Knocked Up : work life balance

Having It All

knockedup — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 01:34:00 GMT

"You can't have it all. They told my generation that you could, but they lied."

So said a mother of a friend of mine, a woman with five grown children and a career.

I wanted to say that it wasn't true. I wanted to tell her how I am having it all, with a cherry on top, and that I can juggle six colicky babies while balancing my checkbook using my toes, inventing clever bedtime stories about chubby hamsters, and creating exciting PowerPoint presentations that defy the drool and snooze-inspiring nature of PowerPoint.

But I couldn't, because I think she's right.

I used to think I could have it all, I just had to redefine what I meant by "it." I could have a fulfilling career, a pampered baby, luxurious shampoo commercial hair, and a loving husband, but would have to sacrifice walking the dog daily, eyebrow waxing, and ever again catching Saturday Night Live live.

That's not redefining. That's nibbling around the edges, giving things up that were no sacrifice.

Now, my definitions of "it" look more like this:

Impressive performance at work, stimulating conversations with hot spouse, well-mannered children, live off of chicken nuggets and cheese sticks and get three hours of sleep per night

Train enough to qualify for the Boston Marathon, family trips to Argentina, make it to work on time, child thinks nanny is Mama

Brain boosting vegetable stamping art projects with children, homemade dinners every night, stimulating side business selling original handknit Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, get pneumonia, wear dirty underwear

Try to wedge it all in, and at least one part of "it" collapses, or ends up being something nobody wants to catch.

For me, the "it" came most recently with a bout of mastitis. Fever, chills, clogged up milk duct swooped in on Friday; thankfully, it went away as quickly as it arrived, with frequent nursing, rest, massage, and warm baths. I thought my first week back at work had been a success, that I was juggling it all with grace (if not clean kitchen counters, homemade meals, or mascara on both sets of eyelashes), until I got sick and my husband threatened to handcuff me to the bed or cart me off to the hospital to enforce rest and recovery.

I'm not very good at balance, at pacing myself, at listening to my body, at breathing deeply. My style is more stick your fingers in your ears and sing la la la la la over the aching quads or growling stomach until you throw up. It's not, as you wise people probably know, a very successful or sustainable approach.

But here it is: I can't do it all. Maybe other women can. I thought I was one of them. I'm not.

"It", here, means having a job I like; performing well at that job; feeling like I'm spending enough time with my children for all of us; regular nights out with my husband; having a clean enough home where I can actually find things; having mental and physical energy to do creative things with my boys; exercising a few days a week; the luxury of a few extra clothes and books and a vacation; keeping up with basic hygiene; writing; fitting into my pants; paying enough attention to the dog that he stops his indoor jealousy pees; reading books that don't have lift-up flaps; going to church; finding time to sit and breathe; spending time with my extended family; going shopping with my mother and talking with my sister-in-law for more than five minutes at a time; taking my sons to the mountains; making homemade baby food and trying new recipes that don't involve a microwave; volunteering at Axel's school and in the community; going to the library; brunch or wine with my friends on a regular basis; frequent hugs and trips to the park; finishing the baby sweater I started knitting when I was pregnant with Axel; knowing I still have an ounce of patience left for a driver that cuts me off or a check-out clerk who moves at a the pace of a sloth or tackling potty training. Oh, and doing it all without getting sick.

I can't earn a 10 in work, motherhood, friendships, family, and the throwing of dinner parties. I can't even get a respectable 7.2 with a gold star for effort in all of them.

And I don't want to be exhausted and make myself sick because I stubbornly keep on trying.

All the Live Long Day

knockedup — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 21:00:00 GMT

Once again, I have returned to the land of copy machines, cc'ing, and mysterious year-old science project yogurts stinking up the community fridge. Yes, I'm back at work, after 12 weeks of maternity leave, during which I (again) planned to do lots of ambitious, vitally important things, like get the dog groomed and finally get rid of all those literary theory books I have from grad school and organize our cupboards with all the dry goods in cunning glass canisters and make homemade Halloween costumes, and (again) got nothing done except occasional vaccuming. I didn't even get the oil changed in my car. So, I've got nothing to show for all those weeks except for this:

(Jonas, just before he again put his hand in his mouth and just after he gave me this very important message: ooooh aarrrrr yiiiii.)

(Axel, doing his biggest "Say Cheese" smile, and me riding the train at the zoo.)

I guess that's not nothing.

"How does it feel to be back?" people keep asking me.

"Ask me when I've been back longer than two hours," I say.

