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Time to Write

Olof

Things are changing. They are always changing. Every moment when I get into the rhythm of “I got this” life happens and I have to learn to dance to a different beet and sometimes life doesn’t even provide me with the music to dance to and I sort of have to be super creative. Now is one of those moments where there is music but it the station keeps getting changed a lot and I have learned to just roll with it. Funny thing is that it keeps mixing my favorite hip hop station with my least favorite techno station and I have NO idea how to dance to techno. But even my favorite Hip Hop station is throwing me curve balls that I can manage and they are not horrible but throw me off beet. Thankfully there is more Hip Hop than Techno.

So here it is. Remember when we purchased the house the summer of 2016? The 1978 monster of a house that was frozen in time in 1978. There was shag carpet everywhere. Even in the bathrooms. There was carpet in the kitchen. Yep you read that right. IN THE KITCHEN!!! We knew that was not going to fly with 4 young boys, a dog and 2 cats. So we ripped out ALL the carpet except in the formal living and dining room which looked newer than the rest. But Ya’ll the carpet in there is cream colored and that is where I have the boys fenced off when I need to finish dishes, laundry, cook dinner or what have you and the dining room is the play room at the moment and the formal living is the game room with the ugliest pealing pleather couch that you could think of. We stalled out of updating the house about 7 months ago. Getting all of this done with 4 kids, a dog and 2 cats in tow on top of homework, school pick up, mountains of laundry, all the meals and all the normal stuff we have going on just wasn’t happening. One of our investments did well and we suddenly had the money to pay someone else to do the work and it was like a light shown down from the heavens. This is where I spend most of my time. In this house and we have had nasty concrete floors for over a year. The toilets and everything in the bathrooms is an ugly beige that makes me want to stab myself in the eye. But we have a great friend that does AMAZING work and was willing to take us on as clients and I am so excited to see what he will do for our house. Hopefully by the end of February I will have the house of my dreams. Before then we ran into some snags.

We found bats in the attic Bye Bye $1170 for removal and clean up

We hired a structural engineer because of some uneven floors and wanted the foundation to be fixed before we put new hardwood floors on. We need piers and foam to stabilize the foundation. Bye Bye $10,000

We needed some trees trimmed and removed from our property and the rental property. Bye Bye $2400

This all before we even start on the whole house remodel. The new appliances needed and the furniture that we need after that is done. We never fully moved into this house because it was never finished. The attic above the garage (that doesn’t have bats) is still full of our stuff that I never moved in because we had so much left to do. Also we moved from a 1500 sq ft house to a 3390 sq ft house. We still have whole rooms that we don’t use at all because they really aren’t usable because there is just subflooring.

As I was dealing with all the contractors (I’ve already been stood up 2 times and we haven’t even started on real renovations) I get a call from my 3rd boy’s principle. It is that call that no parent wants to hear. “You need to come pick up your preKer because he has been violent towards another child and has left marks on him.” I was in complete shock and disbelief. He is stubborn and sneaky and a hand full at home but never would I have imagined that he would be violent towards another child on purpose. I left a note on the door that I would be back in a few minutes for the contractors and speed off to school. Ashamed of my sons behavior. When I asked him why he did it he told me that he wanted to come home and this is the only way he gets to go home. It was one of my few days where I get to get stuff done without having small children under foot. My youngest (who is almost 2 and throws the greatest tantrums ever at the moment) was at his little preschool and I was trying to pack as much into my window as I could. Alex, my #3, got suspended for the rest of the week. He thought he won the lottery and got to stay home. I took away screens, I took away games, but honestly there is little I could do to make staying home with me less great. He hates school. Says his teacher doesn’t like him and even though I have asked for a change, written emails and showed up to meetings and other things nothing but a Behavioral plan has been done for him. The child that hasn’t done anything like this before is suddenly labeled a psychopath by his teacher because he is trying everything in his power to get out of there. What really makes me sad is he begged to go to “big kids school” for almost a year before he started. He had been dreaming of it for so long and I remember sitting down with the teacher at the beginning of school and thinking “oh no” that she was not a good fit for him and this might not go so well. I thought he would be unruly for her but NEVER violent. I can’t change things for him at school. I can just be a loving place for him at home. Make sure he talks about his choices at school and try to move on. This part of parenting sucks. When they have to learn to be outside of your zone. If they never really learn this the rest of life will be hard. I don’t want that for him.

As all of this is going down, the endless estimates and contractors and Alex making himself seen in our large busy family, I am also planning a trip to Iceland to see my family for Christmas. We won’t be there for long so I’m trying to introduce my boys to all of the different families on a one on one basis. This takes planning. I also have to make sure that I have all the outdoor clothing we will need for all 4 of them. Good shoes for all kinds of weather and that I make time for friends and us too with out hurting too many feelings.

