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Consider yourself warned!


​A guide for those who think they want children.

​I Don’t Want to Let You Go!

4/20/2017

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               The day came with mixed emotions.  One the one hand, it felt good to go back to work.  There, I could talk to people who could respond to me with real words, and I’d be able to understand them.  On the other hand, I didn’t want to leave my three month old baby … even if it was with my mother.  But, bills had to be paid, diapers needed to be bought, and Sallie Mae was like, “Yo, where’s my money?”  So back to work I went. Leaving my firstborn home was one of the hardest things I had to do.  I worried, “Would my mother be ok?”, “Is the baby ok?”  “What are they doing?”  “Does he miss me?”  Of course, when I got home, he was just fine.  And why wouldn’t he be?  He was left with the woman who raised me, and she did a pretty excellent job.  And just so you know, it was just as hard to leave my daughter when she came seventeen months later.
                Next, it was time to leave him with the babysitter.  He was one years old.  The first day he didn’t cry.  When I went to pick him up, he was sitting in a high chair with this look on his face that said, “What's going on?  Why am I here?”  When I took him home, I put him in the crib so I could change clothes.  That little boy stood up and gave me an earful for a good fifteen minutes!  I’m not lying!  I have no clue what he was telling me, but whatever it was, it was serious.  That child did not have a smile on his face. 
                The next day, I dropped him off again thinking, “Hey, this should be easy.  He didn’t even bat an eye yesterday.”  Wrong!  That kid had a good memory.  It was like the light bulb flicked on and he said to himself, “Oh hell no!  You ain’t leaving me again!”  Oh my God!  That child cried and screamed when I put him in the babysitter’s arm.  I almost started crying.  It felt as if my heart was being pulled out of my chest.  The babysitter brought him inside and I could still hear him crying as I walked away.  I don’t know how I made it to work.
                When it was time to send the kids to preschool, the old feelings came up again.  Why couldn’t I have just been born, or married into a rich family or dreamt up some Lotto numbers?  Why did I have to be a working mom?  I just didn’t want to leave my precious little kids.  Even though I knew that it was the right thing to do, after all, they did need to get an education, it was still hard.  My son must have cried for two weeks straight.  I’m not exaggerating here.  If preschool had a major, his would have been crying when mommy leaves, with a minor in how to make mommy feel guilty for being a working mom!  My daughter on the other hand, cried for only three days.  It didn’t take her long to realize that she could play with other kids at preschool and have fun.  On the fourth day, I was all geared up for her to start crying.  She shocked both me and the teacher when she waved at me, said “Bye Mommy”, turned, and walked into the classroom.  Good for her!
                Now that they are both in high school, I realize that my time to spend with them is limited.  Soon they will be leaving me for college and that they will want to go away for school (as my daughter made perfectly clear to me when she said to me this summer, “I can’t wait to get out of here!”).  So I will just have to enjoy the time I have with them now, knowing that my heart will break again …  and then again when they get married!
                So future parents, the moral of this story is this: you need to develop a thick skin.  When you have to leave your precious child with someone new, or at school, get ready to feel the guilt, the pain, the suffering, and the heartache that comes along with leaving them.  Believe you me, it’s not fun. 
                To the other parents out there, how did you feel leaving your kids for the first time?
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Little White Lies

4/6/2017

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                As a parent, you will find that you will have to lie to your kids sometimes.  I know, we all are told that we shouldn’t lie, but sometimes, you just have to do it. 
                I was talking to my son the other day and we were talking about Christmases past.  He told me how he remembered where on one particular Christmas, I kept watching the Santa tracker online.  When he reminded me of that, I had to laugh!  I remembered it too.  That year, the kids were excitedly waiting for Santa to come, but they wouldn’t go to bed.  I had bought my daughter a three foot tall doll house that I wanted to put together that night, so I really needed them to go to bed and to fall into a deep coma-like sleep.  Anyway, these kids were too amped to go to bed.  So I got on the computer to pass the time and stumbled onto a Santa Tracker site that tracked where Santa Clause was last spotted.  It turns out Santa was last seen in Maryland.  I told the kids that Maryland wasn’t too far from New York, and that Santa should be here soon.  They were excited!  The next time I checked, Santa was in Michigan.  I told the kids that I was confused.  Santa had to fly over New York to get from Maryland to Michigan. I even showed it them on the map.  I just looked at them sadly, shook my head and said, “I guess Santa couldn’t stop in New York because there are kids here who are still awake.”  Man … I had never seen those kids go to bed so fast!  That little lie worked wonders.
                One Easter, I realized that I had forgotten to put out the Easter baskets I made for them (the store bought baskets are always so cheaply made and don’t have enough candy and toys in them).  I thought to myself, “Damn, how am I going to get these baskets out of the hall closet without these kids seeing me?”  Well, let me tell you what I did.  I sent the kids into the bedroom to find something for me.  Once they left the room, I quickly got the baskets out of the closet, put them on the table, and yelled, “Oh my God you guys.  Come in here!”  When they ran into the room, I told them that they had just missed the Easter Bunny.  I told them that I saw the Easter Bunny standing next to me, so I turned to yell for them but that now he's gone.  I was pretty proud of myself for coming up with that story, especially since my daughter didn’t even think twice about it.  She was happy for the basket.  But my son.  He looked at me, squinted his eyes, and asked in a slow, disbelieving voice, “What did he look like?”  He was looking at me with an expression on his face that said, “I don’t believe a work you just said.”   I looked that little boy straight in the eyes and without skipping a beat said, “He was big and brown.”  My son didn’t ask me any more questions after that.
                Santa, the Easter Bunny … those are the lies that we are all familiar with, but believe you me, they will probably not be the only lies you tell your kids.  You will sometimes tell a little white lie because you don’t want to hurt their feelings, you want to avoid a scene, you don’t feel like going into an explanation about something, or you just don’t feel like being bothered with their complaining and whining if you tell them the truth.  As much as we tell our kids not to lie, we don’t always lead by example, and we resolve to do better. 
                So, now you know …. Consider Yourself Warned!
                Parents, what “Little White Lie” have you told your kids?

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    SassyGirlTye

    SassyGirlTye lives with her two wonderful teenagers in Brooklyn, New York.  No matter what she says in her posts, she truly loves her children with all her heart.


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