Contentment? As a Mom?

Do you ever feel like you were meant for something...else?

90 percent of the time, I love my life. I live in a great city, with tons of opportunities. I have an amazing husband, who works hard to provide for our family. I have a beautiful daughter, who fills my days with joy. I have a nice home and a place to exercise and health and a great church community. I am able to sing and run and read and exercise my creativity in different ways.

But.

I still struggle with contentment. That 10 percent just eats away at me. I wish things for my life that aren't possible right now, and I find myself frustrated that I'm not able to do those things. I wonder where this stems from. Is it some weird effect of the feminist movement, to make me feel like my being a stay-at-home mom is unfulfilling in some way? If I had stayed in my career, would I feel better about things? Would I be more content? It's almost like I see the grass as greener on the other side of the fence.

But see, here's the rub: I don't think I would like it any more if I were on the other side of the fence. Because I was there. I have experienced the other side of so many things. I was single until I was 26, and didn't date a lot, and I just wanted to be married. I had a marriage with no kids for 8 years, and I just wanted to add kids to the mix. I had a job as a teacher, and I never felt completely comfortable in it enough to enjoy it all the time. Same with being a photographer--I always felt like I knew just enough to get by, but not enough to really excel. And now, as a mom, I feel similarly--I'm doing an okay job, but I'm not doing an exceptional job.

Is it a lack of confidence that causes this discontent? I have noticed a pattern in my life--I get involved with something, and then after a while I get bored, or I realize I am inadequate in some way, and I move on. I was 100% into sports growing up. Then I did some theater in college, but not enough to really consider that a career (even though I majored in it). Then I was a teacher for 8 years, but never felt comfortable in it, and then I did photography for 3 years, and now I'm a mom. I've dabbled in sewing and scrapbooking and baking and aerobics and acting and blogging and gardening and so many other things, but have never stayed with anything for too long. And is it because of this dabbling, this bouncing back-and-forth between interests and passions--that has caused me to develop this weird discontentment? That I essentially have "life passion ADD"?

Or am I just setting myself up with expectations that are too high? Can anyone really feel 100% like they're doing their life's work? They choose a career when they're 19 or 20 and stick with that education and training and then every day they do that chosen career they feel like they're exactly where they belong? Because to me, that seems completely foreign.  People have asked me, "What do you want to do?" and I have never felt comfortable giving a solid answer. Because the true, honest answer is, "I don't know." I feel like so many of the choices that I have made in my life have been by default.

I chose a communications major because there were classes I could actually pass.
I went to China because my friend convinced me.
I started teaching because I couldn't find a theater job anywhere, and it was something I could do in the meantime.
I'm staying at home with Avonlea because teaching here isn't really an option (and I probably couldn't find a job anyway).

I kind of wonder, when Avonlea gets to the age where she starts deciding what she wants to do, what will she learn from me? I don't ever want Avonlea to think that choosing to stay at home with her was a "default" choice--but how do I tell her that I never expected to stay home? I grew up in the household of an amazing career woman, and always expected to follow in those footsteps, and now I'm going back on everything I ever said I wanted. I want to give Avonlea a strong sense of self to stand on, but my track record for advising her isn't so great, since my "sense of self foundation" is wobbly at best. And what about after that? When she does decide what she wants and moves out of the house--what will be left for me? I'll be one of those weird women who takes up underwater basket weaving because she has nothing to do with her time after her kids moved out of the house.

I guess, in the end, it's about transition. I had a really hard time after Nick and I got married. About a year into the marriage, I realized how much had changed for me. I had to "report to someone" (for lack of a better word) about how I spent my time, how I spent my money, where I went on vacation, what I wanted the house to look like, etc. I didn't even get to keep my own name! I felt like my identity had shifted so dramatically, and it took me a while to get used to "the new me". To get a feeling of how a marriage worked, and how to be a partner in life to someone else. I wasn't just me anymore. I was now "wife".

And now, I'm at another transition. Now I'm a "mom". I'm a year into it, and I'm realizing how hard it is for me to come to grips with it. That this, this mom thing that I'm in right now is what I am doing, and that maybe it isn't what I thought it would be. When I became a "mom", did I leave everything else behind? All my goals? All my wishes? I didn't think about the sacrifices I would have to make, or the changes I would have to make to my expectations. I didn't realize what I would lose.

