March is on the Horizon

Well that time has arrived again.  My husband packed up his bags and is back off to work for his 4 week stint.  We have spent the last month doing some serious budgeting and financial problem solving as we have found ourselves over spending ourselves into a pickle.   It really feels good to get a solid handle on the issue and pay more attention.  However with the budget in place and the children on high destruction mode it’s making life feel a little restrictive.

I spent the last month in a bit of a funk.  I think there are several factors weighing in on my mind at the moment.  For one it’s February.  I despise this month.  The only redeeming quality to February is that it’s the shortest month of the year.  I’m not a huge Valentine’s Day celebrator and I think that Groundhog’s Day is a kid’s thing , I really don’t hold a lot of precedence over a weather predicting rodent.  It’s that awful last real kick at winter and often the coldest month.  Some of the other issues that have been bringing me down include being disappointed about our poor budget planning and instead of being ahead like we hoped by this point we managed to put ourselves behind.  This of course resulted in my husband having to go back to his old schedule of 4 weeks gone and 2 weeks at home to make extra money to bail us back out.  Now that the husband is gone for longer periods of time and home less I’ve been feeling like I’ve been lacking in some desperately needed adult interaction and it’s been a little slower than I anticipated making a friend or two in my new home area.  The last thing that has really been getting to me is how I feel about what kind of parent I’m turning out to be.

I’m a full believer of the idea that “a happy mommy makes for a happy family.”  I quite often feel as, probably like most women, that I am the glue that holds the family together and ensures the household runs smoothly.  Granted I’m super lucky that I have a husband who works very hard and sacrifices so much to support us and is an amazing father but I still feel the weight of the world on my shoulders, or at least the weight of the house and we have a pretty big house.  When I’m feeling blue or un-motivated I can really see how it affects my family and those around me.  Not only am I feeling like I don’t have any motivation to get out and participate in my usual overabundance of activities in the community but I also feel like I’m not living up to my potential as a stay at home mom.  I know that in my heart I’m not giving it my all and the kids are not getting the best out of me that they deserve.  I feel extremely absent in the day and each night when I go to bed I feel guilty for wasting this precious time in my kid’s lives and I resolve in the morning that I’m going to work harder at it, but morning comes and this cloud of gloom sets over my head and the cycle repeats.

Even through the funk I’ve been having, I have however been doing extremely well with my Orange Rhino challenge and it’s been over two weeks already and I have not yet yelled once at my children.  Don’t get me wrong I’ve come so close about 1000 times and there are moments when I’ve wanted nothing more than to scream and rant and rave but my challenge has kept me true.  I’ve noticed that by not yelling I’ve been forced into stopping and look at each situation individually instead of letting incidents build up.  It has also forced me into dealing with discrepancies right away instead of putting it off for a minute or two more which just seems to build up the stress level.  Just recently the author of Orange Rhino decided to run a 30 day challenge to help anyone interested in attempting to learn how to yell at their own children less.  I immediately signed on, even though I already started on my own two weeks ago and I want to do a full year, but I figured that because the start day she projected for this challenge was two days before my husband had to go back to work and I knew I’d need all the support I could get.  Today is Day 3 of that challenge. 

March is just around the corner and there is a bit of hope in my forecast.  The weather will get nicer and that always cheers me up.   I have also, in the most unexpected place, have made a possible new friend.  I’m 2 weeks and 2 days into a challenge that’s forcing me into better parenting.   Lastly my daughter turns 4 in two weeks.  I know that it’s not a magic number and that each stage has its challenges but 4 years old is a milestone in my mind.  I will no longer have two kids in that difficult “terrible twos and even worse threes” stage.  Hopefully it will also see an improvement in my blogging commitment as well.  One thing is for certain at least we can all agree that St. Patrick’s Day is WAY more fun than Valentine’s Day!

Have a good night!