The Mom Crowd

This a guest post from my friend Myra who is the genius designer behind Moon and Back Studios. You can also find her blogging at WeMakeThree.com.

Some women work outside the home to keep their sanity. For others, it’s not a choice. Working outside the home is a financial necessity.

Whatever the reason you may be working, there is one thing I have learned: You can’t have it all. That’s right. It’s a myth. A well intentioned one perhaps, but it’s simply not possible to have it all. And I believe many women are nearly killing themselves trying.

In order for me to give my best to the two people I care about most, and balance that with having a demanding job as an executive, I’ve had to make concessions. Here are some things that I am learning to do:

1. Learn to say no. That’s right. You can do it. It was hard for me at first, but it’s a muscle I’ve learned to exercise. Sometimes it makes people unhappy. But my family is better for it.

2. Be happy where you are. Sometimes success and acquiring stuff can be a mirage. There’s always more to get. I’ve tried to learn to appreciate what I do have instead of comparing myself to others. Being thankful really takes the pressure off.

3. Separate your time. I have drawn a clear line between my work and family time. When I leave work, I call my husband for our ritual debriefing during my drive home. Then I try not to talk about it anymore.

4. Do one thing for yourself each day. When I get home, I usually take a half hour to run or walk so I can detox myself from the day. Then I’m ready to focus on family. I’m better for it.

5. Avoid the trappings of “mommy guilt”. Just do your best and focus on your kids when you’re with them. That’s what they’re going to remember.

Do you have tips for balancing career and family?

I prepared for childbirth like most moms. My husband and I attended a series of child birthing classes and created a birthing plan. I had incredibly fast labors with both of my children. During my first delivery, my epidural made my whole bottom half incredibly numb (just like it’s supposed to) which made it hard to push. My nurse asked me if I wanted to use the mirror so I could see the muscles contracting and I could know how to push effectively. Well, I wasn’t planning on keeping the mirror there for very long, but Darah came very quickly and there wasn’t time to tell the nurse to get the mirror out of the way. I watched her delivery and it was incredible! I was so glad the mirror was there! It was so amazing to see her little body enter the world for the first time. I will never forget that moment. It was perfection!

Fast forward two years and three months later. I found myself again in the delivery room, dilated to 10cm, and ready to PUSH! I specifically asked the nurse for the mirror this time because I wanted to have that magical moment of watching my second child’s delivery. Well, this one didn’t just slide right out like my first. I know this isn’t record breaking, but compared to the time it took to push my daughter out (less than 10 minutes), 45 minutes felt like an eternity! I was getting nervous because he wasn’t coming out very quickly and was very irritable. The mirror was getting on my nerves. I didn’t remember that it was a magnified mirror before and my butt was huge! This was not nearly as romantic as using the mirror with my daughter’s delivery, but I felt committed. Second children always get the short end of the stick, and I didn’t want to start short-changing things for my second child in the delivery room!

So, the mirror stayed and I (and everyone else in the room) stared at my butt in a 10x magnified miror for 45 minutes. The saddest part is my eyes were closed during his delivery and I missed it anyway. We later found out why he had such a hard time arriving…he was 10 pounds! The second he was born, I completely forgot the mirror was there and gazed at my perfect little boy. I then looked back down and saw the crazy long umbilical cord (I had no idea how long that thing was!) and saw the doctor going to town with a needle and a thread on my poor body…all magnified in that blasted mirror! I told the nurse to move the mirror and went back to heaven in my arms.

If we have another baby, I will most definitely use the mirror again. The only thing I’ll change is it will not be pointed to my butt until the baby is crowning!

I’m not even going to ask a question to start some conversation…I am hoping some fun discussions sprout on their own from this brave honesty of mine!

Daniel and I always thought that we would be parents that would get a babysitter and go out all the time. We weren’t going to let having a baby change our lifestyle. Thirteen months after having our little one arrived reality has set in. Good, trustworthy babysitters are hard to find and they are expensive. Sure, our family could babysit and I do ask when it is needed but I don’t want to ask all the time. So we have become creative with our date nights at home after our daughter goes to bed.

