My SAHF Frustrations Continue

Why can’t stay at home mom’s except stay at home dad’s as equals?

I need to understand. I am a working mother while my husband stays at home with our 2 year old twins. He has been trying to find play groups in our area since the boys were about 8 months old (we didn’t go out that first winter because they were preemies and the risk of RSV.) However, every group my husband found either ignored his inquiries or decided that they needed to “vote” on whether he could join or not. Do these women understand that my children deserve just as much playgroup time as their children? Just because our situation is reversed in our household shouldn’t cause my children to suffer in their social skills development. Now since I am the only one working we can’t afford daycare, not to mention we wouldn’t want the medical bills to go with going to daycare. We also can’t afford Gymboree classes, or other structured playgroups that cost money. And the playgroups that we have paid for usually are not worth it because we miss so many of the sessions because the instructor gets sick, our boys get sick or we get sick or something else comes up.

Here is a direct example of a situation my husband just went through recently. It was a beautiful day so my husband decided to take the boys to a park. They were having a good old time and there were 3 other mothers and their kids there. The mothers were talking and one of their little girls came over and was playing with my boys. After about 20 – 30 minutes my boys came over to my husband and got a drink of water. That is when the mother of the little girl came over and picked up the girl and said, “You can’t play with them.” My husband asked her, “Why? They were have a good time.” She wouldn’t give an answer. The little girl proceeded to scream because she wanted to play with my boys and was having fun so the mother left instead. Why was it okay for that little girl to play with my kids before the mother knew they were there with their dad? Why are dads just bad guys when they are playing with their kids and taking care of their kids? Why does it have to be so “strange” when a father is out with his children? This should be becoming a more prominent issue given the economy and some many husbands are losing their jobs. I live in Michigan so I think we’re even seeing it more than the rest of the nation. Have any of these women seen “Mr. Mom”?

I’m only going to mention this not the full story. But we have a little girl that lives right next door who is 1 month older than my boys. They have never played together. For her first 2 years she was home most days just this school year she started preschool everyday. When I asked her mom when my husband could come over with my boys so the kids could play together, nothing. She had to back pedal and try to stir us towards groups at the library…WHATEVER, you live right next door and you can’t trust my husband?!

If anyone has the answer I’m open ears. All I know is that I’m EXTREMELY frustrated and wish that our roles were reversed so that my kids could get the social development that they need and deserve. Do you know how hard it is to go to work everyday knowing that your kids would have better chances of being social if I were the one at home? I shouldn’t have to have this stress added upon the stress of being the sole provider for my family. Especially in this economy when no one knows if their job is secure.

Hopefully, there are some mothers out there that read this and maybe I can swing their opinions a little and they will allow the next father who asks to join their group to join. I understand there are concerns of sexual abuse and whatnot but guess what, background checks are easy enough and you can check the sex registry for free. And another bit of information, there are a lot of women on that registry as well as men. Do new moms have to jump through the same hoops to join your moms’ group?

Or maybe there is a stay at home father out there in the South-East Oakland County, MI area. Please contact this paper and ask to start a group with my husband so that all of our kids can get the social playgroup time that they deserve.

Or maybe you are a working mother in the same situation and you can just let me know that I’m not alone. I can’t believe the stress and frustration this has caused me. I’m actually hoping that my children will still have issues speaking next year so that they can get into the free preschool for early development next year. At least then they can play with other kids.

My husband has also set up a Yahoo group, a Google Group and a Meetup group so you can search for stay-at-home-dads in Oakland County, MI on those 3 groups webpages and you should be able to find him. All three of these groups haven’t had a single hit, so I’m curious to know if dads just aren’t looking of if truly there are no stay at home dads in our area.

Thanks for listening.

The whole house is sick

Well September has been a crazy month for the Partlan household. I decided to quit my job of 9 and 1/2 years for a better opportunity for advancement. I hope. However, I have had plenty of sleepless nights over it. I am currently working through a contract house for General Dynamics Land Systems. It is an excellent job and I'm actually doing engineering work again, yeah but that doesn't mean that I'm not freakin' out. While I'm contract I don't get ANY vacation time and I can't take any sick time. Which leads me into my next crazy September story.

Since I'm at a new job there is the whole I'm prone to getting sick for about 3 months. For me it took 2 weeks. My boys have also started speech therapy so they have been in a school twice a week which carries its own germs. So this weekend my entire family is sick. Meaning on my Friday off yesterday I slept ALL DAY and my poor husband who is also sick and takes longer to recover than the rest of us was trying to take care of the kids all day who were crabby because they are sick as well. They just have a bad cold though. I have a sinus infection or bronchitis or something but luckily I was able to get antibiotics without going into the doctor. One lucky thing about my sickness hitting me hard and quickly was that I'm still on my old insurance which is better insurance, as of Wednesday almost everything is out of pocket...

So one more crazy September is almost over. And I still think I'm crazy being a new mom and not being able to take any time off... Luckily I get every other Friday off so that will help. This is a better opportunity though I just have many concerns and I'm really nervous and this was just me venting. So if you read it thanks. And I'll be okay. Hopefully, my head will be less phlegmy tomorrow. And I can let Kris have a good restful day before Monday. And I hope the kids are good to me so that I can handle Monday too.

