Occupation: wife

A friend of mine recently started a new business out of her home and as a result has been finding out about a lot of women who are running small business ventures from home.  She’s been sharing her findings with a bunch of us,  mostly on facebook, so as I am looking at the page suggestions and reading about these women’s businesses I often read the “About” section.

Inevitably, because we’re talking about women with young families making a small income while they are at home with their kids, a lot of these blurbs look the same – “I’m a wife and mother, working from home” or “I’m Mama to the most wonderful kid in the world” or “Mom to Joe-Bob and Bobbie-Joe and wife to Bob-Boy!!!!!!”.

These blurbs almost always make me cringe and for a long time I couldn’t really tell you why.  I mean, I’m a Mom of three who works from home.  It’s exactly what my own bio would say.  In fact, when I was introduced to the company that I do work for it was noted that I would be working at home while juggling my young family.  I don’t have a right to be irritated by these bios, I am these bios.

Then it hit me yesterday as I was browsing yet another home-based business.  What bugs me isn’t that these women are identifying themselves as mothers.  It’s the ones that identify themselves and mothers and wives.  It’s the “I’m a wife and mother” that irks me (and let me just apologize up front to my friends who have used this phrase.  I still think you’re all awesome!).

Not that I have anything against wives.  I’m a wife.  The problem is that when that is written in a bio on a business page, it makes me think that “wife” is some sort of job that needs special mentioning, or even that it is some sort of status symbol.  Mother doesn’t bother me, though, because   let’s face it, “mother” (and father) is a job and does need to be mentioned.   Being a mother means that there is a very good chance that I might not get back to you within a nano-second of you phonnig or emailing me.  It means that while I take your call, there might be screaming going on in the other room.   It means that I am probably doing the bulk of my work at 2 am. Parenting is work,  and we are basically employed by our children for at least a little while. 

But wife?  Wife isn’t a job.  Being a wife shouldn’t influence your at-home business.  Having kids does, sure, because all day long you’re going to be dealing with the wee rottens and work might have to take a back seat.  That’s worth mentioning.  But if your wifely duties interfere with your business then, well, I’m glad I’m not married to your husband.

 I don’t work for Steve.  Yes, I am at home full time.  Yes, I consider it my job to wash the dishes and do the laundry (although I’ve always considered the fact that I do Steve’s laundry to be a nice gesture and not actually a part of my own job description).  Keeping the house (relatively) clean?  My job right now, sure.  But  Steve and I are partners in life and together we work at our relationship and our family, he’s not the boss.  Even if he might like it to be so.

Not that I think all these women need to update their bios, but I am curious why people feel like it is necessary to mention their wifely status.  Enlighten me!

wordless wednesday::wood sprites, fairies and hallowe’en

a little sweet wood sprite

the littlest wood sprite

lookimg for fairies

obligatory halloween pic ture

wordless wednesday::safety first

yeah, yeah.  It’s Thursday.  Whatever.

safety first!

let’s blame it all on those growth charts

By the time Anna was born I was feeling pretty secure with my ability to handle babies.  I had two babies in a year and a half so that has to make me pretty knowledgeable.  Babies?  Pah! Easy!  Oh, and hello ALL YOU JUDGY PEOPLE. I know who you are and you won’t be pushing me around.  Been there, done that and I now know how to avoid all the crap.

Which is exactly what I did after Anna was born, I played a nice little game of avoidance and steered clear of all situations that had previously made me feel inadequate.  Situations that later proved to be things that didn’t require I waste precious energy worrying about or have me second guessing my own abilities.   I was on to the system and I wouldn’t be playing.

One of those things was the constant weighing of the baby.  That’s what you do with your first born, yes?  You weigh and record their weight like that number determines your worth as a mother.   I have pages of Callum’s weight recorded and during his first 3 months of life* I have never felt so inadequate and small.  I felt like a child after he was born, a drowning child flailing around hoping someone would save me.  After Claire was born, I didn’t buy into it as much.  When Anna was born I just didn’t bother weighing her at all.

I mean it.  After the first 6 weeks where the midwives were weighing her as mandated, I never weighed her.  I went in for her 2 month vaccinations (at almost 3 months) and weighed her then since they require it, and she was 10 lbs 2 ozs.  I was really very pleased, the nurse was not.  I pretended to care and swore I would go in at least once a week and monitor her weight.

I never did, I just lied because I knew that is what the nurse wanted to hear.   I have three small children, I volunteer, I’m a wife and sometimes I even work (albeit hardly ever, but sometimes I do).  My life is full and dragging all my kids to the clinic every week to weigh Anna, for what?  To talk about it?  It seemed ludicrous.

She hit 3 months in July and we were busy doing summer things so I never got into the doctor for the well-baby check.  5 months went by before I realized that she was due for another set of shots and there were some scheduling conflicts so it has yet to happen.  At 6 months we finally got in to see our doctor for a well-baby check up.  We go through the routine of weighing and measuring Callum (who was getting his 4-year check) and then we focus on Anna.  First her weight was recorded in Metric units that mean nothing to me, then the nurse switched to Imperial  and the scale read 12 lbs 7 ozs.

