A journalish ramble: stay home or go out?
Back when I only had two kiddos, I was always a "we must get out of the house every day"-type mommy. In fact, back when I first read this post (and I still only had two kids), I thought to myself, "She only goes out once a week?!? How can she stand it? We would all go so stir crazy."
Something about the addition of the third child, however, has completely tipped the scale in the other direction. Perhaps those of you out there who are not parents are thinking, "It shouldn't take that much effort to get only one extra person (and a tiny person at that) dressed and ready to go." But you must understand that the tinyness of the person is in inverse relationship to the amount of effort it takes to get him or her ready (read: the more tiny, the more effort required).
As an aside, I think two other factors contribute to my change of heart:
1) We have to drive N to and from school three days a week. Many days, the effort of getting three people (plus myself) ready to do this provides enough of an "outing", and by the time we're finished with the whole process, we're all ready to stay home for a while.
2) We have much more in the way of entertainment at home for the kids since moving into our new house. There's the playroom full of toys, the backyard if the weather's nice, our covered sun porch where the girls can ride bikes if the weather's not nice, and the kitchen desk for arts and crafts. Back in our old 1200-square-foot townhouse, we ran out of space and things to do much more quickly.
This week we had a scheduled event each morning (checkups, preschool events, mandatory shopping trips and errands, etc.) We're always home in the afternoons for naps, but I spent most of those afternoons this week catching up on housework I wasn't able to do in the mornings while we were out. And some days naps were ruined because little girls fell asleep in the car while we were out and about in the morning, and upon arrival at home, said girls were refreshed and ready to spend the entire afternoon awake, laying to waste my grand plans of getting things done while they napped.
{I'm almost glad that the weather seems to have turned winterish again. We picked N up from school today in a stinging, cold rain as our van thermometer hovered at exactly 32 degrees. The girls were all happy to go home and snuggle into their beds for naps, and I was happy to sit for a minute and sip coffee (and blog, of course).}
We've had a full week. Lots of playing hard outside combined with places to go and people to see (and a missed nap here and there) left us with several instances of girls falling asleep at the dinner table or during our nightly story time.
And Mommy is exhausted too. We haven't really done or accomplished all that much, and I'm sure plenty of Mamas are far more busy than I am... but I'm spent! (Part of this I blame on having a baby in the "new toddler" stage. I've always argued that the time a baby starts walking until they reach about 20 months of age is more exhausting than-- or at least rivals-- the newborn phase. They can do big-kid things... running, jumping, climbing... without big-kid common sense or safety. As a result, life is a repetitive cycle of chasing, hand-holding, and removing your "new toddler" from danger. You only sit down when he or she is asleep, and the constant watching and wariness is mentally exhausting. M can probably remember the emotional breakdowns I had out of sheer exhaustion when both N and L were this age, and I've been sort of dreading it with C. In the past week she has acquired all the speed and recklessness of the "new toddler" and I can feel the months ahead wearing me out already. Of course, they are Super Cute and sooo enjoyable at this age too, and obviously God made them that way on purpose, or us mommies and daddies would just go nuts, right? But I digress...)
So yes, we've been busy. And yet, only last week I was complaining about being cooped up at home a little too much because of the weather.
Where's the happy medium? Mamas who stay at home (full- or part-time), what's your MO? Do you prefer to stay at home or be out and about? Do you limit your outings with kiddos? Does it help your sanity?
Please discuss. :)
Something about the addition of the third child, however, has completely tipped the scale in the other direction. Perhaps those of you out there who are not parents are thinking, "It shouldn't take that much effort to get only one extra person (and a tiny person at that) dressed and ready to go." But you must understand that the tinyness of the person is in inverse relationship to the amount of effort it takes to get him or her ready (read: the more tiny, the more effort required).
As an aside, I think two other factors contribute to my change of heart:
1) We have to drive N to and from school three days a week. Many days, the effort of getting three people (plus myself) ready to do this provides enough of an "outing", and by the time we're finished with the whole process, we're all ready to stay home for a while.
2) We have much more in the way of entertainment at home for the kids since moving into our new house. There's the playroom full of toys, the backyard if the weather's nice, our covered sun porch where the girls can ride bikes if the weather's not nice, and the kitchen desk for arts and crafts. Back in our old 1200-square-foot townhouse, we ran out of space and things to do much more quickly.
This week we had a scheduled event each morning (checkups, preschool events, mandatory shopping trips and errands, etc.) We're always home in the afternoons for naps, but I spent most of those afternoons this week catching up on housework I wasn't able to do in the mornings while we were out. And some days naps were ruined because little girls fell asleep in the car while we were out and about in the morning, and upon arrival at home, said girls were refreshed and ready to spend the entire afternoon awake, laying to waste my grand plans of getting things done while they napped.
{I'm almost glad that the weather seems to have turned winterish again. We picked N up from school today in a stinging, cold rain as our van thermometer hovered at exactly 32 degrees. The girls were all happy to go home and snuggle into their beds for naps, and I was happy to sit for a minute and sip coffee (and blog, of course).}
We've had a full week. Lots of playing hard outside combined with places to go and people to see (and a missed nap here and there) left us with several instances of girls falling asleep at the dinner table or during our nightly story time.
And Mommy is exhausted too. We haven't really done or accomplished all that much, and I'm sure plenty of Mamas are far more busy than I am... but I'm spent! (Part of this I blame on having a baby in the "new toddler" stage. I've always argued that the time a baby starts walking until they reach about 20 months of age is more exhausting than-- or at least rivals-- the newborn phase. They can do big-kid things... running, jumping, climbing... without big-kid common sense or safety. As a result, life is a repetitive cycle of chasing, hand-holding, and removing your "new toddler" from danger. You only sit down when he or she is asleep, and the constant watching and wariness is mentally exhausting. M can probably remember the emotional breakdowns I had out of sheer exhaustion when both N and L were this age, and I've been sort of dreading it with C. In the past week she has acquired all the speed and recklessness of the "new toddler" and I can feel the months ahead wearing me out already. Of course, they are Super Cute and sooo enjoyable at this age too, and obviously God made them that way on purpose, or us mommies and daddies would just go nuts, right? But I digress...)
So yes, we've been busy. And yet, only last week I was complaining about being cooped up at home a little too much because of the weather.
Where's the happy medium? Mamas who stay at home (full- or part-time), what's your MO? Do you prefer to stay at home or be out and about? Do you limit your outings with kiddos? Does it help your sanity?
Please discuss. :)
I'm with you - when the kids were littler and our house was smaller, I didn't think I could make it through a whole day home with them. SOME sort of morning outing was necessary for my sanity. Only since Amy starting preschool have I backed off on this and been more glad to stay home some days. Two days a week of school (plus one day when we go to dance class) provides enough built in hustle-out-the-door days that I'm happy to not go anywhere on the other days. Also where we live now makes everything is at least a 15-20 minute drive and that gets old after awhile. Still, as much as I enjoy "home days," after too many in a row, we are all ready to go out again, for anything.
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