Soap Box Moment

It has been about a month since my last post and a lot has happened. We had an unexpected trip back to Seattle. It was a surreal experience both because our reason for going was so terrible and at the same time being back was both comforting and unsettling. We were only home for four days, went to see women’s football at the Olympics and then we were off on our planned summer holiday. Ten days on vacation with Grandma and Papa were so nice. We had sun, swimming, too much food and great time for the babies to get to really be with them. They then came back to our house and we celebrated Kellen’s 3^rd birthday and Ella’s 1^st. The 3 week period was exciting and exhausting, I thought of countless posts I wanted to do but time seemed to slip away and now it’s a month later and I don’t know where to start.

First just a few quick words about our little Miss Ella; she just might be the sweetest and most adorable little girl ever. Somehow it seems everything is on fast forward and every day she is doing more, communicating more, pushing her brother back, everything. She is essentially a mini toddler at this point and shows no signs of slowing down. One of the funniest things about her is the way she communicates. I’ve always said that Ella yells, sometimes she isn’t crying she is literally yelling at you, she starting doing this pretty young. Well now she is the bossiest baby I have ever met. She has figured out that she can point to what she wants then grunt or make noise to tell you, if you are looking away or taking too long you better watch out. She gets progressively more forceful and angry when she doesn’t get what she wants immediately. It is so funny because she can sit at the table and point to the food, her cup, your food, if there is bread in the middle of the table she will point to it to ask for some. It is amazing how well she communicates and how quick she has everyone jumping to follow orders. On the 16^th her actual first birthday we sang happy birthday and she had her own cupcake on the tray of her high chair, she wasn’t totally sure what to do with it she may have been waiting for someone to cut it or give her bites. Grandma figured she’d help by breaking a little piece off and giving Ella a bite. Ella loved it and then pointed at Grandma and then the cupcake and yelled. It was very clear that she was saying, “You Grandma, put cake in my mouth now!”

Spending time in Seattle and having such good time with my parents of course it makes you think about going home. Jamie and I have talked about it with my parents and then between Jamie and me we try to touch base with each other every so often to just check in and make sure we are both feeling the same way. We are also hitting the one year mark, Jamie and Patrick arrived on September 1^st and the babies and I didn’t make it until early October. So we are settled now, for the most part we have figured out what works for us and what doesn’t. It is starting to feel like home. It was very odd to be leaving Seattle to go home. We like the UK, I don’t think either one of us wants to live here forever, but it is a good environment for our family. Being back, watching the news, reading the headlines online and even in The Guardian we aren’t sure that the US is a good environment for our family right now. This isn’t an elitist, oh in Europe things are perfect, attitude. Things are definitely not perfect here, just try doing something efficiently and you will go crazy, and my dishwasher had been broken for over 2 months now. But things do seem really broken in the US and the trends we see are alarming.

I love politics, I just listened to Ann Romney’s convention speech while I was cooking and I thought she did great, although I completely disagree with her and her husband. I love the debates, I feel passionately about my politics and I always considered myself liberal. Moving out of the US I’ve realized liberal in the US is far from liberal in Europe (I can’t speak for other parts of the world since I really don’t know). As Obama gets labelled a socialist for a healthcare plan that isn’t government sponsored, or even the fact that socialist is considered an insult, is so different then a continent that provides healthcare. Not only do we receive healthcare in the UK, we have travel cards so that we are covered anywhere in the EU. I will read an article about France thinking about returning to a 75% tax rate for the wealthiest and the next article explains that in the US the wealthiest often pay less than the poor. But the truth is although we believe in universal healthcare and would vote for it every time, we have been fortunate to have great benefits through our employer. If we were to move back to the States healthcare would not be barrier.

What I’ve found more alarming is what appears to be not only a hard break right in American politics but some determination to move backwards. You have a movement to reverse women’s rights but hey that’s ok because in cases of legitimate rape women can’t get pregnant. I’m not sure where to start on this, is it the fact that it suggests that there are types of rape that aren’t real? That it makes no sense as far as medical science? Or even better that being forced to carry a child conceived through rape is the same thing as having a child out of wedlock! In Ann Romney’s speech she says she has met with families who want another child but can’t have one because of the economy, they can’t afford it. Yet under changes proposed to healthcare employers won’t be required to provide coverage for contraceptives, so lucky for those families if they can’t afford birth control looks like they will be having plenty of kids!

