Buying Online
So since I can’t try things on, I did the next best thing that most of us that work online do. I started buying everything online. It’s great. I can order something like Zara clothing or H&M clothing, or go with the staples from Gap or Old Navy and have them delivered to my house. There are always coupons of some sort to cut costs even more and half the time I forget I ordered myself something and it’s like a bonus when I get the package – a WAHM Christmas!

Trying On Clothing at Home
Of course, there isn’t a lovely large dressing room mirror at home, but since I go some morning without even brushing my hair, this isn’t a huge problem for me. I just try things on – if they pinch, they go back to the store. If they fall off me, I might keep them because they make me feel thin, but usually they go back to. The ones that fit get to stay and join my ever- increasingly stylish wardrobe.

And I’m not kidding. My clothing is looking better because I get to shop online without distraction unlike stores where I have so much “help” from little men. I love that the online stores help combine looks for me and I especially love the reviews that tell me things like certain pants run short or small and shirts are particularly thin. Who knows, in another year or two I might be a truly stylish mommy again. I’m not sure I’d even recognize myself, but a girl can dream!

After all, both of my boys are obsessed with Jamba Juice. How tricky would it be to make healthy protein shakes at home just by adding a bit of protein powder (never too much mind you) to a frozen concoction of bananas, strawberries and blueberries? To my way of thinking it would be far easier to do that than force them to eat steak when they are dead set against it.

I’m not sure if the shakes would be a permanent addition around our house, perhaps an afternoon snack or part of dinner at night, but they will at least make me feel better about getting the most important stuff into the kids. I am reasonably sure at some point my little picky eaters will branch back out from pasta and Jamba juice to include real meats again, but in the meantime, I’m not going to knock anything that might make mealtimes a bit easier on all of us.

Here’s the article in question by Geek Dad, By Kevin Makice

 Everything I Know About Parenting I Learned from Mythbusters

At the top there is:

Nursing
Baby nursing is tricky business. I regret not nursing my first, but he couldn’t latch properly 90% of the time thanks to being tongue tied. I regret not nursing my second – that might have worked, but I didn’t have the support or the internal reserves to nurse him around the clock with a needy toddler at home and a business to run.

One friend regrets not being able to nurse more than few months before her milk supply dried up. Another friend regrets having so much milk nursing was uncomfortable for her and the baby so she stops. Others who nurse successfully regret having to pump instead of feeding at the breast and so on. In my perfect world, I would have been able to nurse both boys wonderfully – I loved it for the week or so it worked out with both.

Quickly followed by:

Working
The working mother bears more burdens than a non-working mother can imagine. I know – I’ve done them both. There are crosses to bear on each side, of course. When I was home with my boys, half of my brain was completely unstimulated and I got edgy a lot.

When I went back to teaching after a year, my brain was completely fried and I literally survive Monday to Friday only to clean up on the weekends and do it all over again. My boys come first, but there are so many things I’d love to be able to do that simply never get done – like vacuuming and dishes. I’m waiting on the cleaning elves to show up any day now.

Of course, I’m not typical on either front. My SAHM experience was actually a WAHM experience as I dealt with a newborn/infant and a toddler/preschooler all day long and immediately sat down to work every night – beginning four days after my second C-section. Teaching just took the place of the daytime childcare (in a sense, you can argue I now care for 85 children instead of two, but I digress.)

The Ideal
I think everyone has a different ideal for their particular version of Mommyhood. At school today two teachers were dreaming of soap operas and shopping for housing knick-knacks. My dream? To enjoy just one successful business from 9-2 while the boys at are preschool and spend all other daytime moments with my children. My evenings would be full of good movies, good books and an hour on the treadmill or elliptical. It’s a dream that I might be able to bring to fruition next year. Only time will tell.

In the last two or three years, however, life seems to have replaced my goals. To be honest, it’s mostly my fault. I had a goal of staying home after my second son, Brian, was born. I started myself an online business and made that happen – even if I’m still paying off the first few months of no teaching paycheck.

Now that I’m raising happy healthy children, seem to be scraping by in a healthy, if unique, marriage and have a nice home that will keep me busy for years updating, I’m not sure where to go next.

And I have to go somewhere, it’s my nature.

I think the biggest problem is I seem to be living two or three separate lives in my standard twenty-four hours. It’s too much to fit comfortable, but I can’t figure out what I want to do about it.

* I have a successful writing business that could easily consume my entire working day crammed into my evenings.

* I have a teaching job that is immensely rewarding, but rather draining that takes me away from my boys too often for my taste.

