The Juggler {A Mom-day Post}

I just had to throw in a Halloween shot because they’re awesome!

I have been wanting to write this post for a while, but I’m not sure how to do it without sounding holier-than-thou, or condescending or judgmental.  So as you read, please keep in mind that I am sharing my opinion and life decisions only- and not making a commentary on the decisions anyone else is making in their own lives. 🙂
I have always known that I wanted to be a mother.  I wanted to stay at home and raise children and take care of my house and bake cookies and be happy.  And I wanted to be a doctor.  And get my M.D. PhD. and study diseases at the CDC.  And be a geneticist.  And maybe teach school too.
When it came time to take the MCAT (the entrance exam for medical school) I sat in the big auditorium looking at all the people around me and their intensity.  They wanted this so badly, most of them.  In fact, when the guy a couple seats down from me dropped his pencil mid test- he would have been dead many times over if looks could kill.  It was in that moment that I realized I didn’t want it as badly as most of them- my heart was really someplace else- it was in my future home with my as yet unborn children.
Fast forward a few years.  I met my husband, we got married, moved into a home and decided to have children.  It was scary.  I quit my job only to take it back again a year later when money was tight.  I worked 20-30 hours a week between the hours of 4 pm and 2 a.m.   With now 2 children who would wake up at 6 a.m. it was hard.  I wasn’t a very good mother but we thought we needed the money.  I quit my job.
Move ahead a few more years.  A couple of moves and two more children and we find ourselves in our current house.  Inaccurate estimates on our mortgage left us tighter than we thought we’d be in this house, add to that a recession and a husband who works for a GM dealership and you find things are pretty tight financially.  Going back to work is the obvious choice.  I have a degree and technical skills that would provide a pretty decent income.  It would not be easy, but it would sure help in the money department.
I fight to hang on to the lessons I learned all those years ago, to remember where my heart really is.
Someone once told me that I was lucky to be a stay at home mother.  And I am.  But it’s not because my husband makes so much money that I am able to be here.  We are fighting tooth and nail to keep me here.  We give up a lot of things to make it possible for me to remain the full time mother.  I work harder now than I have ever worked at any other point in my life.  I am the full time mom, plus I make things to sell to supplement our family income, and I have this blog, which keeps me sane and gives me a place to escape, if only for a moment, the incredible pressure of life.
I read this article yesterday and it resounded with me so strongly.  The work ball will bounce (in this case the blogging/crafty making and selling) but the family ball, especially while my children are still so young and needy, must be guarded at all costs.  I am striving mightily to keep all of them in the air, but there are times I admit to needing to let something go, if only for a moment.  And lately that has been my blog.
So, this is not a goodbye, but a hello again!  Now that my boutique is over and the pressure is off in the major production category, I look forward to creating just for fun.  To inspire and be inspired and share in the love and fun that is the online craft blogging community.  So I hope you’ll be patient just a bit longer as I stretch my creative legs and start ramping up the projects- I’m ready to play.  But I also hope you’ll understand if I (or any other mother who also blogs) fails to put posting any higher on the priority list.  I love you all and you hold such a special place in my life and my heart.  But I have a big responsibility, one only I can do, and I am striving to keep it first.
XOXO,
Amy