But I also didn't realize what I would gain.

I'm still trying to figure it out.

"What a Big Brain You Have!"

It really feels like one day I had a baby, who only observed and sat by as things happened around her or to her, and then the next day I had a little girl who interacts and develops more every day.

I keep meaning to write, but life just gets in the way. I need to stop apologizing for it, after all, I'm not making money on this blog--it's just for me. I keep documenting our lives in photos, so that's an important thing.

Avonlea just gets more and more interesting. It always surprises me whenever she exhibits some new skill, or shows me new things that she has learned.

I mean, she is pointing at things when we read!  I know it's something little, but it's just seeing those brain connections that didn't exist prior, and are now getting stronger and stronger.  I read a lot of books with her. She used to have no attention span whatsoever, and now she goes to the book box and picks a book out and brings it back to me to read. She'll sit on my lap, turn all the pages, and point to pictures as I ask her questions. She can identify "ball", "balloons", "zebra", "fish", "eyes", "mouth", "elephant", "Elmo", "Cookie", and "monkey". I love asking her, "Where is the monkey?" and waiting while she scans the page and then makes a quick point at the monkey on the page. Today, she gave me an additional highlight: when I asked her where the monkey was, before pointing to it, she said, "ooh ooh ooh!"

The other day, Nick was blowing bubbles inside, and just for fun I said, "Bubbles, bubbles, everywhere!" a line from one of Avonlea's favorite stories. She toddled away from the bubbles, over to the book box, and grabbed the bubble book and brought it back to me to read.

She's not saying too many identifiable phrases, but she talks all the time and uses lots of inflection when she speaks. You can tell she is asking for certain things. She loves to drink out of my water bottle, and loves to munch on whatever I am eating--she'll point at my bottle or my plate and say, "oissssh?" She's also good at saying goodbye when people are leaving. It's really funny to look up in the window and see the top of her little head and her eyes peeking over the ledge, with her little arm pumping up and down in a wave. :) She also loves to wave at Waldo in the window.

As she gets more independent, we're also dealing with more temperament and strong-willed issues. Tonight we had a particularly cranky fight about leaving her bib on while she eats. She's been trying to pull them off each meal (velcro--urgh), and I haven't been letting her. Well, tonight that really made her mad. She threw a fit, and kept fighting me on it, but I tried to be calm and collected but continue to stand my ground.  Nick observed and said I did a good job riding the storm, which was nice of him to notice.

Avonlea also loves to go places and do things by herself. She doesn't like to hold my hand--she likes to walk around by herself and explore things on her own. Today that meant finding her several steps into the kitchen in the Asian restaurant we were in. Thankfully the staff thought it was funny instead of annoying, but I have to keep a closer eye on her now.

She also likes to eat by herself. If I put any food in her mouth, even if it's something she likes, she will spit it into her hand and then put it into her mouth herself. She also takes spoons away from me to put things into her mouth herself. Basically I have to make sure that whatever is in the spoon won't fall out--I really only do avocado--otherwise I spear things with forks for her or mash them into a pouch or let her pick them up with her hands.

She's becoming crazy-obsessed with her stuffed Boo. She already loved Boo--but now, she wants to carry Boo wherever we go, and she is always asking for him. I think I'm going to have to put the kabosh on that--Boo is already a little worse for wear, and he hasn't left her bedroom (except when we traveled to Ohio).

She's also better at playing with her friends. I noticed her sharing with her friend Ava today, and while I know that won't always be the case, it was nice to see her interacting with kids around her own age, since she's been mostly ignoring them up until now.

She is starting to recognize humor. She laughs at videos of herself doing funny things, and at puppets doing silly dances. She also does things to make us laugh. She blows these amazing raspberries that always make us giggle.

I also love watching her figure things out. We have a shape sorter, and she'll try the shapes out in the different openings, trying to see which one it will go in. She'll manipulate the piece in multiple angles now, instead of just trying to force it in a certain hole without moving it around.

Easter was a great example of her burgeoning cognitive abilities. She totally "got" the Easter egg hunt idea!

I love watching her grow. It's to the point now where pictures don't do her justice. My memory card on my phone is filling up much quicker now, because I'm taking videos all the time!