* I have a fantasy life of Wii, books, movies, sleep and exercise that used to be my existence before the boys and the writing showed up.

I can’t figure out where I want to go next.

- I want to be the mom that can whip up fifteen different healthy chicken recipes or use campfire breakfast recipes to wow the entire Boy Scout troop.

- I want to be the woman at the trade shows making connections with other self-sufficient, totally egotistical, definitely successful freelancers and webmasters.

- I want to work a handful of hours each day making a full-time income – during the day!

- I want to work with my junior high school students to try and help them overcome the obstacles they face.

- I want to work out for an hour a day again so I can enjoy the sensation of my clothes growing larger.

- I want evenings to mean relaxation, rest and preparation rather than more work while housework goes undone.

- I want to eat more chocolate and lay on the couch.

- I seem to want it all, but at the same time want nothing more than what I already have.

It’s just one more sign that I’m a knowledgeable woman, a dedicated mother, a terrible cook and strong enough to be willing to do what it takes to reach the goal.

Now I just have to figure out which goals I want to actually reach. At this moment, I’m leaning toward the chocolate one….

I have dreams of healthy eating.

Every time I go to Sam’s, which is often mind you, I have fantasies of buying food in bulk – not just diapers and toilet paper. In my dreams, I know exactly what to do with 25 pounds of chicken and how to serve up fifteen cartons of fresh asparagus. Okay, I’m lying about the asparagus – that stuff is too much even for me.

But in all seriousness, I really want to be THAT mom. You know, the mom that has it all together. She know all the best crock pot recipes so that she can dice and chop up healthy veggies to prepare a nutrient-filled supper for her family while she’s away at work rather than heating up noodles and opening a few cans on the nights she actually gets around to “cooking.” (She probably does that dicing and chopping in heels with make-up on, too. Just two other things that have eluded me thus far in motherhood.)

I want to be the mom that doesn’t rely on the cookie recipes on the back of the chocolate chips as the only way make anything that doesn’t just require slicing to bake. Although I like eating the dough out of the ends of the tube – you know you do it, too.

I really do want to feed my family well.

The trouble is, I can’t ever seem to get it together.

When I do buy things that might make a reasonable homegrown meal, they go bad in the fridge before I can muster the energy after my long days to use them. My schedule is so crazed that yummy foods hold much sway over me and yummy foods in my book aren’t the same ones making the cut for Betty Crocker Healthy Living. I know exactly how many calories are in five different kinds of candy bars, but I have no clue how to remove the innards from a frozen turkey.

I’m a mess.

However, as is the case with many things in my Long-Term Mommy Outlook, I fully realize that this is not the time for me to make drastic changes to my lifestyle or try to take on anything new. Between the writing, the teaching, the toddler, the preschooler and basic necessities of living, hot dogs and canned green beans will have to do for now – unless we order out, which is always a yummier option.

But, I make a solemn oath that I WILL be THAT mom, someday – probably when I can no longer afford to order out for two gigantic teenage boys.

I know, I know – I think I tried this before. But now I’m really going to do it.  It’s time now.

My father has Type 2 diabetes. So do both of my Aunts. I know that I can prevent it for quite some time if I can get my weight down, stop eating sugar and start exercising (again.) So here’s the plan:

I will (starting tomorrow) follow the same style of diet I’ll have to follow in about ten years. If I am even reasonably close to cutting out all the sugary crap in my diet, I’ll be in business – I’ll lose weight, I’ll feel better, I’ll be setting a better example for the kiddos and I’ll be preventing diabetes.

Finding time to work out will be the hardest part, but I can work it in when I can for the next few months and when summer rolls around again, I’ll join up (again) at the Y to utilize the childcare, awesome kiddie swimming pool and the elliptical machine.

It’s workable. I just need to do it long enough for it to become habit.

I’m sure some day I’ll be complaining that they watch too many movies and horrible ones at that, but for now I’m just waiting for the opportunity to make it a movie theater.

We did try the theater once and Jake melted completely about three minutes into Kung Fu Panda so that plan was nixed. Now I usually just skim the DVD rental review sites for things good for little boys and order them online through Netflix.

So far the movie nights we’ve tried so far have been passable. The new Wiggles movie was a hit, of course, but Peter Pan proved to be too long. Kung Fu Panda on DVD lasted about fifteen minutes and we have to skip half of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to keep everyone even remotely focused.

So for now, the family movie night is neither here nor there, but it does give me hope that someday the family will lounge about together eating too much pizza in front of the television. A silly dream to some, but those like me who haven’t been in charge of the remote in years will certainly understand.

And now….more Wiggles!