I'm MOSTLY a Stay-at-Home Mom

(Written Saturday night, March 23rd:)

It's one in the morning, I should be in bed, but instead I'm up pumping.  Why?  Several reasons.

• First and foremost, I worked a bartending shift at the museum tonight.  Which means I didn't feed my baby before bed.  Which means that my boobs would resemble overexerted balloons by tomorrow morning, and that I would be potentially waking up in a puddle by default.  Too much...??
• Second, my freezer stash is dangerously low.  As in I think I have about 4 bags of frozen liquid gold left.  If I didn't work at all, this wouldn't matter.  But since both Lucas and my mom occasionally have the baby to themselves while I work a museum event or do an environmental site visit, and since I'm trying really hard to keep Delano on ONLY breastmilk, I have to have a stash.  So I pump.
• Third, Delano is eating 5 ounces (at least when he eats from a bottle) a sitting nowadays.  I'm currently up to 4 1/2 ounces.  So there is NO WAY I'm going to bed until I hit at least 5 ounces, even if it takes another hour to squeeze out every last drop.  If you are (or have ever been) a breastfeeding mom, you KNOW what I'm talking about!!

I don't own this bra, but I've seen it at Babies 'R Us.  I wonder how realistic it is to be "hands free"?  She looks like she's really enjoying herself!

People ask me what I do a lot, and that's not really a cut-and-dry answer.  If I didn't work at all, I could simply say that I was a stay-at-home mom.  The end.  If I worked a full-time (or even a part-time) job, I could say "I'm an environmental scientist" or "I work as an environmental scientist part-time and am a mom the rest of the time".  But describing my situation is tricky.  If I say I'm a full-time mom, then people will assume that I don't work.  If I say I'm an environmental scientist (or a bartender), then people assume that's what I do most of the time.  So when anyone asks me what I do", I'm always like, "Well............" and this is how I describe it:

I'm MOSTLY a stay-at-home mom.  But I do have a few side jobs I've kept because I enjoy them as well as the extra money.  I occasionally bartend special events at the Hunter Art Museum, mostly wedding receptions.  I also work as an Independent Contractor for an engineering firm.  They call me up when there's a project in my area (within a few hours), tell me how much they'll give me, tell me when it's due and ask me if I want it.  I can either accept the project or turn it down.  If I accept it, I coordinate the site visit day with my mom, since she watches Delano while I go do my thing.  I actually call her first before I accept any job to make sure she's available.  The third job I have is a dog walking gig, even though I'm not really "walking" the dog.  A friend of mine is a nurse and works 12-hour shifts usually 1-3 days a week.  During those days, I go to her house and let her Yorkie mix out to potty, as well as feed her lunch and toss the ball for a little bit.  I've been doing this for the past 4 years.  I've been bartending special events for almost 6 years.  And though I've been an environmental scientist for the past 7 years, I've been doing the independent contracting thing off and on for about a year and a half.

But let's say I don't have any bartending shifts for a couple of weeks and no independent contracting gigs pending.....and then maybe Maddie (the dog) only needs let out out once that particular week.....during times like those, you would definitely call me a stay-at-home mom.

See how explaining what I "do" gets confusing??

SO not what I do....but maybe I should work the tips more??

Also SO not what I wear, but maybe I should??  (P.S. NO WAY!)

Also SO not what I do......I can't imagine walking this many dogs at once!!

Also SO not what I do, but this made me giggle.  The title of this was, "Environmental Scientist And A Plant In Desert".  No explanation or anything.

(I'm up to like 5 1/4 ounces on the pumping right now.  It's 1:45am.  I'm really going to regret staying up this late when I'm super tired in the morning, but I'm going to keep going!!  I'm shooting for 6 ounces now.  Five ounces for a feeding and one ounce to spare.  Which I'll get to add to the random 3 ounces hanging out in the fridge just waiting patiently for 2 more ounces.  My poor boobs are over it.)

So I bought this dress the other day for my brother's wedding.  It looks like nothing on the hangar.  In fact, it looks like it's about 4 sizes too big on the hangar and really square and unshapely (nothing like what the website mannequin pic looks like).  But when I put it on, it shapes nicely to my curves and doesn't make me look like I'm expecting my second baby (which a LOT of dresses do), so I'm excited to wear it.  I've just got to decide what shoes I need to wear with it! 

