instead of asking me they play games. Finding out about a passing of someone who I haven’t talked to in years but then finding out the real cause makes me have even more questions but they will never be answered.

I am so tired of battling with my younger two boys over their diapers, eating, and behavior overall. I am tired of being judge because I haven’t potty trained my 3-year-old but there is nothing that motivates him. He doesn’t like stickers, he doesn’t have a toy he wants, and I know as his mother when he is ready it will be simple but I have no idea when he will be ready. He pees and poops so much that I fear he will live in the bathroom. I also know that he would be the type to just pee and poop on the floor if I try to do the naked way. It’s like a game for him and if I could I would pay someone to potty train my kids. My oldest is fighting going to the bathroom again and it’s making him cranky. He is fighting with his brothers and back talking all the time. He loses the things he enjoys but he still continues. All he wants to do is watch TV all day and that is another thing I’m beating myself up over. I am so tired all the time I let the TV be on more than it should. They are getting bored with it and the younger two boys want to be with me ALL the time. I can’t make dinner without them and it’s hard because once we get to a certain point they can’t help anymore and they don’t understand.

We need a bigger vehicle but that isn’t going to happen and I want to be settled in a permanent home and that isn’t going to happen. I am in survival mode and I am tired of living in this state. I am tired of not having friends, having a church, having kids around for my kids to play with, being told that no matter what I do our kids are going to feel a certain way about me (one reason I was leaning towards not having kids was because I didn’t understand why I wanted to have more people who are going to get to a point of not liking me – I didn’t have a good relationships with my parents and I didn’t want that to happen to me. I honestly believed that it could be different but I have been reminded often how that is most likely not going to be the case), I want a village but that may never happen, I am scared to leave my kids with people, and I have a hard time asking for help (mostly because when I do – I am often let down). I hate when people tell me “Let me know what I can do to help.” How about you just do something instead of waiting for me to ask because when I finally do – I am met with why they can’t help in that way.

Anyway – sorry for the long, emotional post but this is where I am at this time in my life. Every room is a mess and I will most likely do what I need to do and go to bed. I will wake up at 4 to get into the room with the toys and start to pack everything up. I’m not joking – I can’t handle it anymore. I know there will be a day I can sit down and sort but until then it’s all going into storage. Bring on the judgement by the people in my life and I know I have an issues because it’s me with the toy problem not my kids. It’s my issue that I have to work through because I have this ideal of what I want to provide for my kids but I haven’t been able to achieve it yet. I need to let go of this idea and be realistic. We will all be happier if I can get to a place of letting go. I was told by an adult in my life that I always got what I wanted which I knew was not true because I had a best friend who got everything she wanted. I may of gotten more than their two kids but most of the time it was not what I actually wanted.

Lord help me get to day of delivering these boys and each day afterward. Which I know has its own challenges.

30 Weeks Pregnant + Update

It’s official I am finally in the 30 weeks zone and to be honest this whole experience is going to be challenging. I am tired all the time. I was sleeping pretty hard there for a week or so but now I’m achy and waking almost every hour again. Thank God for the body pillow which I never thought I would be the type of person who would ever say that. My sinuses are stuffy all the time so if I want to give one side a break I have to lay on my right side, even thought I prefer to sleep on my left. I sleep with my mouth open so every time I wake I have to drink water. I am now waking and having to use the bathroom EVERY TIME I wake up. Thank God we have a 1/2 bath on the same floor so I don’t have to walk up the stairs every time I need to go to the bathroom. I am concern to drive anywhere because I have almost fallen asleep at the wheel on a few occasions. I could be sitting up on the couch with my kids and just pass out.