I was dumbfounded.  Then told the nurse that it can’t be right, she’s 6 months old.  How can she possibly only weigh 12 and half pounds?  I was assured the scale was accurate.  Then we go through the usual routine with the doctor who at no point mentions her weight.  At the end of the check-up he declared her perfect and asked if I had any concerns. I couldn’t let the weight go, I’ve seen the growth charts, I know 6 month olds aren’t suppose to weigh under 13 lbs,  3 month olds weigh 13 lbs.  Those growth charts are STILL HAUNTING ME.  Even when I don’t look at the damn things.

This is where diligently or even half-assedly recording a baby’s weight pays off.  It’s not their actual weight that matters, but their growth.  The doctor couldn’t comment on her growth because we had no data points.  The only thing he could comment on was that developmentally she was normal, and that clearly she didn’t appear to be suffering.  Through this entire conversation she’s on my hip smiling at the guy, and then burying her head into my shoulder.  Kid has good tastes, my doctor is hot, I would totally let him eat crackers in my bed.

Anyway, to ease my own mind we’re going back in a month so that the doctor can comment.   Because I care about my daughter, not because my doctor is hot.   And it appears that I’m not so strong after all, I need the doctor to tell me that it’s fine even when it is obvious that it’s fine.  She is a completely normal 6 month old.  She babbles and says “dadadadada”, she is sitting up on her own, she plays happily on her stomach, she’s bright and smiley and god-dammit SHE’S PERFECT (perfectly normal at any rate!).

So while I wasn’t even remotely concerned about her weight before now it is eating at me.  I had guessed she was close to 16 lbs.  I hate being wrong.

In the meantime I have to keep myself in check so that I don’t start forcing food on her, or letting other people force food on her.  No wonder we’re an entire nation of people with food issues.  It’s all because of those damn baby growth charts.

if I eat this pumpkin, maybe they'll leave me alone...

*I also had excel spreadsheets that recorded when I breastfed, for how long, whether Callum “gulped”, whether he had a dirty diaper shortly thereafter, if he fell asleep, etc, etc.  RIDICULOUS.

the birthday boy

I am now Mama to a 4-year old.  That seems so …weird.  How did four years go by already?  All those older people weren’t kidding when they said that children make time go by faster.  Yeesh.  It needs to slow down already.

We had a little party with a handful of Callum’s friends from school.  I was going to say we also invited a couple of friends who aren’t from school except that I’ve convinced all of my friends - or rather, the two that I had Before Preschool - to send their kids to the same preshool.  That means Callum’s birthday was a little like going to preschool, except at my house.  And there was beer, which well, makes 14 children running around underfoot a little more tolerable.

Oh, I tease.  Sort of.

It was a super sweet, super casual little gathering.  We had the fixings for burritos ready and everyone made their own, a monster truck cake as per Callum’s request, and a bonfire on the go because Callum associates having his friends over with a bonfire.  The kids didn’t really have anything to do with the bonfire, but after almost everyone went home we sat around it for a while with some good friends.  Can’t beat a good bonfire.

Not too much else to say, and really I’m just here to show you the cake and the party favour (of course).

orange with a truck body, as requested.

we're four!

ah, the party favour.  Have I mentioned that I LOVE making the party favours?  Beacuse I do.  My favorite job would be “party favour maker”.  Does that job exist?  It should. 

the party favour

I’m pretty proud of these, they’re a little restaurant game!  You leave them in the car and then when you have to sit around and wait, you can bring out your little traveling Pirate Game!  Cool, yes?  You want one, yes? 

ready for travel

I drew a pirate map and game board, colored it and then scanned it into the computer and printed it out on that printable fabric.  The original plan was to draw the map and then have Callum color it, except that while I was getting it copied onto the proper paper from my sketches, Callum showed up and wanted to do his own drawings not color the thing I drew.  Then he realized that I really wanted him to color my drawing and at that point, I was shit out of luck.  He’s his father’s son, let me tell you.

After it was printed, I sewed it to those old canvas curtains that I still have kicking around (an old curtain can have oh so  many other lives!) to make it into a little carrying case although the game you see here is Callum’s special game, so he got a special fabric.  Then I added a pocket for the little men and a di.  The little men were left blank for the kids to color themselves and I had intended to have them do it at the party but everyone was having fun without me trying to force them to do something crafty so I didn’t bother.  Plus, I’m lazy and there was beer to drink.   Tasty, tasty, tasty cold beer.

Callum's dudes

ready to play

 The game itself is Candyland because I am not clever enough to dream up a new game.  Instead of using cards I created a di with colors on it which I’m considering using in the real Candyland game on Family Meeting Night because that might make playing Candyland a little more bearable. hmmm…. beer might help in that situation too.

Sadly I didn’t have any velcro on-hand when I sewed these (at midnight the night before the party because we wouldn’t want to be too ridiculous and actually do these things ahead of time) so I ended up tying the pocket closed with a ribbon and that was less than ideal.  I have no doubt the di and men will soon fall out of all those pockets and get lost in the corners of several cars and several Moms will be swearing at me under their breath sometime soon. 

um, sorry?  Come on over and I’ll give you a cold beer!  It’ll take the edge off!

The game was definitely a hit with my own kids, plus I love that they don’t have to play the game, they can just use it as a playmat for their pirates!

One day I’ll write a nice post that I can actually print off and give to my children.