I’m not a gun control expert; we have family members who enjoy hunting and own guns. I do know that guns are too easy to get in the United States. It is shocking that when tragic events like the Aurora shootings happen gun sales surge. I heard about the shootings on BBC radio as I was driving and the host asked the reporter if this tragic event would spark a new debate on gun control laws in the US, the reporter responded that no the US has a high tolerance for violent events of this kind. This is not something we should be proud of. Now living in a country were guns are not allowed the nightly news does not play through like a list of horrible events and deaths. In fact they are currently debating stricter control of knives, no joke.

I won’t even get started on the wilful disbelief of science as it relates to global warming and evolution. Or the fact that in the last election the fact that Obama went to Harvard was an insult? Right because being educated is the worst thing we would want in a President. The blatant discrimination that gay couples face without the right to marry; or the growing disparity between rich and poor.

So as Jamie and I talk about moving home, when we would want to move and what’s best for the kids the US doesn’t look great right now. We miss family and I’m sure work will bring us home sooner then we realize. When I think of my daughter I don’t want her growing up in an environment where our leaders are splitting hairs over rape or making decisions that will impact her ability to decide for herself if and when she will start a family. I don’t want any of our kids to be in a situation where medical costs or cost of insurance could impact their homeownership or what job opportunities they take/don’t take. We just aren't rushing to be back in that environment.

I’ll step down off the soap box now.

Loss

This last weekend our family experienced a tragic loss and as with any experience like this it makes you question the choices you have made. Meagan was a beautiful young girl who was a truly gifted artist. When she was little it would look like she was just colouring like any other 9 or 10 year old and you would look over her shoulder and find an intricate scene on the paper in front of her. As she got older she became our go to babysitter and seemed to tolerate Jamie and me. She always had a soft spot for Patrick. The older Meagan got the more expressive she became. People always say be yourself it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks, well Meagan was one of those rare people who was always herself. She used her appearance as another outlet for her creativity. You would never know what colour her hair would be or how exactly she came to that combination of accessories but hey that was Meagan’s thing.

It seems that as the years went on we would see her less and less. We were starting our careers, having babies and busy. She was a teenager, what teenager wants to hang out with her older brother and his wife? When we did see her she always seemed to be looking for a way to get back downstairs where she could just hang out with Patrick and get away from the rest of us. It was all normal teenage stuff and you just figure at some point spending the weekend at the Ocean with the whole crew will stop being torture and eventually be enjoyable again. I figure this happens sometime between 20 and 25. So we made no effort. Sure we would ask her questions and try to have a conversation when we saw her but really we were so wrapped up in our own lives that we didn’t do any more than that. That will be a regret I will have forever. You assume you will always have time. You assume when she grows out of it, when we aren’t so busy. Someday you will be able to hang out have a beer, laugh, and just be siblings. We have no more time.

I plan on becoming a nightmare to every teenager in my life going forward. I don’t care how much they don’t want to, I plan on having conversations. Actually stopping to listen and ask the follow up questions, try to understand what they are doing, and giving undivided attention.

Independent Woman?

First of all this post has nothing to do with the 4^th of July or American independence, it is purely coincidence that I happen to be posting today. Maybe I should dress it up and say the theme of independence has led me to reflect….

It has been about a year since I stopped working. I can’t remember the exact date but it was just after my birthday that I went on bed rest, so sometime in the next 2 weeks I will have officially been a stay at home mom for a year.  The last year has been exciting, overwhelming, scary, fun and rewarding. We’ve had our baby dragon princess Ella; she is the cutest thing you’ve ever seen and has the perfect roar that makes everyone laugh so she is commonly referred to as baby dragon. We moved to England and have had the ups and downs of assimilating into a new country, and we have had adventures both in the UK and abroad as we learn how to travel with kids and experience new places. Staying home has been somewhat like I expected, it has been a luxury to never feel like I’m missing their milestones or not getting enough time with them. It has also been harder than I anticipated. The 3 kids each require massive amounts of patience but each in a different way, I happen to not be a very patient person so I’ve had to work on making sure I keep some perspective when I’m at my whit’s end. I envisioned lots of fun playtime and snuggles, I get these but I also get lots of cleaning, straightening and dirty diapers. There have been times where just the mention of going back to work sends me into a panic feeling like I never want to go back and I just want to be there every minute as they are little and then as they’re older I want to help with homework and volunteer in the classroom. Other days I have updated my resume and LinkedIn profiles and applied to online job postings.

When we first started talking about me quitting my job I could tell my parents had mixed emotions. They seemed happy that I even had the option, they were supportive and understood my desire to stay home but they were also concerned. Their main concern seemed to be me becoming completely dependent on Jamie. What if something happened to Jamie, his job, our marriage? I understood their worry and thought of it more in terms of Jamie becoming the ‘boss’ of the house and I didn’t think that would happen. Now a year later I find myself thinking of independence in a different way. It really came out last night when I declared, “When we get back to the States I am definitely getting a job! I can’t stand having to schedule everything through you!”