I can’t breath all the time – even when I’m sitting and talking on the phone. It sounds like I just took a run. If I get up to go into another room I have to sit right down which means everything takes longer. I am getting lightheaded more often – even when I’m sitting in the same spot. I still have my belly band that I wear but due to the belly getting bigger it gets itchy after awhile. I am still waiting for the other band I brought just in case I have to have a c-section. EVERYTHING is swollen and I don’t feel like a normal woman anymore. My legs are so gross looking and the other day I was putting on a dress and I had a tank top on. My oldest son got all concern and asked what happened to my legs. I usually have them hidden away. I do not feel attractive at all but then again I haven’t felt that way for a long time so this isn’t anything new.

I have no desire to drink coffee in the morning which is making me a little cranky throughout the day. Eating has become a thing because I don’t want to really eat. When I do a lot of the times I feel nauseous. Then if I do eat without feeling sick I am so stuffed that I’m uncomfortable. I know my body is thinning out because the twins are taking resources that I had in reserved before getting pregnant with them. I honestly don’t care if people make comments to me in the store – overall people are not rude about it. They are just trying to make conversation. I look like I’m ready to pop at any moment and to be honest I agree because I look like I’m closer to 40 weeks then 30. I am trying to imagine my body getting any bigger and it’s kind of concerning. I know my body can and will do it. I know that I will never be the same and there is a good chance if I ever want the extra skin to go away I am going to have to have surgery.

I have always wanted twins and now we are having them. I know we are so blessed with the family we have and that I have been able to have all my kids with no complications. I love my kids so much and I’m so glad I am able to be with them all the time. As I type this up I can see my belly just moving all over the place. I had my latest ultrasound yesterday and one the babies in breech – which makes me sad. I know there is still time but I just wish he would stay down. The baby that is closer to my bladder is head down but my doctors have not talked to me about any birth plans at this time. Everything looks good so there is no concern at this time. Starting in two weeks I will be going to the MFM twice a week – which is going to make my husband “happy”. We do not feel like we are ready for these boys. All the unknowns are getting to me. I haven’t had any cramps or anything but there has been a few times I felt maybe my lower half feels achy but I don’t know if it’s a sign or just me doing to much. I have been trying to sit as often as I can but it’s making me stir crazy.

The TV is on all the time and my kids are acting like crazy little people. I know they are feeding off me and they have to know things are about to change. All I want to do is provide a safe, loving, and an educational environment. I feel like I’m FAILING them everyday. I want to be reading, doing activities with them but due to me being cranky and short I would rather them be watching TV then be near me. Our oldest is having issues again with going to the bathroom so that is making him cranky. He is instigating all the time. He is teaching his brothers to do stupid stuff and I feel like I need to start holding him responsible for their behavior. Our daughter is 10 months old and she isn’t doing anything but rolling over. My husband wanted to hold off on services but now he wants me to reach out to get that ball rolling. Our older two had to have them so we aren’t surprised – but after three kids I am feeling a certain way about it.

I could go on and on about how I’m feeling and maybe I’ll write another post but I’m not sure what the next six weeks will be like and I’m trying to not stress. I warn my best friend that I will be in survival mode so I may not be around much. There is a part of me that wants to shut down and push everyone out. I don’t want to talk to anyone. I have so many emotions I’m trying work through, deal with the limitation of being pregnant, and making sure my kids are safe/healthy. I’m nervous about delivery because even if I do get what I want it’s going to be a lot hard due to my size and them having to keep me hooked up on the monitors. I have never had a male doctor before and I’m afraid if I have one he is going to push stuff because he feels a certain way. I don’t think I have seen a female doctor since I started seeing the MFM and that is now causing me stress. I am so stuck in my head these days and I got to figure out a way to deal with it before I make myself crazy.

Egg Hunt Suggestion

My least favorite event I did as a Children’s pastor was the egg hunt. It was a stressful time for me because if I’m totally honest I didn’t see the point in doing one and having to stuff eggs was time consuming. When I started my full time job I learned that the person before me would lay out empty eggs for the kids to collect and gave them a bag of candy at the end. They also put out gold eggs as the prize eggs. Now I may not be a fan of this event but if you’re going to do one then please put a little more effort. The way I was instructed to do this event was to do this event on Palm Sunday and provide a picnic for the families afterward. It was a lot of work but it seemed to be a hit. I think the last year I was there it rained so we had to set up in the building.