Mostly it feels...weird. In almost three months, not much has changed. I had hundreds of emails to delete about events that have already happened and now-resolved crises with the shared projector. Sure, some people got haircuts and some people quit smoking or took up smoking or lost weight or gained weight, and projects have been completed and work accomplished and papers filed. Money has come in the door and gone back out. But it is still, mostly, the same place, except now I need a special code for copying.

And I still am, mostly, the same, except that am no longer wearing maternity clothes and am now wearing my fat pants and things with a stretchy waist. I was gone. Now I'm back. I had one baby. Now I have a baby and a toddler. I was tired from end of pregnancy bloat and sleeplessness. Now I'm tired from nighttime nursing sessions (Jonas wants me to take back what I said about him being a good sleeper) and a toddler with a minor digestive issue that makes him poop a few times a night and gives him a big bad case of diaper rash (but no swine flu, hurrah!). It's sad, but it's an accomplishment that I've made it to work two days in a row, in a mostly presentable state, and then carried on coherent conversations.

I think that's it - I'm too overwhelmed to even realize I'm overwhelmed. There's no time to stop and think about how I feel. There's only time to get everyone up and dressed and clean out my inbox and decipher a spreadsheet and add something else to my to-do list and order more diapers and add a picture of Jonas to my bulletin board and think that I really should get on planning Axel's 2nd bithday party and try to remember to pump before my shirt gets stained with milk in the middle of a meeting.

So how does it feel? Ask me in a few weeks.

A Conversation With Myself About Returning to Work

knockedup — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 14:42:00 GMT

While nursing Jonas

Oh, look at Jonas. Look at his sweet chubby cheeks and his fragile little toes. I can't leave him. How could I ever leave him? He's so tiny and fragile and needs hugs and kisses and me.

And Axel. He's such a good big brother. Look at how he's loading his tools into the back of his truck, one by one. I love the way his pants sag off his skinny butt and he talks to himself as he pushes the truck into the bedroom. He's growing up so fast. I can't leave him. I can't miss those times when he walks around with tupperware on his head and waves bye-bye to me a dozen times.

Oh, now he's banging the truck against the wall. That, I do not love. Axel, please push the truck through the doorway. No, not against the doorway - through the doorway. Through it. The truck. Axel.

Jonas screams from a burp. Poor kid. I sit him up and try to burp him. C'mon burp. Stop making Jonas yell. Burp, get out already. Jonas, stop grabbing my hair. That is my hair. I would like to keep it all. This part, I do not love. This part, I could do without. Yeah, work is nice. No one tries to make me bald while I'm at work. I can talk about things other than gas and trucks and poop. Oh, I miss that.

Oh, here comes Axel. Hi, Axel. No, mama and Jonas are in the chair right now. You can have a turn next. OK, yes, we can read the book. Oh, look, how lovely it is to snuggle with my two boys in the chair and read Charley Harper's ABCs. Jonas even smiled! Oh, I can't leave them.

Axel jumps down from the chair. He takes the book. Then he smacks me and Jonas with the book. Jonas screams. Axel laughs. He throws the book at the dog. The dog barks. Axel screams. I try my best to resist screaming. Yeah, I miss work. I miss my calm, hitting- and spit-up free office.

To work or not to work?

knockedup — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 17:50:00 GMT

The inevitable work outside the home or stay at home crisis has come. Lately, I've been entertaining deluded, romantic fantasies of staying at home with two little ones, fantasies that included morning runs, healthy Crockpot meals, an absence of sibiling rivalry, and homemade play clay art projects that left no mess. Though I know staying at home would be nothing like that, these daydreams have me thinking more about work, life, motherhood, and my ever-shrinking retirement fund.

I'm sure you mamas out there were asked if you were going to go back to work when you were pregnant. I think that's the third or fourth question in the list of inquiries for pregnant ladies, after what are you having and what are you naming it. Note that no one has asked my husband this question. Ever.

Here are the things whirling and swirling inside of my head. The list makes it all appear nice and organized, but truthfully it's anything but. It's a tilt-a-whirl of frazzle and what-ifs that makes me kind of queasy.

1. I like my job. I work for a community foundation, reviewing grant proposals and engaging with nonprofits. It's a pretty great gig. What's more, I like my coworkers, I work four days per week, and I have an office with a door - a benefit that I didn't value highly enough until I had to pump three times a day. I worked hard for this job, and I don't want to give it up, nor do I feel confident that I'd be able to get it back if I did decide to leave for awhile.

2. This is not an economy in which having a job - a good, stable, engaging job that you like - should be taken lightly. The endless reports of rising unemployment rates, not to mention friends and neighbors losing their jobs, reinforces that now is a time to hang on to what you've got. You never know when it - or your partner's job - might be gone.