Jamie and I complement each other well. There are things that we each naturally take the lead on. I have always been the one to manage our money and pay the bills, that hasn’t changed. So while the pay check may come in his name I’m the one managing our spending. If either of us wants to make a large purchase we would discuss it together there’s no boss or final say on either side. Just like I am not the decision maker on how we raise the kids just because I’m home with them. We talk about what’s going on and how we want to handle it (in reality we vent to each other and try to find coping mechanisms). Jamie loves to plan things so I actually go into our vacation with little to no knowledge of the details and that’s just fine with me. I listen to countless options as he researches each day and what we might want to do but I actually hate vacation planning so try to stay as far away as possible. I feel the need to research our benefits and try to figure out which options are the best for our family. I get really anxious that if we don’t make the right selections we could find ourselves in a bad situation. I could go on and on; I clean the inside he’s focused on the yard. But the point is overall I don’t feel any shift in our dynamic, he hasn’t become the boss, the decision maker or any other stereotypical dominant man/subservient woman type relationship.

But I have lost independence in a different way and it is a challenge. The current example is the company car benefit Jamie has here in the UK. It is really common outside of the US to have a company car available. We didn’t fully understand this benefit when we first moved; I wish we had, so we didn’t take full advantage of it. Essentially based on your level you have an amount of money each month. You can chose to just take the money or you have a whole selection of cars you can chose from. The company will lease one on your behalf and take care of insurance, road tax and maintenance. You select a car and depending on the price you either just get a car or get car and some money back. So for example if you have £100 per month and the car you want is £50 per month you will get an additional £50 in your pay check each month. Or you can just take the £100. Well we’ve come to learn that insurance is expensive here and since we don’t know how long we’ll stay we don’t want to finance a car. We first chose to buy a used inexpensive car and we haven’t been crazy about it plus we want to do more road trips in the coming year. Now what we want to do is take the company car instead. At the same time we can only use our US licenses for 1 year and then we need to have a UK license so we are having to go through the process of getting our provisional licenses (permits) and then the testing for our UK license.

Here is the challenge. Being the spouse I don’t have access to any of our benefit information, I have to do everything through Jamie. I’m used to being able to look up my own benefits, research, make a decision and take action. Now I have to send questions wait for him to get a response, often times just a phone call, he relays the info back and then I ask my follow up questions, he contacts them again and we continue on this path. It is so slow because everything has to flow through Jamie, not to mention the fact that he is trying to do his job and I’m busy with the kids so what should be easy information to get ends up being a multiple day back and forth. Now with the company car it’s not that big of deal, obviously the chance to drive a new car is exciting and I’d love to hurry the process along but this is really important for things like our dental insurance and trying to research orthodontic coverage levels for Patrick.

Since I have the kids with me all the time there are things that I just can’t do unless he works from home to stay with them for an hour or two. So scheduling my written test to get my license required sitting down and figuring out when it would work within his meeting schedule. It has been challenging to have to plan all of my appointments around Jamie’s schedule. When I worked I could schedule things when they worked for me now I have someone else’s schedule to take into account. I am Mom 100% of the time. When you stay home everything about you is in relation to the kids. If you need to get something done it’s either planning the best way to do it with the kids or planning for some sort of childcare. Even the friends I have made, who are great, our common interest is the kids so you end up talking about kids. I miss being Nicole sometimes.

This is my mission for the next phase of staying at home. How do you prioritize and carve time out to be an adult and an independent person outside of your kids? I love them, I’m glad we chose to have me stay home and the truth is I’ll be sad when this phase is over. But I need to figure out how to also be Nicole more often. Jamie has been great and super supportive of my interests. I’ve been taking one class a quarter through Oxford’s Continuing Education program and that night has become sacred, regardless of meetings or anything else I am out the door by 6:45. I always feel a bit saner after spending 2 hours learning and thinking but 2 hours is not enough.

I’ve finally reached out through a Mom’s network and found a few nannies, or child minders as they call them, that take on extra work so hopefully every now and then we can actually have a night out. I’m thinking I might even be able to use them a few hours here and there if I need to make an appointment or run errands that are just too tedious with kids. It will be a series of baby steps I’m sure until I figure out the right balance. Ella is also getting bigger and I’ve started to wean her (she is resistant) so that gives me some more flexibility as well.

I’ll also keep working on Grandma and Papa, I’m sure they would love these 65° July days, maybe they should just relocate and then I won’t have to work or have the kids full time. That actually sounds like the perfect solution.