I had four zones for the kids and each zone was done at a different time. This was to help families who had multiple age children. I provided a number of tickets inside each zone for a child to win a prize and then we provided a large family prize after the picnic. I made sure to have child appropriate items for each age group. Once the kids collected the eggs they were encourage to go to the gym to open their eggs and return the empty eggs to bins. This is how we kept the cost down and not having to buy more eggs. This is also how they figured out if they had a ticket or not. I would provide some of the food using the Children’s ministry budget but we often opened up for the members of the church to bring a dish. I believe we provided hamburgers and hot dogs for the event.

My last event I did was in the Spring of 2017 so it’s been awhile. I was able to take my kids to the same church for this years Easter event. Now they do it completely differently and I honestly wish I would of thought of this way. It was no longer an egg hunt but a candy scramble. They had three zones and they gave out bags with the church name on it. Inside the bag they provided an empty egg with a cross on it and a egg with some candy inside it. The way they handle giving out prizes was they put a special candy bar/item in the bag. If you found one then you got to chose from the prize table. They no longer provided lunch but gave out chips/pretzels and a slice of cake. They had craft tables set up and someone in a bunny outfit. Now the person who took over is or/and was part time. I had to put my oldest by his age group which was next to the younger zone but I stood with my two younger boys. Once they gave the green light the kids got to pick up candy. As I walked behind my younger two I pointed out candy for them to pick up. This reminded me of the one thing that I did when I was in charge that I wish that any group who put together this event would take into consideration.

Certain candy is NOT age appropriate. I watched my younger two put bubble gum, lemon heads, taffy items, and hard tack candy in their bucket. Most of the items they collected they could not eat and to me that is kind of disappointing to a kid. Now my kids don’t really eat a lot of candy mostly because they forget we have it in the house once they go to bed. I’m not going to remind them so usually it will sit in the cabinet for a bit and then it get thrown away. When I put these events together I would only put chocolate and single serve gummies in those eggs. I wanted to make sure that the kids effort was not done in vain. I recommend when putting those containers together don’t put the candy the younger kids can’t eat.

What was the best Easter event you attended?
What kind of egg hunt have you experience in the past?
What suggestion do you have for someone who is putting together this event?

Easter Craziness

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Sunday was Easter – I know not everyone celebrate Easter and I think due to my job I have had a hard time really celebrating the holiday as a whole. We never live to close to family so there was no traveling to have Easter dinner and since I had to work because church was my job. I have never really gotten into doing anything special. We were never invited to anyone house for Easter dinner so we would go home and just have a regular meal. This year was no exceptions – I was suppose to be alone for Easter with the kids so I had no plans on doing anything. I honestly didn’t even want to do a “basket” this year. I know as a Christian this is a very important holiday but I think on some level the idea we need to do these things because it’s what expected of us makes me not want to do it. I know that there will be someone who says “then don’t do it, because the whole meaning of Easter has nothing to do with the Easter Bunny.” I am not going to get into that logic with this post.

Now I know I’m going to pissed someone off but we don’t encourage our kids to believe in the Easter Bunny or Santa Clause. We don’t tell them they are coming with anything even though we were told that as a child. Our kids still get stuff but there isn’t this pressure we have to have it done by a certain point which played in my favor this year. I am now 30 weeks pregnant with twins and I only have so much bandwidth to get stuff done. I have let the house get out of control so the night before Easter I spent over a hour just cleaning up the house. Picking up toys, moving stuff, putting stuff away, and cleaning up the kitchen. I was done by the time I got to the dishes. This meant we would have no “baskets” waiting for them when they woke up. Come to find out our oldest who knew Easter was coming forgot about it on some level. I know this because when my husband said “Happy Easter” at the breakfast table my oldest said “It’s not Easter, yet”.