3. Paying for childcare for two children will suck up the vast majority of what I take home.

4. When I'm at work, I miss my son. But working stimulates a part of my brain that endless readings of Baby One Two Three and conversations about dogs just do not.

5. There are fabulous, loving, dedicated nannies and teachers at childcare centers. But I am a better caretaker for my children than anyone I could hire.

6. I firmly believe that I am more patient and engaged when I'm with Axel because of my work outside of the home. It both throws me off balance - because of the chaos and time crunch - and helps me be balanced. I don't think this is true for everyone, but it is for me.

7. That whole chaos and time crunch thing? I imagine it's only going to get worse come July, when little Junior arrives. Getting out the door with one child is a crazy adventure of flying raisins and lost socks. Getting out the door with two, with all three of us fully dressed and fed and with our lunches and bottles and work stuff in hand seems like a challenge of herculean proportions.

8. Financially, there's no right decision. Things will be kind of tight for the next three to five years if I keep working at the same rate, and really tight if I'm not working or am working less. I recognize that I'm incredibly lucky to even consider work as an option, not a necessity to feed my family.

9. My husband's job is going to get even crazier come fall, just when I'll theoretically be going back to work, and so I'll be doing more for the next year - more cooking and cleaning and pediatrician's visits. In the long term, this is a good thing. In the short term, I will have to invest in family-sized brownie mix and lots of trips to the park to stay sane.

10. Life, as they say, is short, and it gets even shorter when children are involved. Babies create some kind of time warp that makes five minutes of crying last for two days and makes the progression from sitting up to crawling happen in thirty seconds.

As you can see, I don't have an answer. I go back and forth so much that I lose track of the question.

How did you go about making the decision about going (or not going) back to work after baby?

The Headless Chicken

knockedup — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 14:04:00 GMT

I am drowning in a tangled, heavy, disorganized pile of stuff. You know, stuff. Mama stuff and work stuff and meetings that keep going long stuff and trying to say more than hello to my husband stuff and pregnancy stuff and taxes stuff and house cleaning stuff.... Just keeping on top of being hydrated seems like one more item to add to a to-do list that's turning into a very uninteresting dissertation. Life of a pregnant working mother circa 2009, as documented on a sticky pad, Outlook calendar, and scrap paper.

Balance? Ha. I'm so out of balance that the beat of a hummingbird's wings could send me sprawling. If I were to draw my life as a pie chart, distorted pieces would splinter off before I could even make a color-coded key. These days, finding a minute to breathe in and out feels like an accomplishment, especially now that I'm in the thick of the hormone-fueled pregnancy roller coaster. I feel like I'm whirling through the day, swinging past piles of papers and toys and stacks of emails and groceries, struggling to focus and not doing anything - not even reading the tongue-twisting story of the Lorax at bedtime - quite right. And those are the good days.

All this, and my second child has not yet entered the world. How will I ever handle things with two children, two hands, and one semi-functioning brain?

I need a drastic intervention that includes some (free) combination of Mary Poppins, a professional organizer, housecleaning, a nursery decorator, a weeklong retreat to a spa, a second honeymoon on an isolated beach, and many, many trips to the park with my son . I'm sure I'm not alone in this, just as I'm sure there are lots of mothers out there who need this far more desperately than I do. Is there some sort of a secret mothers' retreat out there designed to soothe the crazed, overloaded, in need of a mental/emotional chiropractor mama and then gently ease her back to the civilized world with a diaper bag full of handy dandy goodies?

Unfortunately, that's not going to happen. What is going to happen is a four day trip to meet my beautiful baby niece, Elsa, during which I'm not going to even look at a computer or check email. It'll be nothing but partaking of the joys of Memphis - where my brother's family lives - and maybe cracking open a book or two. It's not quite a retreat to Hawaii, but I'll very grateful that I get to take it. Assuming I find a spare minute to pack...

Working Girl

knockedup — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 03:34:00 GMT

When do you stop thinking about what you want to be when you grow up? When I was eleven, I was going to be president. Specifically, the president of the United States of America, not the president of the International French Fries Dipped in a Hot Fudge Sundae Fan Club. I even had my running mate lined up. I'm not sure when I decided that politics was not for me - maybe around the time I realized that politicians have to speak in public a lot and a career in politics is thus an unwise choice for someone who would rather dig out her appendix with a ballpoint pen than talk in front of a large crowd. Other career ambitions I let go: drummer (I only played for a few months), Rockette (too short), first female quarterback in the NFL (I've never even liked football, so who knows where that idea came from), professional Cabbage Patch doll namer (that's probably not even a job).

