Amy Giampetroni is a happily married woman, a full-time stay-at-home mom to a preschool boy and a part-time stepmom to an adolescent girl, living in Wisconsin. You can read more about Amy here and at her blog, Average Everyday Super Woman. Click here to check out Amy’s other posts on This Mommy Gig.

As you may have read, my husband was downsized out of a job a week ago today.  I was up north visiting my dad for the few days afterwards, and got home last Thursday evening.  Since then, Dan, Angelo and I have spent a whole lotta time together, which one would think would be a good thing.  And it was - at the beginning.  I think that today was the tipping point.  

Naturally the weather was stormy and wet for much of the day here, so Ang and I were cooped up indoors instead of getting together with a friend of mine and her kids for a day of swimming at a pool. Now, I’m never one to get too disgruntled by a previously scheduled day suddenly becoming “free,” but I think both Angelo and I were ready to get back to our normal routine.  Which normally involves Daddy going to work before we wake up in the morning and us having the day - and the house - to ourselves until at least 6pm!

Dan spent yet another day on the phone with various friends and business contacts talking about possible opportunities, which meant that Angelo and I had to keep the racket down to a minimum. That is soooo not the norm for us!  Heck, I’m usually vacuuming or I have my iPod on our speaker system and I’m singing (and dancing) while I do other housework or knitting or whatever, and Angelo has the sound up at a normal volume on his computer games or the t.v., or is running around playing with toys and being, well, a normal 5-year-old boy, complete with truck noises, alien invasion noises and all.  It was hard having to tiptoe around half the day making sure we were “quiet for Daddy.”  

This evening, we all decided to run to Target after devouring their flyer and the coupon sections of yesterday’s paper looking for deals on the things we needed.  For starters, Angelo didn’t want to go “run errands,” so he was already being a little belligerent, but then he also kept asking if we could buy a new Ben-10 alien.  We kept trying to explain to him that with both Mommy and Daddy not working at the moment, we don’t have the extra money for that right now.  Totally fell on deaf ears.  Totally.  

On top of that, Dan and I aren’t usually what you’d call “bargain shoppers” - usually when we go to Target, we have maybe six items on our shopping list but we end up with 60 in our cart by the end, and we never get out of there for less than $100 - EVER.  And normally we don’t really care!  Well, tonight we were on a mission to get good deals and save as much money as possible.  That meant much longer stops in each aisle as I scoured the flyer to see if that was on special and dug through my freshly-clipped coupons to see if I had one for those items.  Stops when Angelo had a little more time to make some mischief and beg and whine for a Ben-10 alien, naturally.  

To make matters worse, Dan was also feeling the cabin fever Angelo and I felt, and my usually patient-as-a-saint husband was testy and impatient.  I’m sorry but that’s usually MY gig, and I’m not handing over those reins without a fight!

Needless to say, it didn’t add up to a very pleasant shopping experience, which is sad because when both of us were working full-time, we used to really enjoy running errands as a family - that was our together time, and since we weren’t usually worried about money, it was just easy and fun and… um…. fruitful.  :)

On the way out to the car, Angelo was really laying on the whining thick, and was pulling his hand away from us, which he knows is a total no-no in a parking lot.  Dan yelled at him, Angelo got sassy back, and both were fuming while I was trying to defuse the situation.  I hate being in that role!  

When we got in the car, I leaned over to my wonderful husband and whispered, “Please don’t turn into me now.  You’re supposed to be the nice, calm, happy one of the two of us, right?  And please cut him [Angelo] a little bit of a break - he’s not used to you being with us all day for this long.  I know you’re frustrated, but we all have to find a way to get used to this new arrangement, and it’s going to take some time.”  He paused, looked at me, and said, “You’re right.  I know.”  Enough said.  

I think the magnitude of this situation really started to hit us both today.  Which is unfortunate, because we’ve been riding this tide of support and job leads, confidence and optimism for the past week and were doing pretty darn well with the whole thing, all things considered.  We know from a practical standpoint that we will be okay financially for several months if nothing pans out right away, but I think we’re starting to consider the other aspects of the situation now, like being together far more now that we need to tighten our belts.  It’s one thing on gorgeous sunny days when I can take Angelo to the zoo (we have a family zoo pass) or to a park or on a picnic while Dan keeps his nose to the grindstone in his new full-time job of finding a new full-time job.  But on the days when the weather stinks, we have to deal with the fact that we’re going to be hanging out together a LOT more, because we don’t have memberships to any other indoor places, and those places otherwise cost money.  Thank goodness we have a decent sized house - we can at least hide out in our own corners when we need a break from one another!

It’s challenging but also interesting having to suddenly find a new normal for our household now that Dan’s home with us.  Trying to find a balance between time spent together, taking advantage of the fact that Dan is home, and time spent doing our usual things or whatever needs to get done.  Trying to find a balance between saving money and saving our sanity.  I’ll keep you posted on how it all plays out!