Like I said at the beginning of the post, most of my music is good music that I love to dance to, finally getting the house done the way I like it and money not really hindering that, but I find myself stumbling through the techno noise and feeling like I am failing in ways along the way, when I am navigating the parenting outside of my control zone, watching my child not thrive and knowing that he needs to learn to be without me and I will not always be able to pick and chose his caretakers or bosses along the way. I hate that he is learning this so early. He is only 5. But also sheltering him even longer might not be helpful either.

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So Much Change!

Olof

OK since the last time I posted a lot has happened and since I am suffering a bad cold at the moment and stuck on the couch I thought I would update everyone. You know because having a 4th kid wasn’t enough. A) we got a puppy! and B) we bought another house!

I know I’m crazy and my body is completely telling me how crazy I am but that is a whole other blog post. 13217393_10156975132635118_3143750346418388979_o

This is Freyja! She is a mess of a Beagle Pug mix. Shortly after mom died I had a dream. My mother visited me in the dream, held my then 3 boys, and told me “Olof give the boys their puppy and everything will fall into place.” At the time I just took it as a grief dream and I didn’t give it much thought. Almost 3 years later I suddenly needed to get a dog. Husband wanted (and still doesn’t) nothing to do with this dog. She is a mess. She can’t be trusted with the kids but she is now only 8 months and getting better every day.

Shortly after adding a dog to our, already large and busy, family, I suddenly needed to move. It was like an urge that I just had to fill NOW. My children needed a better school and we needed more room. I used to daydream of a beautiful colonial home and drive though a neighborhood here in Tulsa that has these BEAUTIFUL colonial homes. I knew that a house like that was not in the cards. Especially not in that neighborhood. I also was wanting a home in a neighborhood where my kids could go outside and ride their bikes. I had a tall order for a house on a limited budget. We wanted to stay under $200K and at least 2000 sq.ft. We needed at least 4 bedrooms because I was not going to move again before the boys move out unless we are moving out of state or out of the country and then I would just sell everything and not bother with moving all of it.

I started looking at Zillow and texting my awesome Realtor to start looking at houses. We had looked at a colonial in a good school district but the people that owned it wanted more than we were willing to pay for it and the kitchen was small. We looked at so many houses. The only ones I really liked were under contract before I could even make an offer. We were looking for something that we wouldn’t need to do anything to. Yeeeaaah…….. The ones that were within our budget were too small when it came to bedrooms for the boys. I had looked at our current house on Zillow. Loved the exterior, the space, the school, and the neighborhood  BUT the interior was horrendous. It was stuck in the 70’s with original shag carpets, wood paneling and all.There was carpet in the kitchen and the bathrooms! I looked on Zillow but did not want to do all the work so I did not want to go see it in person. Then I started getting really frustrated. I needed to move! It was like I was being pushed and pulled to move by something. I finally went to looked at this house with my realtor and husband and kids. I saw the potential but knew that it was going to be a process. This house is more than double the size of our last house that was 1500 sq. ft. At 3392 sq. ft. 4 bedrooms, 2 and a half bathrooms and a bonus room over the garage, it is a monster of a house. I still have to pinch myself that we actually have a house this big and in such a great neighborhood. I couldn’t believe that I had squirreled away enough money to pay for a down payment on a house like this without selling our other house. 13346319_10157062611325118_5197928201563293277_o

The closing was a mess of papers and the move was a sweaty mess with 4 kids in tow. We were moving during the hottest time of the year here in Tulsa, Oklahoma but we needed to be moved before the boys started school. We were so lucky that my in laws, my brother, and several friends were an amazing help. Both moving and with renovations.

We have only gotten flooring on a small portion of it. We started by tearing all the carpet, except in 2 rooms, out. Scheduled a large trash pick up by the city and got all of the carpet on the curb. We had to wear masks. It was Soooooo gross. But it got the smell out of the house that was stuck in it.

Then we got all the doors off, even the cabinets. They were all a dark wood. Making the house really dark on the inside. We painted them all white. It was a great face lift for the kitchen. We have managed to put floors in 2 of the bedrooms and 2 of the 3 bathrooms. We have amazing dreams for this house but it will be slow going since we have now used up all of our extra money. All gone! What is left is our emergency fund and that is for emergencies. But slow and steady the paint is getting done and flooring is getting put down. We don’t want any carpet.

Every time one more thing gets done I feel a weight lifted off of my shoulders. Because, you know, taking care of feeding and keeping 4 kids clean and a 11 month old safe from himself leaves me plenty of time to paint and keep working on the house. My health issues have not helped either but I’m hoping that I will start seeing the end of the tunnel soon.

What did we do with our other house, you may ask, since we didn’t sell it? You guessed it, we are now landlords. Friends of ours offered to paint, repair and clean the old house and in return they will be saving $1500 over the next year on rent. I thought it was a great trade and I knew that they would be amazing tenants.

