Loneliness

I love being a stay at home mom. I told Paul the other day that I thought I was born to be a mom (he laughed at me, jerk). Looking at my resume, there are a lot of jobs on there, but that's all they are. Jobs. J.O.B.S. They didn't mean much. Sure, I enjoyed working at AutoTrader, I was there for almost 8 years after all. I mean, if I didn't work there, I wouldn't have met Paul and there wouldn't be a Courtney and who knows where I would be. But those places were work and while they paid the bills, I certainly didn't like getting up every morning.

But now I've got Courtney to keep me busy every day. She's my job, my work, and I love it. Some days it's definitely work. Tiring work. Exhausting work. Confusing and overwhelming, but not as much any more. But it's still work.

Courtney isn't much for the chit chat yet. There's no office gossip. There's no water cooler chat. She has yet to invite me to happy hour. I mean, come on now kid. And I'm not really one for the phone. As a matter of fact, I kind of hate it. (I wonder if that has something to do with the thousands of hours I spent on the phone in high school and college.) So if we don't get out of the house one day, and I don't have anything planned, then I don't actually talk to anyone until Paul gets home from work. And that can get pretty lonely.

As I've mentioned before, Courtney and I keep pretty busy. We've done exercise classes and lunch with friends. Sometimes we hang out with my SIL or just run errands. But that seems to have scaled back some and if I'm not careful, I find that I haven't left the house in two days and I've spoken to no one. (At least I shower and brush my teeth though.) Maybe that's why I read so many blogs, it's my window to the world. I need to make sure that I continue to schedule things for us. It'll keep me sane and I'm pretty sure Courtney would benefit from a sane mom.

It's weird though, I try and schedule things 3-4 days a week but some weeks I feel like it's too much and some weeks I feel like it's not enough. I think part of it is that there's only so much I can do in a day before she's had enough. I mean, there's a window there and I have to respect it. I know when she gets older, our window will get larger but in the meantime, I'll keep scheduling things between naps.

And if you feel like doing something, let me know. I'd love to get together and go walking, go to lunch, or whatever strikes your fancy. Sometimes I get a little lonely.