My husband, from Day One of me having Jake has been hands-on and involved in his upbringing. This wasn’t just important to me when I was sleep-deprived and emotional, but even more so as he’s grown into a walking, babbling, getting-into-everything toddler. As soon as my husband gets home, its “Jakey Time.” Not only has Jake become a Daddy’s Boy, but my husband seems to eat up the attention and fun, but short times they spend together. Every night, he is on bath duty and helps him brush his teeth, get into his PJs and reads him books before bedtime. Granted, I get the PJs and night time diaper out and tidy up the crib, but its the Daddy and Jake Show each night. Its a great bonding time for them.

On weekends, especially now that I am pregnant and more tired than usual, my husband will play with Jake so I can take naps. He feeds him, packs his bag if we are going to run errands and most importantly, (LOL) he will change poopy diapers. Even when we are out and about, my husband has no problem grabbing Jake and the diaper bag and changing him either in the bathroom or in the car.

I’ve met moms recently who carry the brunt of all the work with the baby. The husbands sit back and don’t blink an eye. They don’t step in to really do much at all and you can see the frustration and tiredness in the mother’s eyes. Recently, I even heard of a dad who admitted to work colleagues that he screwed up diaper changing with their newborn in hopes that his wife would just take over. It worked and he’s never changed a diaper since and the kid is almost six months old. He’s also never put the baby in the car seat or stroller himself. Really? Really? Come on! I really do think raising a child is a team effort of both parents. I’m glad my husband agrees and shows his agreement through his actions.

So, if you are pregnant or single and hope someday to have a supportive husband at home…really talk about and see how they react to the parenting roles. It will save you a lot of stress that you don’t need. I love you, honey! I am one lucky WAHM!

Something that everyone asks me is weighing heavy on my mind though. Will I slow down work once the second baby arrives? Or will “Dos” go to the sitter three times a week like Jake does? I’m not quite sure what I will do. I do know, there is no way I can work as hard as I do now with one kid. A toddler and an infant is a lot to handle.

How many of you have two kids? What did you do to prepare for the second child work-wise? Any thoughts, advice and stories would be great!

Yah Right! Boy, was I wrong.

I’ve decided that maternity breaks should happen as soon as your child can walk and end at age 3 when they can start going to preschool. A newborn baby is easy (in retrospect)…well, once you get the hang of breastfeeding. Jake just turned one last week and it seems overnight he has become VERY aware that Mommy is ignoring him when she sits in that big chair and stares at a large, bright screen and taps her fingers on a keyboard. Trying to get any real work done when he is awake now is impossible. If I am not chasing him down from going through the dog door, I am trying to keep him from pulling all the papers out of my file cabinet or books off my bookshelf. And don’t get me started on his attempts to pull my arms down from the keyboard…this kid is strong!

He goes to the sitter three times a week and I am beginning to wish he was there more often, just so I could get some peace and quiet and get things done. But then, if I did that, whats the point of saying I am a WAHM and now I am doing what I never wanted to do…let someone else “raise him” instead of me. The guilt is setting in again. The excitement about my work is disappearing.  Mondays are the worst day for me. After a fun-filled weekend with Jake and dad at home, I send him to  the sitter and I come back home and have the hardest time getting motivated to work again. I miss my little man. I feel overwhelmed with responsibilities.

I’d love to know how other WAHMs deal with these kinds of days and emotions.

For a while, I’d have frustrations and would email them to my sister or a few close girlfriends. Now, I go online and post it as my Facebook status. Within minutes, I’ll have three or four moms comment with their familiar experience or advice. We have a Twitter account for this blog too and I go there sometimes to ask questions I don’t necessarily want to tweet with my PR and media friends.  Basically, Social Media has made parenting a little easier. It may not solve the issue at hand every time but at least I can get some instant sympathy or answers. I don’t know if I could handle calling people all day to ask questions or vent frustrations. I’d never get anything done. Plus, I don’t have any neighbors who I can just pop in to see and talk to about baby stuff. All their kids are grown and adults.

I guess in the days before the internet, moms got out more. Or made a lot of phone calls. Or just dealt with stuff. Nothing has been earth-shattering horrific…just issues about sleeping habits or eating habits and playing alone, etc. But, it is really nice to have social media to keep me connected. And sane.

I’d love to hear about other blogs or sites you go to get help or advice on your parenting issues/questions.  And if you are on Twitter, let us know!

But what do you do when you haven’t seen someone in a long time, they don’t have kids and they don’t preface ”kid or no kid?” Do you ask if its OK to bring the baby, hoping they will be honest?  Or, do you just assume that its probably a good idea to set up a sitter? In the past week, I planned two lunches where I automatically assumed the party I’d be joining for lunch wouldn’t want Jake there, since it was more of professional relationship, but after making plans for Jake to be watched, I was asked if I was bringing him because they wanted to see him. I also planned an afternoon to catch up with another couple my husband and I haven’t seen since before the baby. I figured for sure it was a time to get a sitter, but didn’t know, so I asked if honestly they wanted Jake there or not. They said to bring him, but part of me wonders if they said it to be polite?

Maybe I am making too much out of this, but how have you approached lunches with your kid and colleagues and friends?

Why do you work at home with a child? Would you do it differently if you could? Would you go back to having a boss? Would you throw your career ambitions out the window and be a stay-at-home mom if you won the Lottery?

I am starting to feel confused about being a WAHM. Why am I doing this?