I want to be one of those moms who do special things for her kids. I have done so much special things for other people kids throughout my life that I don’t want to neglect my kids in this department. I made family breakfast and I planned to go out to the car to stuff eggs for the kids to collect. I am also the type of mom who doesn’t want junk in their baskets or inside the eggs. Tattoos, small plastic toys, and even all candy is not my cup of tea. This year we got some of those chocolate hazelnut candies because all our kids enjoy them and so do we. I also put chocolate candy coated mini eggs in the smaller eggs. Then I used my sons dinosaurs eggs he has gotten last year from his Grandmother going to McD’s on her lunch break. These are perfect because they were larger then store bought eggs – which by the way are a lot smaller than they used to be. I put in 15 different cars because we can never go wrong with cars in this house.

Anyway – before I could even make my way to the car to do this we discovered that I forgot the maple syrup on the table and our 2-year-old and 3-year-old decided it would be fun to dump the whole bottle. It was on the table, in a plate, on a chair, on the floor, and on them. I also discovered they managed to not be seen because syrup was on some toys and a blanket in the other room. I had to give the boys a bath and my husband and I tagged team to get the syrup cleaned up. Once again another $15 dollars bottle of syrup was wasted. Our 2-year-old did the same things back in the fall but he managed to keep most of it in a bowl on the counter. The bowl had old food in it that hasn’t been thrown out so saving the syrup wasn’t a choice. I didn’t know he could move the chair and get to the counter – learned that pretty quick after that moment.

That was a fun way to spend most of the morning but when I went to go put the ham that was given to us into the crock-pot I remember I needed maple syrup for the recipe. My husband had to run to the store before I could get dinner started. I am learning to just go with the flow at this point in life because I have ZERO control and I if I don’t I will lose my mind. Then this year I did not want to spend anymore money on stuff since I’m literally drowning in stuff and due to the high cost of everything we need to not spend as much as possible. I felt bad but I went into the garage to see if I could find anything that was given to me and the kids haven’t seen yet. I forgot that we brought a set of Lego’s for our oldest but due to someone giving us a ton of non-lego brand bricks I was going to try to sell it. We had this set for over a year now never taken out of the cardboard box it arrived in – and no one showed any interested. I even took 10 dollars off the price you get in the store. I decided this would be perfect for all the boys. My mom gave me a few things for my daughter and I found Little People for less than $2 dollars each a while ago. I had gotten some candy for them that I know they like and a food pouch for my daughter.

They were excited about the egg hunt and how we handle it was they got to collect the eggs. Then they had to put everything they got in a basket so they could share anything they found. This prevented them from finding most of the cars or most of the candy. I even added Paw Patrols balloons – the boys love balloons. They were fine with that solution and once they were done with the egg hunt. I showed them the picture above and they seemed to be happy. I am also finding the kids are so used to getting stuff they will play with for a few then leave it alone. I honestly don’t feel bad adding to their lego collection we will have five boys and one girl. I am pretty sure they will get used A LOT over the next decade. As you can see we didn’t do easter baskets and this may stay this way for the future. I don’t like storing them mostly because we aren’t settle in our “forever” home – I may invest at some point.

How do you handle easter baskets in your home?
What are some alternative ways you do an easter basket?
What do you provide in your kids baskets?
If money was no worries what would you give to your kids?

Last year we used Tonka dump trucks for the kids easter baskets.

ADHD

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In my experience a type-a person has a HARD time handling a person who is ADHD, unless they have come to a place where they try to understand. There has been time in my life I wonder if I had some form of ADD but not ADHD. In 2017 my husband was officially diagnose with ADHD. Once I began to learn about ADHD my eyes were open and I realized that a lot of the things I have gotten upset about over the years was due to this behavior and not because my husband did not care. I used to think my husband did things to hurt my feeling. That he didn’t care about me because he didn’t remember the little things I would tell him. It would take him a LONG time to get anything done and I took it as a personal attack. He clearly did not love me because he wasn’t willing to drop everything to do what I needed him to do. He didn’t love me because he couldn’t remember all the details of a story I told him, because I would often remember everything he told me. Now I can no longer remember everything because if you had kids you know that ability sort of goes MIA.

