Decision Making Dread
Being a parent is an incredibly personal journey. While I immediately felt a part of this secret club after my son was born, leading up to that and thereafter I was amazed how different I felt from the parents I knew around me. My husband & I always joke that we parent between our two oldest sisters but then our two middle sisters had kids and we felt like they parent between us and the divisions continue. Needless to say, no one parents the same because you're constantly faced with different struggles and you were already in unique situations before.
As soon as you find out you're pregnant everything is broken down for you as to what's next. What marker do you need to keep an eye on and check off. They are physical for their and your health (sonograms etc.) as well as "man-made" at X weeks you do Y (i.e. Rhogam shot) but they are also personal. While stats can help you make some decisions, they're just numbers and whether you choose to get certain genetic tests is simply And so for many of us, the long road of parental anxiety begins. Am I eating well enough, getting enough sleep, taking the right test and worst of all - the underlying - am I making the right decision?
Decision making is what I feel has paralyzed me this time. I'm now making decisions every day, all day for a minimum of three people and typically four or more. I've been so fortunate to have all this help from family but with that comes more responsibility as well....When do you want me to visit? or when they're here, What do we do for lunch or worse, an "activity." The pressure to run your home, family and life smoothly is so omnipresent.
Even when I have babysitters, when they ask what should Jack have for lunch I want to run out of the house. It's completely innocent and probably even comes from a good place of trying to respect my wishes, but honestly that's why I hired you - so I didn't have to think about that for the 99th time this week. I dread opening my fridge and being faced with what needs to be thrown out, what needs to be eaten, what could I make that's healthy or should I just do mac & cheese again. Is it better to eat chicken fingers every day and have a full belly or force down two bites of homemade mystery soup from last week?
This all became easier the last time I went back to work, so much became out of my control and hands but right now this is my new normal and I haven't quite figure out how to get out of this hump besides reading hilarious other posts from mamas with a sense of humor. Current instagram favs are @loudmomma @Stamfordmommy @fromthebottomofmypurse @the21stcenturysahm and @mommyinsidevoice