I always planned to be a mother. I also used to think I'd stay at home fulltime with my kids - before launching my presidential campaign when my kids were in middle school, of course. Most of the time, I like my job at a local community foundation. Let me take a moment to acknowledge how lucky I am - I work four days each week, I don't punch in or out, I have generous benefits, I work with good people, and I don't have to abide by one of those antiquated pantyhose-required policies. I'm not a single parent and I'm only trying to care for one healthy baby. My work/home life balance, as the magazines call it, is closer to an easygoing teeter-totter than a rollercoaster. I know I have nothing to complain about.

Some weeks are harder than others. Sometimes I wish I could spend more time with my son. Monday, for example: my husband was on shift, so he left the house by a little before 6. While he was headed out the door, I nursed Axel, both of us in our pajamas. I then scrambled to get us both ready and load up the car. Axel was having a don't-put-me-down-Mama morning, and though I've gotten pretty good at doing things one-handed, I dropped the bag with my breakfast in it and splattered soy yogurt all over the kitchen floor. I plopped Axel in his exersaucer, and he promptly released an enormous runny poop the color of spinach, which spurted out his diaper, all over his clothes, down his leg, and all over the exersaucer. After cleaning him, his toy, the floor, and myself, we finally got out the door - both in new outfits. Let me just say that the day at work was not my favorite. It was a struggle just to pump seven ounces of milk, less than half of what I usually get. By the time I got back down to daycare to pick up Axel, battled traffic, and made it home, it was after 6 - Axel's dinner time - and so we rushed to begin the dinner/playtime/bedtime routine. By 8:15, when he was asleep, I was exhausted, and still had to do breast pump and bottle clean up and preparation for the next day, feed myself something decent, and do more work. Oh, and clean up the dog pee on the living room floor (thanks, Angus).

When I got to daycare earlier that same day, Axel sat on the floor, gnawing on the blue plastic arch of a floor gym. He'd crawled out of his shorts - most of his pants are too big in the waist for him, though they're the right length. As I walked over, he grinned and reached up toward me, then started giggling. I dressed him in his shorts and socks, and he laughed some more, either because he knew he'd just pull them off as soon as he got into the car or maybe (as I like to think) because he was so happy to see me. Most of my waking hours with him were spent frantically getting ready to leave the house, in the car, or getting him fed and ready for bed. It was the sort of day that prompts me to do frantic budget projections for one-salary, rice-and-beans living.

Days I'm alone with Axel aren't necessarily easier or better. They, too, contain explosive poops and a dog who believes it is his duty to eat one sock out of each pair of Axel's socks. There are nap battles, frustration when Axel gets fussy, countless mugs of tea that grow cold before I can drink them. At work, I get a chance to sit down and drink my tea. What's more, I like working outside of the home. At least, I think I do. Most days. I don't know. I can make a hundred general arguments for working outside of the home or for not working outside of the home, but I'm having a hard time sorting through what it means to me.

I guess I'm officially a grown up, though I don't always feel that way. I can check off all the boxes my eleven-year-old self associated with being a grown-up: have a child, hire babysitters, drive, can answer Trivial Pursuit questions that aren't about cartoons, have purchased a lottery ticket, can eat all the bomb pops I want without my mom nagging me. When I was a kid, the lives of the adults around me seemed set. They had decided what to be, and that's what they were. Or, if they hadn't decided, they still were something - a lawyer, a librarian, a bagger at the grocery store, a father - and that was that. Their lives were as permanent as I thought my blood-sister bonds were. Now I know that their lives weren't fixed. I've only kept in touch with one of my blood sisters.

I know that parents who stay at home with their children or who work from home have a unique set of challenges. Neither choice works for every family, and neither choice works for every family all the time. Choice is a luxury. My father has always told me that having options is the best position to be in, and I agree. But this philosophy can get me into trouble - sometimes, the challenge is deciding to close off an option, to diminish the choices available to yourself. Sometimes options are closed off easily or naturally, sometimes choices are clear, and sometimes they're a tangle. We can't have it all all of the time. I will never be a Rockette. Katarina Aurelia Sunshine the Cabbage Patch Kid will never come rolling off the production line. Grown-ups don't always know what they're going to be.

Take Your Baby to Work Day

knockedup — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 03:35:00 GMT

9:30 pm, yesterday Pack diaper bag with 10 diapers, extra wipes, two pacifiers, two outfits, stuffed monkey, stuffed ball, The Hungry Caterpillar, swaddling blanket, and - in another bag - bring nursing pillow, sling, horibbly-named Hooter Hider, my lunch, bouncy chair....Wonder if, perhaps, may have overpacked.

