Thursday, October 14, 2010

Surviving and Thriving

It’s 5 PM and I am already sitting at our dining room table, thanks to a work-from-home day. I am encircled by a large and impressive IKEA wooden train track, and two happy boys are drawing on either side of me.

Taye’s drawing is a controlled, multi-colored composition. Each color is drawn in a different style, and each style represents a different object. The long orange zigzag is a slide. The small green swirl is a swing, as is the purple line, connected at either end by solid ovals. The yellow and pink circles are circles. He tells me this with a look that says, “Momma, you should know that!”.

Dash’s drawing started with small, faint circles, then exploded into a mono-chromatic swirl that engulfed the page. He says it’s, “Mommy, Daddy, Dash, Taye, Portsie, Lucy, Duncan, America.”

This is still a favorite topic.

I love how their drawings reflect their personalities, and the things that are on their minds. I love that my job allows me to work from home sometimes so that I don't have to miss this stuff.

I have been back at work for almost six weeks now. The first couple weeks were pretty hard emotionally for all of us but here we are, six weeks later, and I can honestly say that not only are we going to survive this change, but in spite of it we continue to grow happier and happier as a family. I attribute this to five things;
1) my amazing husband who has become an incredible stay-at-home dad
2) the fact that nothing could possibly be as tiring or as challenging as our first month home, so this pales in comparison
3) the fact that activity at work has been ramping up slowly, which means I have been able to work from home two or three days a week
4) my incredibly smart, beautiful, sweet sons who once again have adjusted amazingly well and

5) the fact that Mark has carried 100% of the house cleaning burden, leaving me to spend 100% of my non-work time with the boys. Did I mention that my husband is amazing?

Not sure how I got so lucky, but I am :-)

11 comments:

We Are Family said...

Great! Counting your blessings always puts things in perspective :)

Sha Zam- said...

beautiful blessings. Yes. Beautiful. Now-- does he have a brother--- or could I borrow him from time to time?

Gayla said...

Oh, yes you are a lucky girl!!!! So happy for you.

Rebecca said...

i just pretended that i was there with you- watching the boys. sigh, too far away. love you to the moon and back and again and again.

Sara said...

So awesome. I'm so happy you get to spend this time with the boys and not be too caught up with work. I looooove preschool age. The drawing, the writing, and the reading when it comes. Maybe that is why I would love to live on Sesame Street or in Mister Roger's Neighborhood? :-) I miss the days when Jeff was a stay-at-home dad. Isn't it wonderful?

The Busters said...

I love the descriptions of their drawings. I can totally see it!! So glad you are all thriving. Cheers to Mark!! Love you!!

MP said...

Aww little artists in training!! Can't wait to squish them in November.
Isn't it fun to have amazing husbands? How did we both manage to do that?
Call me when you can :)

xoxo

David said...

Love you and your family!

Lisa said...

Glad to hear you are surviving being back to work. I wondered how that was going. Mark is awesome! The boys are precious! I love seeing how they are thriving in their family :)

Even though I don't comment much anymore I still mostly keep up with your blog. It's hard to find the time these days to keep up with blogland ;) Miss you!

Anonymous said...

Ah, I almost forgot that difficult first month home. Not. So glad it's become easier. Us, too.

Yes, your husband sounds amazing. For hire? :)

You described their drawings so beautifully. So glad you're able to witness it.

Tracy said...

Oh, I'm so glad to hear about your smooth transition into going back to work. And your husband is a total keeper! Yea for all of you!

And you're so right...that first month home was HARD!!!