50 Questions

Jodie posted a bunch of questions over on her blog, a mom and her camera, and I thought it might be fun to answer them just to put myself out there a little... and because since she ask in question #50 about getting honest answers from people, I'm being completely honest here - take it or leave it!



I'm not a parent, but I do spend 7 hours a day with 21 five year olds. I agree that its not the same as being up all night with my own kids, but this is where I am now.



1. Do you ever have to restrain yourself from hurting your two year old when they have disobeyed for the five millionth time and you just need a break? yes, I'm dealing with a whole classroom full of kids testing the limits daily. The kids at my school are mostly from homes where they dont get much attention so they crave all my attention at all times at school. More than anything I want to give it to them, but there isn't enough of me to go around in the time we have together. That is actually one of the things that makes my job so hard. But short answer - yes - i want to shake several of them more than once a day!



2. Do you forget to eat lunch, eat a rushed dinner (while you feed the baby and the kids and the husband) and then snack all night just adding to your post-baby weight but don't have the energy to care? stress does horrible things to my eating habits! I've gotten completely outta whack since school started in September.



3. Are you able to look at yourself, your whole-self, naked in front of a mirror? i am able to do it but it hurts like hell!



4. Do you like what you see? I totally get loving yourself for who you are, but NO!



5. Is money tight for you right now? not as tight as it was before September, but we needed me to get a job to keep from falling off the cliff, now we are getting by. Hopefully the RIF (reduction in force) in my school system will spare us.



6. Does coupon clipping confuse anyone else? I've been trying to eat healthy and save money... nearly impossible... oddly enough my husband loves to get the newspaper and cut out all the coupons. Awesome for me! However, all the health food I'm trying to eat, you know around the perimeter of the store, does not come with coupons. I also don't understand why you have to buy 10 cans of soup to get $.30 off!



7. What time are your kids in bed and actually asleep? I'm worried about having kids because I love sleep so much!!



8. How many times do you have to go in their rooms before they finally fall asleep? I'm glad that my 21 kiddos go home to their own families at night. Well... I'd take a couple of them.



9. Do you let your babies cry it out? I was a nanny for a 4 year old and 9 month old. The parents went to a seminar for a week and I kept the kids (have I mentioned I loved being a nanny!?) while they were gone. The 9 month old was a champion sleeper during the day but I had no idea what I was in for during the night. The parents had left instructions for her to cry it out. It was hard for me, but we made it.



10. How? my answer is not helpful, not to you and certainly not to my future self. I knew I only had to deal with it for a week which made it easier to deal with. I turned on her white noise machine, closed her door, and sat at the top of the stairs until she fell asleep. One night it took almost 2 hours and I know she just missed her mom and dad. I felt like a complete witch!



11. Do you have enough time in your day? how many ways can I say NO. Between a full time job (that requires I bring home a lot of work), housework, trying to work out, and being exhausted by 9pm I can't imagine adding a baby to the mix, but I want to so badly!



12. Have your friendships suffered more each time you have another kid? I can tell you that my friendships have suffered when my friends have had babies.



13. How do you balance work and kids? I can't imagine being able to. I want to be a stay at home mom when we are blessed with kids, but I'm not sure we can survive on one paycheck. We did it for a while when I was finishing up school, but that was only the 2 of us and it was a struggle then.



14. Does your husband help you? if I beg and plead he'll fold clothes or vacuum



15. What does caffeine do to breast fed babies? I haven't the foggiest notion



16. How mad do you get when your show is a repeat? irrationally angry. the writers strike nearly made me throw my TV away... but then I remembered how much I love it!



17. How many random shows do you DVR to watch in the middle of the night while you're nursing? the true prof that I live in the stone age... we don't have DVR... or (gasp) cable!



18. Do you shower everyday? during the week, yes. the weekends it's usually only if we are going out somewhere or i feel like being nice to my husband! hahaha



19. How clean is your house? I've got 3 large dogs... there's dog hair everywhere! We've also got an old house that gets dusty if you so much as take a deep breath and I hate dusting.



20. Do you favor one kid? again, going back to my 21 kiddos at school... yes. I know its not right, but I have a soft spot for a couple of them.


21. Do you worry about your kid's development? I'm responsible for the development of the kiddos in my class so it worries me every day.