I’ve had to make some changes since moving. HOA laws say that we can’t have chickens so my chickens went to a wonderful home at my amazing in laws. They are treated much better there than I was able to with everything else on my plate and they are about to take my bees too. My plate is more than full at the moment and these beings deserve being taken better care of than I can at the moment. I was so thankful I could get them somewhere they are really cared for and that I can visit. One day I may get back into bee keeping but right now I am going to focus on making this house our home. Less than half of our house is being used at the moment. There is so much left to be done. I will slowly make this house a home my children will hopefully love to come home to and my friends and family will love to come visit. Having plenty of room for visitors. I will get into my plans for this house in a different post. I hope I start blogging more often and share my story again.

What are you up too? Any advice for our renovations?

child, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, introvert, Job, Parenting, therapist, working

Heigh ho heigh ho it’s off to work I go!

Olof
http://youtube.googleapis.com/v/fCJjJJRHA48&source=uds

I’ve been a little quite around here and I’m sure you all understand with my mother passing away and all. But there are other reasons as well. Since even before I had children I have wrestled with the idea of how to be a good, working mother. Because in my mind for some reason you couldn’t be both. But I have a calling. Really two callings. I desperately wanted children and I am a good therapist. Puzzling the two together for everyone’s benefit has proven to be hard. Especially with the strict criteria to become a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC). To become an LPC in Oklahoma I have to finish 3000 hours of candidacy under the supervision of another licensed counselor.  To earn your hour you have to finish at least 20 hours of work a week and they have strict restrictions on what they call work. This fall, I planed on working for a friend of mine that is starting her own agency and build up my client base slowly so that my kids wouldn’t have to go to daycare full time until maybe after Christmas. But things were not adding up so I had a decision to make. Find another job or stay home for another year with my boys.

When I had to go home to Iceland for my mother’s funeral in July it threw our finances for a loop. We would have had to tighten our belts even further for a while to make up for the financial hardship that trip put on us if I were to keep staying at home. Also since I had already started working towards my 3000 hours I have to finish for my candidacy as an LPC in 2012 I only have 5 years to finish them or I would have to reapply and start over again.

Last time I worked I made the mistake of working under contract and under circumstances that were causing me to become very ill which in return lead me to have to quit working. I decided I would not be bullied into taking clients I didn’t think I was equipped to work with again and that I would never again have to put forth so much effort for so little pay unless I wanted to. I was a therapist scorned after I quit my last job because of medical issues. Even started thinking about giving up on the profession since everyone I talked to told me that the only jobs out there for people still finishing their candidacy hours were those types of jobs. The ones you feel used an abused after when you dragged your emotionally worn out soul back to your family.

I believe that the most important thing for a therapist is self care. To be kind to one’s self and take care of body and soul. I believe that employers of therapists need to impose self care on their staff. That there should be at least a week and a half of vacation days each year that the person has to plan in advance to actually take a vacation and not to take care of their sick kids or go to a Dr’s appointment. That gentle relaxation in the morning before the work day starts is mandatory. As a European I think most companies in the USA treat their employees poorly and don’t understand how important it is for the employee to take a vacation from work. OK enough about that….. back to what I really came here to talk about.

I GOT A FULL TIME JOB!!!! I had this urge to check out a local agencies website and there was one job that I applied for. I decided that it was my Russian roulette and if I got it I would go back to work but if I didn’t get it I would just try hard to save our family money and stay home for another year. When I got the job I was in shock. I go back and forth about how great and crazy it is. I go from telling myself that I am a horrible mother for going to work from my only 11 month old child to telling myself that it will be good for him to be around other children during the day. If you only knew how much I beat myself up for looking forward to being around adults for 9 hours a day. How much mommy guilt I have about how happy I am when I drop them off at daycare and I hear silence in the car for more than a min. They have been going for 2 days now for a half a day each time and I enjoy the first 3 hours and then I start getting anxious to know how they are doing and if everything is OK. I’m an introvert so I get my energy from quite and being alone. I have gotten little to NONE of that for the past 16 months since my oldest two quit napping and now I look forward to having patches of it here and there.

This new job is a 8-5 job. I will have to drop the kids off at daycare at 7:45 and then be at work at 8. This being 40 hours a week will help me knock out my hours SUPER fast. I don’t have to go to people’s homes to do therapy, which is why I got so sick at the other job, and it is just doing intake and testing. So I decide if the person needs the services that are offered at the location I am at or if that person needs different accommodations. I only work with adults and 16-35 year old’s are where I do my best work. I get to work in an office environment and I am just super excited all around. But then the mommy guilt comes to haunt me.

Working mammas, how do you do it? How do you leave your kids with strangers and just go to work?