I have learned to be patience with my husband and come to accept that he is going to leave random things laying around the house. When we were first married it made me crazy that he would leave his socks ALL around the house. I had to hunt them down and I would get so upset. Now almost 14 years of marriage it doesn’t even phase me. Now I could list a few other things he leaves around the house but instead of getting upset about it, I just take care of it. I also have gotten to a point that nagging him doesn’t work and sometimes having a list hanging in a place that’s not in his face helps with getting task done. I also come to accept that if I want something done by a certain point I just do it and I don’t let myself get upset about it. Allowing myself to get upset isn’t going to change anything but my attitude towards him. Now if it is something that needs to get done and I can’t get it done I try to be kind about it and explain why I need him to do it now. I also try to do this when I know he isn’t in the middle of something.

Now I would be lying if I told you that there aren’t time that it still bugs me when I ask him to help me and he doesn’t get to it in a timely matter. I am human and I may not be as much of a type-a I was a few years ago. It’s amazing how life can beat that out of you when you have very little control in your own life. I still wish he would just take the few minutes to do the task then wait until the last second but if you watch videos of people who have ADHD. You know this is a common thing and they need that deadline to motivate them. Now there are multiple treatments for ADHD and he does follow one of them. It has shown to help overall. Unfortunately there are people in my husband life who do not care to understand this disorder. They still get annoyed with him when he doesn’t do what they asked him to do and how he handles things. Unless we have first hand experience we often do not show much empathy towards a person. I never understood the challenges that people with allergies (seasonal) faced until I realized I had them. Then I found that some people who do experience certain things still have an attitude of “suck it up buttercup.” I personally do not care for that saying and I don’t like it when people say that a person is crawling up their butt.

We believe one of our children is ADHD and now that I have had some experience with my husband I feel that I can be a little more patience with them. I know that the way they need to learn is going to look different and I have to remind myself to not just assume they are doing things to be hurtful. They think differently than most people and there is nothing wrong with that. We just need to learn about their way of thinking so we can be on their team instead of putting them down for not doing things the way we think it should be done.

Do you know someone who has ADHD?
How has it affected you or the person throughout their life?
When were you or someone you know diagnose?
How did your family handle it?
How did extended family handle it?
What are some things you find helpful?

Single Moms

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I am not a single mom but I am a military wife so I have had multiples times of being alone with the kids for extended times. My husband also used to work out of town so when I was pregnant with my third child I would have to take my two other kids to every doctor’s appointment I had and it was before the pandemic. I never had any issues with taking them and the office never said anything to me about bringing them. When I was pregnant with my fourth it was after the lockdown but things were still strict. I was fortunate that my MIL would watch the kids so I never had to take them to any of my appointments. Now I am currently pregnant with twins and my husband works from home. Thank God! I have an appointment once every two weeks due to the my age and type of twins I am carrying. I took my youngest son once due to our schedule and by choice took my oldest so he could witness the ultrasound.

On Monday we had an appointment for my second child that took months for us to get but due to my husband having to be out of town I had a feeling taking all the kids would be an issue. I decided to call and let them know what was going on. We had to reschedule it and we can’t be seen until August. This always makes me angry because the reality is not everyone has the abilities to have someone watch their kids. What does a single mother do? My husband scheduled changed and he is back in town which means my next appointment won’t be an issue but I was going to take all four kids to my next ultrasound. I told my best friend today once I’m settled and if I can I would love to help single moms by watching her kids if needed for appointments. I wonder how many don’t go to much needed appointments because our system isn’t designed to meet the needs of single moms. I guess in some states and maybe all there is assistant for childcare.