I believe date nights are incredibly important for healthy marriages. They build trust and encourage a break from the routine to just stop, relax, and enjoy one another. On the date you should not talk about the kids, work, or bills. Save those conversations for another time. Also, don’t think about the household chores that need to be done. If you are the type that can’t relax if there is a dish in the sink, then do all the dishes before your date and get take out that you can throw away. The point is to relax.

You need to schedule your date and guard that time. We generally have a date (at home) on a weekend night. Yes things come up, but we don’t go long without a date. Sometimes I tell Daniel “I need a date” and he knows what I mean. I crave that time together and I miss it when we haven’t had one in a while. Don’t be afraid to ask or put in on the family calendar.

Here are 30 date night ideas that you can do at home after the little ones are tucked into bed and SOUND ASLEEP.

1. Have dinner in the backyard, patio, or your front lawn.

2. Re-watch the first movie you watched together.

3. Don’t cook and get your favorite take out.

4. Have a theme night. You must dress, eat dinner, and watch a movie with the same theme. Think ‘Western’ and dress like a cowgirl, eat bar-b-que, and watch Tombstone. Think ‘French’ and put on a black and white top, make French onion soup, and watch Amelie. It could be anything!

5. Put a blanket down and picnic in front of the TV.

6. Make a special dessert to indulge in. Bake chocolate chip cookies and right when you get them out of the oven put vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce on top. Even making brownies from a box can warm up any night.

7. Take a shower and get dressed up to go out, but stay in. One night I even put on my dress from my prom. I would never wear it out now, but I still love it and wore it on a night in.

8. Snuggle on the couch and watch a movie. I (heart) my Netflix queue!

9. Try to beat your all time record. (This was my husband’s suggestion for the list.)

10. Wear your old bikini that you would never wear in public again, because your stretch marks glisten too brightly in the sunlight! Ha. Your husband won’t care and will love you in it.

11. Break out the board games. Play it so that the loser has to do the dishes or even a fun strip version.

12. Wear your favorite lingerie under your normal clothes. Better yet wear none underneath.

13. Sit outside and read together.

14. Have a candlelit dinner in the dining room you rarely use.

15. Make a mix CD or playlist to enjoy throughout the evening.

16. Dance! Make room for our own private dance floor and have fun. Don’t worry, no one is watching you dance like Elaine Benes.

17. Write out an invitation card to your date requesting their presence at the VIP Lounge of your private nightclub.

18. Splurge on delicious cheeses and add fruit, crackers, and wine.

19. Make out during the DVD menu music.

20. Give each other a back rub.

21. Share your favorite dating memory with each other over dinner.

22. Set out candles around the room. (I know this is an old idea, but it is really nice to do once in a while.)

23. Dress as a character from a movie and you pick the character for each other (think Tom Cruise in Risky Business).

24. Work out together. Set up a circuit in the garage or in the back yard with a jump rope, dumbbells, push-up, and sit-up stations.

25. Cook together and try a new recipe for dinner or for a cocktail.

26. Go to bed early together.

27. Play video games together.

28. Watch a sports game and eat stadium food like nachos and hot dogs.

29. Set up a pair of chairs and stick your feet in the kiddie pool.

30. Make breakfast in bed for dinner and watch TV.

Do you have date nights at home? What do you do? Does it get harder to have a date night at home when the kids get older?

One of the stories from our family’s lore is that I loved commercials as a baby.  Apparently I’d yell and talk through any television program, but when the commercials came on, I’d shut up and pay attention.   Hmm, interesting.  Especially because now, if you spent any time watching t.v. with me, you’d immediately notice that I mute the commercials.  Every. Single. Time.  I get so irritated when I have to sit through a single one with the volume on.  Aside from the power button, “mute” gets the most play on our remote control.  When I can’t mute the commercials, I get very, very grouchy.  It’s not pretty.

Anyway, not sure how it happened (since I just described myself as being pretty militant about commercials), but I saw one recently that completely melted me.  It is a Chevy Malibu commercial showing the stages of life that a girl goes through, from babyhood with toy keys to toddlerhood to little girl, then to tween-angst, prom & graduation, and finally, becoming a professional.  As she drives away, mom & dad are there to see her off.  A couple of years ago I would have related to the final stage, but now that I’m a mom, I’m imagining my Lucy growing up and doing all of those things.  Yikes.  Can’t she stay my little Lucy Goose forever?  I’m not ready to see her strap on a bike helmet (much less drive a car!) yet. (Note: I had the video of this commercial up, but it is no longer available on youtube.  I tend to have that effect on the internet.  No worries, it’s playing all the time on t.v. right now.)

