Ten Questions About Motherhood

Another set of questions I borrowed from Natasha! I really thought these questions about motherhood were SO interesting! 

1. Did you have siblings as a child? Do you have children at home now? If so, tell us more about them.

I don't think I need to answer whether I have children at home...or honestly either of these questions, but I'll talk a little more about my sister here!

I have one older sister, Patty, who is 20 months older than me. We went from best friends as kids to mortal enemies for most of high school and college to best friends as adults/early mothers to...I'm not quite sure what these days. In some ways she is still my person, but we are definitely not as close as we used to be. I blame some of it on their move {they now live an hour away which is the furthest we've ever lived from each other} and some to the season of life we're in - 6 kids between us is a lot to juggle. I don't see her nearly as much as I want to, and it's usually us getting together at our parents' house with all the kids. The cousins LOVE to play together! And we occasionally swap children for sleepovers. I hope that as the kids get older, we can do stuff just the 2 of us - I miss spending time with her!

Patty, David {her husband}, and me a few weeks ago at our parents'.

2. What age were you when you became a mommy for the first time? How many children and pets do you have?

I became a mom at 28 {Brent was 29}. Brent and I had been married for about 4.5 years and only tried for a few months before getting pregnant. We had our second child when we were 32 and our third when we were 36.

About 6 weeks before welcoming Trent!

3. Are your children biological or adopted?

All of our children are biological. We actually talked about adopting instead of having a 3rd but I loved being pregnant, delivery, and breastfeeding and didn't want to miss out on those experiences. I'm obviously SO thankful we have Paige, but this might make me sound a little selfish. 

4. If you have children, did you deliver them naturally or with pain meds or by c-section? If you adopted a baby, how old was he/she when you brought them home?

I delivered all 3 vaginally with very different circumstances - Trent was a planned induction at 40 weeks, 3 days using pitocin and I had an epidural, Drew I had completely drug-free at 41 weeks, and Paige was an unplanned induction sort of at 41 weeks, 6 days {I went into labor but things stalled so I had pitocin and then needed an epidural}. Trent's labor was 12 hours, Drew's was just over 5, and Paige's was close to 24 hours of misery, ha.

You can read their birth stories if so inclined by clicking HERE.

5. Did you breast feed, bottle feed or pump for your babies?

I breastfed all 3 - Trent for 14 months and both girls for 2.5 years. We also used bottles for when I was away {but it was always breast milk} and once the kids went to daycare. 

Breastfeeding Paige shortly after she was born, I love this picture!

I was very fortunate that my body responded well to pumping, and I was able to keep up with the kids once I went back to work. I think it was partly that I had so long at home to establish my supply but also the flexibility at my job to pump when I needed to. My company had an amazing wellness room where I could go and pump with no stress. Of course back when I was pumping at work, I wasn't always at my office and was often at clients, and they weren't required to provide me a pumping space {since I wasn't their employee}, so I have some really awesome {meaning terrible} stories of fun pumping situations!

Pumping at work...moo!

6. Have you potty trained babies? Cloth diapers or disposable?

EVERYONE IS POTTY TRAINED! We used a combination of cloth diapers and disposables when they were all babies. Trent and Drew both potty trained at 2.5 for daytime, Trent was closer to 5 for nighttime and Drew was right at 4 for nighttime. Paige potty trained at 18 months during the day and is waking up dry consistently just in the last month or two {although after our double bed wetting night a few weeks ago she is still sleeping in diapers}.

Trent 'helping' me fold his cloth diapers {grin}

7. Have you taken prenatal or parenting classes for your babies? Home school, private school or public school?

We took a birth class through our OB with Trent and a pain management class before Drew since my goal was to have her without medication. All our kids go to a public charter school as of this year, yay {discussed more below}!

8. What is the significance of your children's names? If you could pick another name for yourself, would you? What would it be?

I blogged about how we named each of our children {Trent, Drew, and Paige}. Only their middle names have any significance {Trent and Brent share a middle name, Drew and I share a middle name, and Paige's celebrates her birthday being right before Christmas}, but they all follow the same syllable pattern - 1-2-2 and I made sure that none of their names were super popular using the social security administrations name database {nerd alert}.

When we almost flipped a coin to name Trent!

You can see what other names were our contenders.

I've never liked my name, but I don't have a name I wish I had instead. I have always liked my middle name, Kathleen, and tried for about a day when I was a kid to go by it ha.

9. If you have children, did you travel with them as babies? Did you use childcare for your children? Playdates?

We have not done much traveling in our lives as a whole, but what little we do, we have largely done without children. I know a lot of people talk about just taking their kids and going, but that always scared me too much to try it often!

California with all the Gurleys in 2016

All 3 of our kids went to daycare when I returned to work. Luckily, my company has amazing benefits, and I was able to be off work for about 6 months with all 3. Trent went to a traditional daycare {national chain} from 9 months until he was almost 5, Drew went to the same daycare from 6 months to 14 months, and then we switched to a Montessori school. Paige started at that same Montessori school at 8 months. They all now still go to a Montessori school, but they are all now at a public charter in our town.

Trying not to cry as I dropped Drew off at daycare for the first time.

I held it together until I got to the car!

10. What is one lesson you learned or one takeaway from being a parent?

Parenting is incredibly hard, and we all need to give ourselves grace. You do the best you can and keep trying every day.