From the time that I was born until now, my mom has been a working mom except for the short time that we lived in New Jersey. She is an amazing mom. Even working full time, she made the time to make it to all of the PTA meetings, assemblies, doctor appointments, and daily gymnastics practices.
The short time that she did spend at home with us, it was incredible. We played games, she helped out with my brownie troop, she made our Halloween costumes and also made a playhouse for us out of our moving boxes.
Being a little girl and seeing this, I always thought that if I were to have children, I would want to stay at home. As I got older, I changed my decision after seeing how successful my mother was at her job, that I would want to be like her ~ a working mom.
When Brett and I finally made the decision to have children, we decided that I would stay at home during my maternity leave and then go back to work. As many of you know, pregnancy and I didn’t get along ~ it just wasn’t for me. At the end of a tough 35 weeks, we had our healthy, beautiful daughter, Katherine Anne.
As my maternity leave ended, I went back to work. I had a very understanding boss that allowed me to work from home and when I needed to go into the office, I was able to bring Katherine. This worked out until Katherine was about six months old. At that time she was mobile and I wanted to stay at home with her.
Making the decision to stay at home with Katherine was the best decision that I could have ever made. We had good days, great days and some not so awesome days. At the end of the day, I do not regret my decision.
As time went on, we moved to the Palm Springs area when Katherine was 14 months old and I enrolled Katherine in gymnastics and swimming. From those activities, we made some good friends and through those friends, we made even more friends.
We went to play dates, hosted play dates, went on tours, met up with friends for lunches and dinners, Disneyland, Sea World, had fun parties and became closer to our friends. As much as we loved being with our friends out in Palm Springs, we were missing our house out in Phoenix. It was a very tough decision but when Katherine was three, we made the choice to move back to Phoenix.
Katherine had a very hard transition… different house, new room and missing her friends. She kept begging to go to school so I toured many different schools. I finally found the right school for her.
The first week of preschool, Katherine couldn’t wait to go. She was so excited and had a fun time ~ singing, dancing and doing artwork. Then week two came around and she didn’t want to go back. It was tough as a mom seeing her cry when I dropped her off. I would call the school to make sure that she was okay. After a little crying, she was fine and played with her new friends. I called my friend Tami to see if I made the right decision in putting Katherine in school and she said that everything Katherine was doing was completely normal.
I had to step back and look at the situation… she stayed at home with me for the past three years. For many of the days and weeks, it was just Katherine and I considering Brett was gone a lot for work.
Katherine was used to staying with me every day, all day long and here I was changing her environment and then changing our daily routine. I had to be patient and know that it she would adjust and it was going to be a good thing for her.
So once she became accustomed to the change, I started to look for a job. Being successful in the past, I didn’t think that it would be that hard to look and find a job. Boy, was I wrong. As of right now, I have sent out at least 35 resumes, if not more, for executive admin (a previous position), admin, receptionist, part time work and even temp work. Nothing. I even call to volunteer my time and I still haven’t received a call back for that one either.
So here I sit without any call backs. Oh, I did have one call back from the school district but I have to take a typing test, math test and spelling test (not sure why spelling, spell check ~ duh) even before being considered for an interview. They also requested more paperwork from me. I got all of the paperwork together, put it in a manila folder with my name on it and got all dressed up and took it down to the office.
While waiting to turn in the required paperwork before taking my tests, I overheard the receptionist on the phone with someone. She said, “We have about a 100 applicants per posted position and we interview only 3 people. Sometimes we interview 5”. Wow!! I have a 3-5% chance at being called for an interview!
This is a little frustrating for me but I am sure something will come up. Right?
So here I sit… no job and Katherine isn’t happy when I drop her off at school (she stops crying when I leave so I think it’s a ploy). Driving away, I cannot help to think if I made the right decision to stay home with her ~ out of work for 3 years and she is used to being with me all day, everyday.
At the end of the day, I know that I did make the right decision for us. I will never get back those three years and I have enjoyed every bit of them (even the hard days). She is my little buddy and the right opportunity will come along at the right time. As before, I just need to be patient.
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