When I was pregnant, I wanted to work because I enjoyed my work, I loved that I have the ability to be with my child and work at home and because of debt, there wasn’t a way for me to take a year or two off to just raise a kid. But now, I am thinking by the time baby #2 comes, I hope to be able to cut back a lot on work and focus more on raising my kids for a few years. I’ve come to this realization after being a mom for just six months now. I like my work, but it doesn’t give me that same satisfaction I used to get from it. I keep thinking about how I don’t want someone else raising my child so I can work. Maybe I am just getting frustrated with my work. Or maybe I am getting older, but I want to be a part of my children’s lives as they grow up and not miss those special moments.  I don’t know…I haven’t hit the Terrible Two’s with Jake…maybe I’ll change my mind?

Do you waver back and forth about how you feel about working, even with your kids around you and not working for someone but for yourself? I know, for sure, that I will never go back to having a boss…so, other than being a WAHM or hitting the Lottery, what else can I do to feel completely excited about work again? Or is this what happens when you have a child? You are never fully satisfied?

I have always been pretty tender about things…I cry during the National Anthem, choke up reading greeting cards and bawl my eyes out during “Biggest Loser”.  But now that I am a mom and have given birth, I can’t stop tearing up at the most inane things. A few days ago, I was unloading my cart at Target while Jake was in the carrier facing two ladies waiting behind me. They were smiling and talking to him and he started cooing and smiling back at them. One woman said “Hello, Blue Eyes. My, aren’t you an adorable baby.” I started to get misty-eyed. I turned to them and smiled and said “Thank you.” They continued to say he was cute and laughed as he smiled at them. I was choking up as I heard this. Other people thought my baby was a cutie, just like me. And this is causing me to cry now? I also teared up at a football game when I saw a dad hold his son on his lap and help him cheer.  He tussled his hair and gave him a hug as his son squealed with delight. I couldn’t stop thinking about how cool it was to be a parent and loved to see this tender moment.  These moments should give me a warm feeling, not make me reach for my Kleenex, right?

Now, other than the tender moments, I am also finding my sensitivity towards animals and children who have been abused to go into overload. To the point of not being able to let the thoughts go. When I hear news of someone beating a child or an abduction, my heart sinks and I keep thinking of how traumatized that poor child must be. Reports of animals being abused or neglected just rip me up. Defenseless animals hurt or maimed because of some horrible human. I will sit and think about it for hours and not know how to get the thoughts out of my head. I am still trying to wrap my head around how people in medicine and police/firefighters/CPS can handle each day when they see situations like this. A pediatric doctor friend was telling me about a 2-year old she saw who was paralyzed from her parent’s beatings. She told me about it so nonchalantly. I gasped in horror and couldn’t figure out how she wasn’t just as alarmed as I was. I know its these people’s jobs, but how on earth do you not let that situation play over and over in your head?

All I know, is that I am really much more sensitive as a parent. Its not just in my home life, but in my work too.  I feel like I have to do even better than I did before I had the baby because if I mess up now, it must be because I am trying to juggle a baby and my biz. Which, in some ways is true.  The littlest mistakes can make me cry. I wonder if I really can do it all?

At 2:45 a.m. I heard him start to whimper on our video monitor. I rolled over in bed and watched him as he squirmed around and started to cry. “Be strong” I kept telling myself. The minutes started to tick by…15 minutes of him crying and rolling his head to the side to see if I would be there at the crib side to scoop him up.  I laid there and watched him cry…the lights on the monitor going from a green to yellow to bright red to signify a loud cry/noise in the nursery. It broke my heart to see him cry, but I knew if I didn’t get him, he’d eventually fall back asleep. Well, he continued to cry. And cry. It was coming on an hour now and I had even turned off the volume and just watched him, hoping that if I didn’t hear him, it would make it easier. Why wasn’t he falling back to sleep? Should I give up and go and nurse him? No, I can’t give in. He will “cry it out” as the doctor said and I must be strong. Well, about 15 minutes later, as he was still crying, I all of a sudden noticed a hand reach down and start to rub and pat him. He stopped crying. I turned on the volume and heard my mother-in-law shushing him and comforting him. He just kept looking up at her and didn’t make a peep. After about 5 minutes, he started to shut his eyes and she left and went back to bed. I had started to drift off to sleep, too.

When I woke at 6 a.m. and he was crying to be fed, I immediately got up and ran to his room. I kept apologizing to him for not getting him. He didn’t really seem to care, he just started to nurse with a vengeance. Guilt started to set in. What was wrong with me? I had just laid in bed and watched my precious baby boy cry for more than an hour and the person who consoled him was my mother-in-law who was probably wondering what kind of horrible mother I was. After Jake was done eating, we went downstairs to see my mother-in-law and husband. I thanked my MIL and also apologized for Jake crying and waking her. She said she didn’t mean to step on my toes, but she worried he might have  fever and didnt think he should be crying without being consoled after about 15 minutes. OH MY GOSH. I completely and utterly forgot that he might get a fever. Or that he’d be sore from the vaccines. Those issues didn’t remotely cross my mind as I watched him cry from the video monitor. How horrible of a mother was I? Did I scar my child? Was he mad at me now, thinking I had abandoned him? All this time I thought I was “being strong and letting him cry it out”. Later that day when I took a shower, I stood there as the water poured down on me and I felt like ever drop was filled with my guilt. I cried and cried.

Everyone assures me he’s fine and I now plan to at least check on him after 15 minutes of crying, but the guilt is still there. I thought I was doing the right thing. Maybe I was, maybe I wasn’t…but the guilt aches inside me. I have this feeling the guilt will not completely ever go away. It will waver on and off as I raise my child and work and try to be a good mom. I don’t know if moms ever get over some sort of guilt, no matter if it is choosing to work or letting the baby “cry it out”.