Category: Older Moms

Here I’ll share stories of trials and tribulations of the unique world of being an older parent. Like any parenting, it has no road maps, full of mixed guidance, and the feeling of free-falling at times….but what an adventure it can be!

The contracted plumbing company was finally able to make it out to replace the broken sewer line in our yard! I just hope that all stays clear like they say it will, would hate to have them come out again!

Will be celebrating with family on this little/big turn of events here, and catch up on laundry. Who thought I’d be happy to do dishes and laundry??? And BATHS, yay, baths! Little John will be so happy, he hated showers.

Now I can get back to studying up during the day as my motivation goes out the door when under stress. Trying to get my skills out there as a Virtual Assistant so that I can work from home, leaving me free to spend time with the family while bringing in extra income. The extra wouldn’t really be extra to start out, more like NEEDED income, but hopefully someday it will be money we can actually enjoy as a family-that is my goal.

I have the skills to get my foot in the door and love to learn, so I’m hoping that this will be the answer to the issue of my working full time out of the house, where all the money went out the door to daycare, because I worked outside the home.

Today they are supposed to break up our yard and get the sewer line fixed, but the ground is all but frozen, so I’m really crossing my fingers right now!

The night of family time in bed left me scurrying to the recliner to get some sleep. I feel like I’m the bad guy in a Bruce Lee movie when sleeping with the kids in the same bed! They end up all over, even upside down on the bed. Just not the recipe for a good night’s sleep by any definition.

Poor Henry is feeling the stress emanating from me and my husband over all that is going on right now, and has not been his talkative self. I tried to ease him into a better mood, and I think he ended the night okay. He went on with his light saber and Tae Kwon Do moves, so all was back to normal, if not a bit dangerous for our dogs.

John, luckily, is happy in his own space most of the time, although he had more unexplained outbursts than normal. These are moment he just scream/yells for no apparent reason. Last only about 5-10 seconds, but always catches us off guard…he’s quite loud. 😛

Hopefully, we can get normal plumbing back SOON, and thing will be more back to the same routine as it was before. Back to me feeling out of energy and breath to keep up with the kids and house. Back to the endless stories of MineCraft characters, Pokémon characters and adventures and all the other things that I can’t even explain coming out of Henry’s mouth, and John dancing and singing to his iPad.

With the disruption of the routine at home with the backed up sewer line, it has changed the course of my little John’s, who has Down Syndrome, routine.

This has caused him to not sleep in his own bed, meaning he’s sleeping with Mom and Dad. With that Henry, his older brother, gets jealous, and wants to sleep with us as well. Thank goodness we have a king sized bed, but with the spider stretching the two children do, I’m sure the bed’s purpose is missed entirely.

So my husband and I, sleep on the slivers of the edge while the children fight for space in their sleep. Doesn’t make for ideal conditions at night, and leaves us parents very weary in the morning! There is nothing like spending the night being Kung Foo kicked and B**tched slapped all night!!

When I figured that we’d get more family time, as I do the laundry at the laundry mat during he day (while the kids are in school and husband at work), and dishes in small lots each evening, I had not expected it to be so tight knit *wink*.

This week brings the promise of the main underground pipe being fixed, and then the moving company from insurance to haul our stuff into storage. I’m hoping to get back to something of a normal life soon, and this has really changed my schedule around.

I don’t’ get to visit my Mom in the Home as often as I’d like with all the phone calls and people going to and fro from our house, but I really am home-bound while this all takes place. Nothing like feeling prisoner in your own home when most of what you need to get done is out of the house, but it is what it is.

I’m trying not to let it get to me and know that there are somethings that need to get done that are out of my control; but as a control freak, it TOUGH! I want to be in control of the delegations and everything, but can’t.

It’s hard not to let this effect my family, especially kids, when a big situation like this happens and the stress can get to me sometimes; but I try to remember family first and make them as comfortable and keep as much a routine as possible going.

It’s hardest on John, since he goes downstairs for his alone time. After a day at school he needs his own “unwind moments”, and will scoot downstairs to get away from it all. He doesn’t understand why he’s been blocked from doing that, and I’ve tried to set his room as the next best alternative. He’s trying to adjust to the restricted space.

He’s also far more needy during this transition (thank goodness Henry understands better), and that takes more energy than usual. Sometimes i feel too old for all this, but a smile and a hug seems to melt that away.

I returned from a fun trip to vegas to reunite with a friend I had not seen in over 12 years! Yes, 12 years. It was so fun being able to spend time with her like no time had past at all, and that’s he best thing about my longest lasting friendships.

As all things, though, goods things have to come to an end. After almost five days away, it was time to go home. Back to a home that was left in the hands of my husband and my two boys.

What I returned to was something that looked like a tornado passed by a UPS store, the post office and every fast food joint in town and dropped it off at my house! I was overwhelming what 5 days without Mom’s hand could do!

So I slowly started to get things back in order my tackling laundry first; only to find out that the main line drain pipe from our house had cracked. So all the water, whatever the source, was backing dirt into our laundry room drain, soaking the carpet and floors with MUD! Ugh, not pleasant at all.

As no water can be run, dishes laundry, even hand washing and toilets have been put on hold, till I can get emergency plumbing work done. Not the way I wanted to start my fresh week home, but something that can’t be ignored or put off at all.

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Just got a call and they can have someone here by 1:00 PM today, which is house from now, but the closest they can get for now.

I guess that means that I hang tight, and wait-not off to a fun or even productive day so far.

Tomorrow I take off to leave the house as a bachelor pad for five days. Am I afraid? YES!

Why you ask, because I’m the one that reminds everyone to pick up and I’m a stay-at-home mom, which means I do the cleaning, laundry and dishes. It’s not that my husband isn’t capable: but he’s just come down with a bad case of the flu, so I don’t expect him to do anything but recover, so that he can go back to work.

I’m not sure what I’m in for upon my return, as the house is far from perfect upon my departure. I guess I better enjoy me trip, huh?