Office Rant

This rant applies to any office of any size. I am speaking for the people......Please do not bring your breakfast, snacks and lunches for the entire week and store them in the office fridge. You don't need to bring a carton of soy milk for the one bowl of cereal you have in the morning. You don't need to have "options" when it comes to your morning yogurt. You don't need to bring 4 bags of different kinds of lettuce so that you can have the "big salad" at lunch. And if you are indecisive about which type of dressing to use? Bring small samples of all of them instead of littering the fridge door with your jars and jars and jars of dressing. The last time I checked, there was only 1 person who rode a bike to work, therefore only HE should be bringing a week's worth of food to keep in the fridge. You? You're driving your ass to work every day, so get up a little earlier and pack a lunch. Can't decide if you want banana or vanilla yogurt? Decide when you wake up.

I shouldn't have to move your milk, your yogurt, your apple, your butter, your dressing spray, your croutons just to be able to place a single can of pop in the fridge. I shouldn't have to move your moldy whatever-the-hell-that-is to put my lunch in the fridge.

Considering all the food I'm finding in the fridge I'm beginning to wonder if any part of your day is spent working, or if you are attempting to become the next Food Network Star. Either way....the fridge is not your personal storage container. You need to share it with 50 other people, so get up early, make your lunch before leaving your house and for God's sake....make a freaking dressing decision!!!

Decisions

If you think the decision to have a baby is hard, I think the decision to NOT have one is even harder. That's a decision we're wrestling with right now.

There are pros and cons to both, but the big con is...how do we pay for it? The thing that stumps me is, I've asked around and no one seems to be able to tell me what they do to afford 2 kids. I've asked working moms, I've asked stay-at-home moms and I have yet to get a single straight answer. Do families use credit cards? Do they cut out everything in their life? I don't know and I can't quite figure it out.

With one income we'd have to figure out how to pay just for the basics of survival...the mortgage. Food. Diapers. Cars and the insurance for them. Clothing. Of course, all the utilities that go with running a house (power, gas, water, association dues) And we aren't poor, but we don't use credit cards. We'd have to cut out pretty much everything...TV, internet, cell phones, all extra spending as well as cutting our grocery bill down to next to nothing and I just don't know how we'd do that?

Assuming I could work, I'd then have to put 2 kids in day care. 1 kid for 5 full days a week is around $600/month minimum. 2 kids? That's my entire paycheck so then we're right back where we've started.

That's the biggest problem. And it's a terrible problem to have, because I don't want Carley to be an only child, I think she'd love a sibling. But the cost for us to even get pregnant is pretty high, and I've been told that the meds for it have recently doubled.

So what do we do? I wish nature would make the choice for us, and maybe it will, but it's a decision that has been heartbreaking to think about.

If we didn't have any more kids, we know we could give Carley a good quality life. And that makes me happy. It's wrapping my head (and heart) around that decision.

Parenting

No one ever tells you how to be a parent, because it's different for every person, with every child. I know I'm criticized for how I approach parenting, but I'll tell you, I think I'm a damn good mother.

I don't win every battle, but I do win the important ones. I am strict when I need to be, I am softie when I want to be. I have made decisions for my daughter that are different than those around me, and maybe even "controversial", but in the end it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks.

At the end of the day, I know I'm a good mom. And how do I know this? When I walk in the room after not seeing my daughter for the day, she comes out running, screaming "mom!" and gives me a huge hug, as if I've been gone for days.

There is no better reward, no better validation than that.