My second brother gets married in 5 days.  My other brother got married not quite 8 months ago.  And Delano was born 7 months ago.  It's been a busy 8-9 months!!

My youngest brother Brian and his wife Nicki at their July wedding.  (I married them, fyi!)

My second youngest brother and his fiancee Rachel, to be married in 5 days!  I think this is my most favorite picture EVER of them.

(I'm up to 7 ounces now......I'm on a roll......I now have my 5 ounces PLUS 2 ounces to add to the 3 ounces in the fridge to make an additional "serving"......maybe I won't have to give him that formula after all!)

P.S.  I have performed 5 non-denominational weddings in my days as an ordained minister (and the 6th in the books for next month).  And I must say, all 5 of my couples are happily married and 3 of them have children!  So maybe I'm the key for making your marriage last.....just sayin'......haha.

People ask me and Lucas ALL the time, "When are you getting married??".  This includes everyone from family to friends to people who just met us and realized we have a child but aren't yet married.  For those of you who maybe don't know, Delano was ON PURPOSE.  We didn't accidentally get pregnant as an unmarried couple and then decide, "Aw crap, well I guess we'll stay together".  We made the decision to get pregnant, because we were both in our 30s, had been together for several years, had bought our home, both wanted a baby, and simply decided to make that our goal instead of a wedding.  It took us 6 months to get pregnant.  Sure, we had talked about getting married in the past.  But when it came down to "what do we want to focus on the most right now?", the answer was a baby.  We didn't want to try to plan both a wedding and a baby at the same time, just because you couldn't guarantee the timing of the baby, and I didn't want to look like a whale at my wedding.  And as soon as we were pregnant, the wedding became completely unimportant.  I seriously stopped caring about having a wedding AT ALL.  My life revolved around that baby and has ever since!!

I can't even stand it!!!

There are technicalities involved that would make life easier if we were married.  The main thing being medical insurance.  Since we're not married, and since I don't work full-time, and also since my insurance changed a few months ago (as insurance does on the regular), it has been quite the roller coaster dealing with it.  One of the big issues is that I'm not a full-time employee at any of my side jobs, so I don't qualify for any of the company insurance.  So for the past few years, I've had to shop around for my own.  Which was fine when it was just me, but a baby tosses in a whole other set of rules and regulations and issues.  Lucas's insurance is awesome.  Granted, insurance in general SUCKS overall, but for what is out there, Lucas's rocks.  Had we known then what we know now (hindsight is 20/20, right?), Delano would have gone on his daddy's insurance from Day 1.  But at the time, we thought it was all under control (and under the best plan) with mine.  And all was great until my insurance company decided to shake things up a month or so ago (Hey guess what?  We're not going to cover this and this and this anymore.....sorry.....).  So in THAT aspect, getting married would eliminate all of this insurance crap.

But who wants to say they got married for insurance reasons??  Depressing.  Understandable and sensible, maybe.....but still depressing.  Where's the romance in that?

It's super depressing that you can actually Google images such as these.  What does that say about our system??

Speaking of romance, it would be interesting to learn the REAL romance factor between the husbands and wives (or the boyfriends and girlfriends) that I know.  I'm fully aware that we all want our lives to sound amazing on Facebook.  Everybody wants everybody else to think that they have it the best (MY HUSBAND/WIFE/GIRLFRIEND/BOYFRIEND IS THE BEST EVER IN THE HISTORY OF THE WHOLE WORLD!!!!  HE LOVES KITTENS AND UNICORNS AS MUCH AS I DO AND HE BUYS ME DIAMONDS AND CUPCAKES WHENEVER I NEED TO TURN MY FROWN UPSIDE DOWN!!!).....unless of course it's that person who posts nothing but depressing status updates all the time.  YOU know who they are, even if they don't realize who they are.  You know because you hide them.  You don't want to be obvious and defriend them, so you simply hide them instead.  You don't have to read their posts, and they're not offended because they have no idea.  Really, it's a win, win.

So.....this post started 5 nights ago and I really had planned to add more to it (because, AS USUAL, it wasn't long enough already), but instead, I'll just post it.  I really want to start a new post about how my year has started off SUCKY and how this week has been quite a cake topper, but that will have to wait for another time.  For now, I need to get back to the environmental report I've been working on.  I'm on a time crunch.  So ta-ta for now!!

P.S.  I ended my night with about 7 3/4 ounces.  :)