I love this little person.
So so so painfully much.
When my husband and I were even still just dating I talked about her. How much I wanted her, how much I needed her. Anyone who has had a child knows that for some bizarre reason even though you have never met your unborn (or even conceived) child, after you have them it is like they were always there somehow. Almost like the attitude and personalities that they have are so much like you or your partner or a blend of both that you recognize them even though you obviously just met them.
Its just one of the things I discovered that no one told me about.
One thing we also talked about was me staying at home to raise our children, We prepped for this like getting ready for some kind of extreme trip somewhere, packing our financial bag with everything we thought we would need. We saved a little money. We cut down on our everyday expenses. We got to the point were we could live on only Andrews income.
We were READY,
Then we got pregnant.
And everything fell to SHIT.
Within six months Andrew had lost his job, we had lost our bonus for the year, and we had lost the house we were renting due to a hike in the rent.
I will say to our credit, that by the time the baby came we had a new rental, a new job, and had only incurred a small amount of cc debt. I think we were very lucky. By the time she was three months old we had even swung buying our first home.
But after everything settled, the bills, the moves, the setting up of a new house, etc... somehow our plan to survive on only Andrews income has become painfully precarious.
It feels like every month could be the month we fall short if we are not 100% on top of things. I have heard from friends that this is how even two income households feel though. So I am not sure if what we are experiencing is all that unusual for a starting family.
Whatever the case, being able to make some extra income without putting the baby into daycare is proving to be very frustrating.
There are tons of stories and blogs and forums online of how anyone can make this happen. But the sad reality is that unless you have a very specific skill set (i.e. transcription, data entry, accounting, etc...) it is really difficult. So for an ex-horse farmer turned professional nanny turned full time mom it is near impossible. The closest we have come so far is providing childcare out of our own home. This comes with its own set of downsides of course.
Don't get me wrong, we are super happy with our lives! I love being home with the baby, and my husband loves it too. We just want to increase the oops margin in our financial life for the inevitable. So using my hobbies as a potential means of income is the next step in trying to achieve this dream of ours.
I am pleased with how it is going so far. With no real capital and no marketing money spent (so far) I have managed to make some sales. It is thrilling and very pleasing to know that people may actually want what I have to offer. I am hoping to go to a fair or two this year if I can get some stock built up. Which is proving harder then I thought. The baby has a finite limit to the number of hours she will let me sew before deciding it is time to do something else. No matter how I think about it, playing with her will ALWAYS be more important then anything else I am doing at any given moment. The only thing I can think of would be preforming CPR on her father.
“Dream as if you’ll live forever, live as if you’ll die today.”
– James Dean
No comments:
Post a Comment