Speaking of commercials, we were told this morning by random strangers that our son Eli looks like the baby in this (catch it while you can!):

Ha ha.  That’s funny!  Maybe I should un-mute the commercials more often.

Yeah right.

Kegels.

Pubococcygeus Muscle (PC muscle).

Know what I am talking about?

The Kegel exercise is one that strengthens the pubococcygeus muscle which is part of your pelvic floor. They are called Kegels because it is named after a Dr. Kegel who came up with the exercise of tightening and relaxing the muscle.

Still don’t know what I am talking about?

You may have been told to do some kegel exercises during pregnancy. The simplest way to know if you are doing the exercise correctly is to sit on the toilet while you are peeing and try to stop the flow of urine. When you contract and release your PC muscle you should notice a starting/stopping or slowing of the urine leaving your body.

There are many benefits to “kegeling” for a pregnant woman. First, it can help with urinary incontinence. During pregnancy it is normal for muscles to relax and women often find themselves leaking a little pee when they laugh, sneeze, cough, run etc. Doing Kegels regularly will help prevent urine leaks. Studies have shown that it doesn’t matter whether or not you have had a vaginal birth or c-section—- pregnancy strains or weakens the pelvic floor muscles. It was once believed that having an episiotomy prevented urinary incontinence but studies have shown that doing kegels regularly can help prevent and heal a weakened pelvic floor muscle during pregnancy.

One of the most important benefits of having a strong pelvic floor during pregnancy is that it helps the baby’s chin to be tucked into its chest. This allows the best positioning for the baby’s head to help dilate the cervix and then slip through the pelvis and birth canal. If the baby’s chin isn’t tucked into its chest during birth it can make labor and birth more difficult. Pushing your baby out gently (as opposed to pushing really hard as the baby head crowns and shoulders come out) also helps prevent tearing. Deep perineal tears and episiotomies can also compromise your pelvic floor since your perineum (what is torn or cut) is attached to that muscle. There are many things you can do to help prevent tearing during the pushing part of birth but that is a whole other post!

Kegel exercises are the first exercises you can do after birthing your baby. You can start with the doctor or midwife’s okay 24 hours after the birth.

Kegel exercises benefit women in more ways than urinary continence. It also makes sex more, um, pleasurable for both the woman and her husband/partner. It helps women to have increased blood flow in the sensitive areas during sex and also helps women to have orgasms. When you first start doing Kegels after the baby is born it is quite difficult but it gets easier as time goes on and it is definitely worth it! I always laugh at a part in Jenny McCarthy’s book Baby Laughs where she and her husband would joke about whether or not sex would feel like “throwing a hot dog down a hallway” after having a baby. Kegel exercises prevent postpartum sex from feeling like that!

Older women tend to have more problems with urinary incontinence and pelvic prolapse (when pelvic organs slip down too far). Practicing Kegels throughout one’s lifetime can promote a better sex life, less urinary and bowel incontinence, and healthy pelvic organ placement. The hardest thing about the very simple Kegel exercise is remembering to do them.

In order to get started all you need is a few quiet moments to concentrate and make sure you are doing them correctly. Keep the kids out of the bathroom a time or two (easier said than done, I know!) so you can have some peace and quiet. Try to start and stop the urine flow while you are peeing. Once you get the hang of how the muscle works you can now do your Kegels anywhere! It is actually not recommended to do them on the toilet (regularly) because it could encourage bacteria to flow back into the bladder which can cause a bladder infection.

You can Kegel at red lights, while watching tv, folding laundry, doing the dishes, playing legos–whatever works for you.

Start by:

Doing 50 a day for a few weeks. Then work your way up to 100 a day for a few weeks. Then 200 a day.

Some patterns of Kegels:

Contract and then let fade away

Contract/Release

Contract, Hold for 2 seconds, Release

Contract, Contract, Contract, Hold, Release, Release, Release (like stair steps)

If you work your way through the patterns, I think you will see an improvement in your PC muscle over the next month. Good luck!