If Mommy is still alive at five, I've really done my job!

Some days as a mom...well, are indescribable. When people who don't have kids ask what it is like to stay home with kids, there is no way to really explain all that I do in a day. Besides, if I told them what some days are like, they may never speak to me again. Much of what you do as a parent is not conversation for mixed-company. With sick kids, at some point a survival instinct kicks in, and you go on auto-pilot, get through the day, and try to erase it from your memory. We have all been sick, with colds and with stomach flus. It's been a house full of bodily fluids in various forms. I don't handle certain fluids well, and it makes my husband crazy.
We got home from T-ball practice on Saturday, and my middle child vomited all over the living room. Mind you, the day before, the same child had stomach problems that also got all over another room of the house (I'll spare those details). I just kind of screamed and ran around in circles. My husband was in another room, came out, looked at him, looked at me, and looked at the door. Lucky for me, he didn't just run out of the door and never come back.

Of course, there are also lots of super great moments, but many of those are also indescribable.

Why am I contemplating all of this? Because it's likely I will go back to work full-time by the end of February. Being a work-out-of-the-home mom is a totally different beast. It's harder, it's more tiring, and more guilt inducing. And, yes, it can be more fulfilling, in many ways. I have been saying that I am ready to go back. I have been feeling itchy to get back to my career.

Now that the opportunity is here, I look at the kids and feel sad. Sad I'm not the kind of mom who can be home and be amazing at it. Sad I'm the kind of mom who needs to have a career to feel whole. I will miss so much of our day, and miss seeing their little faces. You can't have it all. It's something I learned when I graduated from law school and started working. It's a total lie, but you can try your hardest to be happy at work, and happy at home, and focused on where you are when you are there. And I hope that I do better this time around than I did before.

On Track

Well, it's mid-January and I'm on track to meeting my goals. I've lost 6 pounds (woot!) and I'm really making an effort to be more positive.

We have been spending more quality time together as a family, which is nice. I am weighing going back to work full-time. If the firm I talked to makes me an offer, I will be back at work full-time. It's been exactly a year since I left my last job.

My youngest is doing well at daycare--he's been going while I work here and there. He's starting to be more communicative. He has a language delay, and seeing him open up and communicate and make an effort at speech is awesome. (Another woot!).

Between the kids and figuring out what I want to be when I grow up, I'm exhausted, but feeling more positive than I have in awhile.

New Year's Resolutions and other stuff I'd like to do

For the first time ever, I made a list of goals for the year. I like to think that goals and resolutions are different. Resolutions seem to be things you wish you could do. Goals, for me anyway, are things you are planning to do.

This year, I am adopting the attitude of "there is no try, there is do or do not." Or whatever Yoda says.

My goals center around my weight and my health, but also around my attitude in general, as well as spending time with my kids as individuals and alone time with my husband.

Last year was a weird, hard, sad year for me. It was full of wake-up calls, loss, and feeling lost, but also full of opportunity, which I feel I wasted.

I am taking this year by the horns, and wrestling it down to the ground. I'm making 2010 my bitch.

On my list of goals: reach my goal weight, be more patient with the kids, be more positive, spend a weekend alone with my husband (something we haven't done since 2005), take another mommy-daughter trip, take a mommy-son trip with my oldest son, and finally get our finances in order.

I'd also like to figure out what I'm going to be when I grow up, since the last year was spent reflecting on whether or not I really wanted to be a lawyer. I just paid my bar dues for 2010, so I guess I'm going to be one for at least another year. (At $450 to renew my bar dues, I suppose I should make the most of the money spent!).

Big goals? Maybe, but I don't think any of them are not doable.