Sometimes I marvel that I'm doing this: spending the majority of the hours in my day, caring for my little boy, Donovan. I was never the "good with kids" type, babysat maybe 5 times in my life, and was generally disinterested in kid stuff. It IS, however, different with your own kids, as I've often heard.
I have my insecure days when I question my ability as a mother and think every other parent I know is doing a better job, but most of the time I believe in my heart that I'm doing a good job as a mother to Donovan: spending everyday with him (except Tuesday), showing him the world, helping him learn to talk, engaging him in physical and learning activities, and feeding him healthy, whole foods for the most part (OK, he does eat Whole Foods boxed mac & cheese every week, but I don't want to be a total food Nazi.)
I recently read Iris Krasnow's book, "Surrendering To Motherhood" for inspiration. I related to her struggle to be a present and engaged stay-at-home parent, although I didn't have the killer career as a celebrity journalist that she found so difficult to leave to be a stay-at-home parent. My last job before leaving the workplace to give birth to Donovan mostly sucked. I was a technical/knowledge base writer for a tiny software company housed in a dismal, dingy office space which required a 45 minute drive from -- and back to -- my home. I felt isolated in my role there, having no collaborative team, no training, and little or no feedback on the articles I published. The lack of connection with anyone among the small company of mostly computer goobers made for a dull day and I grew increasingly bored with the job. I was glad to leave.
And yet I still struggle with being at-home everyday. I often crave freedom from responsibility and feel the desire to be somewhere else because this is the hardest job I've ever had -- suppressing my desires and whims because I have to take care of my little boy. But so far I think I'm doing the best work of my career.
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