I am not looking forward to the future with all six kids because appointments will be a hard on everyone. I hope I can find a momma helper/nanny to help me but as of right now that looks super challenging. I have great respect for mom who do it on their own. I’m not officially a single mom but I have had experiences on doing things on my own. On Sunday I took the kids out to a restaurant x 2, church, and an easter event. It had some very stressful times during the day and I’m pretty sure people at the restaurant looked at me like I was a crazy person. I am also a believer that if you are close to a single mom then don’t ask her what she needs, just show up and offer help. Bring her food, bring her a gift card, watch her kids if she allows, and so much more. I learned that it’s pointless when someone tells you “Let me know what I can do.” I could write a whole post on that especially since I listened to someone make a good point about that phase. Depending on the person they may not know what to say or maybe in their experience they have and that person/other did not do anything.

Now I have known a handful of single moms who have taken advantage of those around them. I read a story about how a single mom would drop off her kid at their friends house for sleepovers then wouldn’t pick up their child at the time they were told. This happened multiple times that the parent of the friend contacted the single mother because they needed to leave and told them if they did not hear back from them by a certain point they were going to call the cops to informed them a child was left by their mother. The thing was the mother would say she would come but then she wouldn’t show up for hours and never giving reasons behind it. Every situations is different but I know there are a lot of moms out there that need help and I wish there were people who would stop asking them what they need and just help. Then of course they have to be careful because not everyone who wants to help is a safe person. Which is my biggest thing which is why I don’t want to hire someone to babysit but be around when I’m around. Go with me to the store with the kids and maybe watch a few of the kids at a time for appointments.

What If Mode of Life

Photo by Jeff Stapleton on Pexels.com

I believe everyone have experience a time in their life that they had a what if moments. I don’t mean in the way of what if I would of picked up the phone, what if I said yes to that date, what if I would’ve left the house five minutes earlier, what if I didn’t have kids, and etc. What I mean when you are in a state of life that you are waiting for something to happen for you be able to make a choice. I feel I have been living my life in this state for years now. I am honestly tired of living this way but nothing seems to be changing. Bare with me and I’ll give you a few examples of what I mean by all this “What if…”

In 2018 the biggest What if I was experience is the future of my marriage – my husband decided he wanted out but he wasn’t fully ready to pull the trigger. I had no idea what the future hold – one moment we would talk about moving to a new state and another moment he wouldn’t really talk to me at all. I was pregnant with our second kid. He got a job offer that he has been working towards his whole career. The thing is we would have to relocate to the area we left for me to take the job. I did not want to move back there but I also wanted my marriage to not fall apart. Shortly after our second son was born I was left in a world of the what if. What if we separated I would have to find a new place to live, what if we stayed together would we move, what if he moved there and I stayed where I was for a year, what if I decided to move out of state… I spent my whole maternity leave not sure what was would happen but began the process of getting rid of stuff since moving was going to happen either way. The night before my first day back to my job – my husband got an official offer and the choice was made to work on our marriage. I was then let go the next day (didn’t know that at the time).

I spent the rest of 2018 and most of 2019 wondering if we would make it and if my husband really wanted to work on our marriage. I moved knowing that there was a possibility that we would still end up with a broken marriage. I got pregnant with our third child at the end of 2018 and the job he wanted ended up being a very stressful time in his life. He was never home due to work and the environment was not what anyone expected. It’s a long story but he ended up having to go OH for work and would be out there for weeks for a major project. During this time the company he was working for was working on getting rid of him and a handful of other guys. Things got bad but the business he was working at for weeks on end really liked him. It was during this time where we were back to the “what if…” What if he loses his job, what if the business in OH hired him, what if I decided to not go with him, what if we decided to officially go our separate ways… One thing I did know we could not stay at the 2 bedroom townhouse with our dog so moving had to happen either way.