Torch Lake 2008

Our vacation was last week. We went back up to the cottage at Torch Lake. The boys had a good time and we had a lot more fun with them this time. They were able to do more so it made it more fun for us. One very exciting thing about a vacation is that I get to see Kris with the boys all day not just at night so I get to experience how he plays with them during the day. I took this video of some of the things he’s teaching my children throughout the day.

Wrestling is just such a good quality for boys. We also started teaching them to clap for the really good burps. Kris had a really spectacular burp and I had to clap for it so the boys caught on pretty quickly.

We also played by the “beach”. The beach of our cabin is all rocks. Though it didn’t matter all the boys wanted to do was fill their buckets with rocks and water, dump and repeat. They really weren’t interested in going out into the water. I did get them to come out once a little past the man made reef but I think the waves were too big so they were getting a little scared. Trevor also got a mouth full of water trying to drink when a wave came up.

The sleeping arrangements were similar to my (camping trips). There were beds but we brought our travel beds and the boys slept on the floor. Trevor was freakin’ out the first night. We’re not sure why but he was acting like something spooked him and we couldn’t do anything to calm him down. So we finally just held the door closed and let him cry for a little bit. After some time had pasted (since the crying stopped) we checked on them and this is how they were sleeping.

We were so proud of Alex comforting his “little” brother. It was just the cutest thing. Course them sleeping on the floor also caused other issues. For instance, on Tuesday morning Trevor was under one of the beds and stuck. He was completely under the bed and just a foot was sticking out. I had to ask Alex where he was and Alex pointed to the bed. It was freakin’ hilarious. It’s hard not to laugh sometimes.

The boys also learned about some bugs during this trip. There was a caterpillar crawling across the sidewalk and I pointed it out to the boys. They giggled over it and Alex started doing his “voodoo” on it. I’m not quite sure where he picked it up or what he thinks he’s doing but he does it to the dogs too. He just flaps his hands over the object, this case the caterpillar, and starts talking gibberish. Course gibberish is all he says right now so I guess he may think he’s saying something meaningful… Unfortunately, I missed getting a picture of the caterpillar, it crawled super fast, but Alex continued doing voodoo after it was under the truck.

Speaking of gibberish we also had our first word from Alex then Trevor this weekend. They each said, “No”. We were so excited. They weren’t telling me no either so they weren’t talking back… So we’ve been trying really hard to get them to look at our lips while we teach them new words like, “Yes!”

Tigers Game 2008

On Aug. 10th I took my parents, Stephanie and the boys to the Tigers game (they were tickets from work so they were essentially free). They played against the Oakland As and won 6 - 1. It was actually a pretty dreay day and a little bit chilly. I had the boys in shorts and luckily when I stepped outside I decided to bring the boy's sweatshirts. They definitely needed them. It also rained a little bit too, which made it even colder. Not to mention we were in the upper deck and the common area up there was like a wind tunnel.

I wasn't sure how they boys were going to handle this because the game started at 1:05 and they usually take a nap at 2. But they did very well. We sat in our seats until the bottom of the 5th inning, which meant we got to witness a Tigers homerun that happened in the 5th inning. The boys did see the fountains go off. From our seats though I'm not sure they actually saw any of the the game.

You're looking the wrong way Alex.

After the 5th inning, we took the boys down to ride on the Carousel, they rode free since it was "Kids Day", some people had free tickets for adults too but not us. ..I'll need to look into that next time. As we were riding the carousel Trevor was hopping on his horse trying to go faster. Alex, on the other hand, was a little nervous and had a look on his face like, "Are you crazy, don't make it go faster!"

Trevor having a blast on the carousel. Grandpa is holding him.

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After the carousel we waited through the 8th innining then left and took some pictures with the Tiger out front. Here are the boys with Stephanie.

On the ride home both of the boys fell asleep, and Trevor took about a 2 hour nap. Alex, however, did not want to nap so he stayed downstairs and played with Mommy and Daddy and his new Tigers gear. Alex lost the jersey pretty quickly, he was getting warm in the house.

When Trevor got up he got to play with them too. So don't worry.

Mommy Separation Anxiety

Alex is finally over his mommy separation anxiety... for now. For awhile when ever I left Alex would cry and cry and cry even though Kris was still home with him. Sometimes he would cry until I got back 2 hours later. It was very frustrating. So this past weekend my mother-in-law, Sandy, was helping us with the kids while Kris and I set up the kids' new play thing in the back yard. So she was over all day Saturday and then on Sunday she came back. Well when she came in on Sunday, Alex brought me my shoes and put them on the floor in front of me, then he hugged and kissed me and waved bye-bye. So either Grandma is a lot more fun or he's finally comfortable with me leaving. Yeah!...but....

So what does Trevor do...he started his mommy separation anxiety this past weekend. When I left the boys with Sandy he would cry and cry and cry...So I'm sure when this passes they'll just flip-flop again...

Everything's OK

It was just one day of a fever and red thoart. We went to the doctor's today to make sure but everything is negative. He is feeling fine now, a little tired but he gets energy in spurts. But he hasn't had a fever since Saturday so YEAH!!! I just wanted to update anyone who reads this blog. :-)
Have a great week.