22. Do you have savings? we couldn't even cover 1 months mortgage, much less the 6 months worth of expenses the experts suggest. This really bothers me and we're working on it slow and steady.



23. Do you feel fulfilled? no. I can't wait to hear someone call my mommy. I'm trying to live in the moment though, so I'm trying to remind myself that I'm gonna miss these days when they're gone.



24. How is your best friend? ready to pop... she's due in 2 days with her first.


25. Have you talked to her lately? yes, 2 hours ago and we hung out 2 times last week.



26. Are blog friends starting to outnumber your RIL (real in life) friends? I'm pretty new to having my own blog so even though I follow a couple (ok ... a bunch) of folks, they don't know my yet.



27. Is every piece of furniture in your home a hand-me-down/thrift store/garage sale find? 99% of it came from a garage sale or my grandparents' hand-me-downs. We finally broke down and bought a new couch as our Christmas present to each other.



28. Was J. Crew the norm in high school/college and now you feel bad spending $8 on a Target t-shirt for yourself? my best friend in high school was much more well off than my family and in my effort to keep up with her I spent way way way more money than I should have, but it was fun while it lasted.



29. How many emails do you write a day? probably about 3 on average, sometimes its more and some days I dont send any. I'm a big texter, not much into the phone and only email when I've got a lot to say.



30. Are you overweight? yes



31. How far from your ideal weight are you? are we talking about today, or last week? It changes that quickly! about 85 pounds though.



32. Are you still IN love with your husband? YES!



33. How are you maintaining your marriage? we've been married 3 years and we still have date night every week... its much easier since we dont have kids yet. we also have our own time... he has his guy time to do stuff that I dont understand and I hang out with the girls or get in my crafty time.



34. Do you let your kids sleep with you? we let one of our great danes (well sometimes two) sleep with us after 5 am on the weekends. I would love for her to sleep with us more but the two of us plus a 125 lb. dog in a full size bed is T.I.G.H.T!

35. How long did you breast feed? There is really no way I can relate this to anything in my life right now, so ....

36. Are your family photos organized? ummm... I'm a little ashamed to say, not so much. Organization is a skill I lack in all areas of my life though, not just this one.

37. Have you ever run out of diapers and had to improvise? once, when I was out with the two little ones I was a nanny for. The 9 month old had a blow out and I reached in the diaper bag but the only thing in there was a pull up for her 4 yr. old brother. So technically we didn't run out, but it ended up working out ok... we went straight home and got little miss in a proper diaper.

38. Are your mini blinds clean? heck no!

39. Your ceiling fans? ditto to above

40. How clean is your car? I've got some random junk in the back, but it is clean just cluttered.

41. Do you think you have "enough" sex? sometimes I think we have too much, sometimes not enough... so i guess it all averages out to "enough"

42. How many times a month do you feed your kids McDonalds? my little charges from long ago use to get some kind of treat McDonalds or Chic-Fil-A or Sonics about once every other week or so.

43. Do you write thank you cards? I wish I did this more, for the small stuff, but I do it for big events like our wedding.

44. Do you live in sweats? I am not a sweats person, they are comfortable but I think they make me look fat so I'm a jeans person. I love a good pair of jeans. At work, we're not allowed to wear jeans except on Fridays and only if we pay $2. This policy just started 2 weeks ago to help pay for some upcoming baby and retirement showers.

45. Do you doubt yourself? constantly... especially where it pertains to other people. I doubt that I'm being a good teacher, a good wife, a good sister, a good friend...

46. Do you wonder about your family's future? definitely! I wonder if we will be able to have children on our own or if we will need medical intervention... I wonder if even that will work. I wonder how long we will live in this tiny house. I am a thinker and this is the kind of stuff I wonder about all the time.

47. Do you pray for your kids? I pray for the kids in my class every single morning and often several times during the day.

48. Are you totally honest with anyone? probably not even myself. No big secrets from my husband or anything just might not mention that I bought some craft supplies at Wal-Mart along with the groceries and that is why the bill is so high. Or that I spent my last $4 on a smoothie and that's why I am asking him for a couple dollars.

49. Do you want more kids? I want some kids! And I want more kids than my husband does!

50. Do you ever wish you could ask someone anything and get an honest answer? yes! I'd ask lots of people lots of things, but I also know that in order to get honest answers you have to be willing to answer questions honestly yourself, and sometimes that is painful for me.