I could list the what if that came our way in 2020 with him losing his job, staying in OH, moving out of state, having to live with my MIL, finding a new job, living is MS, having our baby girl in MS, and so many other choices we had to wait on because of the “what if…” Now we are once again living in the “what if…” of life. We were hoping that a project my husband was/is working on would have started off with a big bang and it would of change things…but we are still waiting for that to happen. There is a possibility of a job promotion but we don’t know when/if that would come. I am currently trying to figure out what would be the best choice for our family when it comes to staying or moving. We don’t know if we have a place to land in the area we want to move to due to other peoples “what if…” moments. I am currently trying to figure out if I can hire someone to help me but that hasn’t worked out. We need a “new” car for our growing family but that may not happen in the timeframe I was hoping.

Living in these moments of not knowing should be normal at this point. I should be a pro and on some level I am a pro. I have gotten to a point in accepting I can’t control my life and that has been beaten out of me over the last few years. I can’t make things happens just because I want them to happen. I am a believer in prayer but he isn’t a vending machine so it’s not like I can put my 2 cents in and get a result. Rarely things happen in our time frame and a lot of times that’s a good thing. Then now we are living in a time of uncertainty because buying a house is only affordable to those who are rich at this point. Rent is worse than a house payment but getting approved for a loan seems nearly impossible. Everything cost so much and it doesn’t seem like this will change anytime soon. I just know I am tired of living in this mindset and wish I could get to a place that I’m not thinking about what needs to happen for another thing to happen. Then again in true human fashion if we moved, got a house, and finally got settled it would only be a matter of time where I got bored with the everyday normalcy – it may take some time but I’ll get there we all do.

Laundry Rules

This is an OLD picture but it always made me laugh. When we were first married our first apartment did not have a washer and dryer. We would have to go to the laundromat every two weeks which would be a half day experience. I will never forget the time my husband almost let a globe spider land on my head at that laundromat. I may still be a little upset about that one. Anyway – in 2009 we moved to our second apartment. We moved into a apartment complex and we managed to get one of the apartments that had a washer and dryer in the apartment. When we first moved there, there was only one building that allowed them and by the time we moved out they started to add them to other buildings. I was so excited to have one that I hugged it and someone took a picture.

It’s funny to think back then because this apartment was the smallest place we lived in but it was the most used placed for other people to stay and hang out. Everyone we knew used our washer and dryers – we lived down the road from the college we attended. I started to call our closet “The Hays Wash and Go”. It got to a point that we had a Facebook group for everyone who used the machine so we could make sure no one was using it when we needed to use it. My best friend had an apartment in the same complex but she did not have a unit and I remember her fiance/husband would come over to do laundry often.

I was doing laundry yesterday and we have a family member visiting. I was throwing a load in when they asked if I wanted to throw this towel into the the washer. I responded with “I don’t wash towels with clothes.” Now this person would get upset with me when we would do laundry at their house because I would never add the towels to the wash, when I was allowed to do the wash. I’m pretty sure they thought I was trying to make a point but most of the time I just didn’t even think about it, because of the one rule I had. They finally did ask me about it and I told them the same thing I told them when they asked about the towel. I’m pretty they think it’s stupid but they most likely have their own rules that they aren’t even aware they have for their own laundry.

This got me thinking about what rules do we have when it comes to doing laundry. I was never really taught the “correct” way to wash clothes. I am currently listening to another book and the author got talking about laundry. I got to the portion of the book after I had my own thought but she talked about how we may of been taught we had to separate our whites from our colors. I know that a lot of people will wash their delicates in their own load. I have never really done that – I may hold off washing a red item with whites if I haven’t washed it before but other then that all our clothes go in together. The only “rule” I really have is not washing clothes with towels, blankets, and sheets. Now I do break this rule if I am doing a load of towels and I discovered I missed an item from my normal load of clothes. I will throw it in but I typically I do not combine them.

What are you own rules when it comes to laundry?
Do you use bleach?
What are some rules you have been taught that you don’t apply?
How often do you use dryer sheets?

When we have our own house someday I want to have a laundry room because I want to keep our clothes in that space. I also plan on making a sign that says “The Hays’ Wash and Go” in honor of all the times other people used our washer and dryers. Now we will be a family of 8 so needless to say we will be doing laundry almost everyday.