6:45 am, today Axel wakes up and eats. This is followed by much scrambling: change baby, clothe baby, feed pets, let out pets, push cat off of the counter for the 33rd time, double check diaper bag, put baby on bath mat, get dressed, move baby to floor gym, consider eating but realize there's no time, brush teeth and hair, load car, almost forget lunch, drive away.

7:45 am Arrive at work. Lug car seat and diaper bag into office. Wonder how to get all the rest of baby crap to the 8th floor. Husband arrives, between his shift at the firehouse and his all-day training, and brings stuff upstairs. Husband leaves.

8:25 am Baby sits on lap and stares at computer screen. Consider that computer screens are like television screens and this may be rotting his brain/causing autism/triggering a future life of deliquency. Oh, well. Baby takes a nap. Mama gets some work done.

9:15 am Feed Axel, in office with the door and blinds closed. Blinds are still see-through - great job there, privacy blind makers! - so use the nursing cover so helpfully suggested by blog readers.

10:15 am Coworkers sit on the floor and play with Axel. Mama runs to the bathroom and eats an apple. Then, a little while later, a sandwich. Axel contemplates the world from his bouncy chair, and tries to figure out who tried to replace the toner in the copier and broke the machine.

10:30 am Axel gets a little fussy. Whip out the pacifier and stick him in the sling. Thankfully, he falls asleep quickly without too many squawks. Note: typing around a baby in a sling is interesting and likely not ergonomic.

11:50 am Axel eats again. And eats. And eats. Marathon nursing session while mama reads month-old mail.

12:45 pm Mama's new personal assistant answers phone calls, gets dry cleaning, picks up a latte, balances checkbooks, makes double-sided color copies with ease. Then, he spits up all over his shirt.

1:15 pm Agggh! Fussiness eruption! Baby threatens to blatantly violate quiet-babies-only policy. Swift intervention again with pacifier and sling and the beast is tamed. Three cheers for fake nipples and baby wearing! If only there were a hammock in the corner of the office, so mama could take a much-needed nap, too. Instead, phone calls are returned, emails read, anti-legging insights from the brilliant fug girls checked.

2:00 pm Help a coworker stuff envelopes while Axel naps.

2:30 pm More eating (by Axel), more catching up on reading (by Mama).

3:00 pm Huge poop explosion - it's Axel's gift to the office.

4:30 pm Reverse the scramble, packing up to leave to rush home before the next feeding. Axel is appointed the new office mascot. Mama is happy, baby is happy, everyone is exhausted.

Working 9 to 5

knockedup — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 17:03:00 GMT

I'm about to re-join Dolly Parton and her shoulder-pad-wearing friends in the workforce. In a week and a half, I'll be going back to work. On November 1st, 12 weeks of maternity leave sounded like an eternity. I had plans - sure, I'd take care of Axel, and, while he was sleeping, I'd re-organize our house after the (mostly finished) remodel, clean it several times from top to bottom, create a snazzy filing system with pretty blue file folders, babyproof every room, and lose all the baby weight plus a few more pounds. Well, I've got a week and a half left, and my list of things to do isn't really that much shorter than it was at first. The house is still messy, according to my admittedly neurotic clean-freak standards, the files are still a jumble, and the baby-created jelly belly is still very much around my middle.

What have I done the last ten and a half weeks? Countless hours of nursing, rocking, butt wiping, doing laundry, talking to Axel about his ears and fingers and nose, with a little bit of post-remodeling unpacking and cleaning here and there. I've got ten days to get my life and house in order before I go back to work - and I know that's not going to happen. I'll be going back with a partially-organized house and life, with stacks of bills and catalogs on the desk and pacifiers scattered in random drawers and cleaning supplies under the kitchen sink in an unlocked cabinet. Some days, I don't find time to sit down and eat with two hands and a set of utensils, so why I think that I should have found time to organize the clothes in my closet by color and sleeve length, I don't know. Since I've been failing at getting much done around the house, I'm wondering how I'll be able to get things done at work - and how I'll actually get myself ready and to work on time - when I go back in just a few days.

I knew it would be hard to return to work and leave Axel - even though I'll be leaving him, at least for the first few weeks, in the very capable hands of his dad or his grandparents, or working from home with him next to me. (Note picture with my man, taken when Axel was a day old, below. Sorry it's a little old - I snap photos of my boy all day long. Sean just doesn't have the photo-worthy range of expressions that Axel does.).

What I didn't really think about, other than having some fuzzy memories of Michael Keaton in Mr. Mom covered in flour and wrestling with the vacuum cleaner, was how I would do all the stuff I'm doing now and be a mostly awake, functioning worker bee wearing something other than spit-up covered sweatpants.

Besides my slight clean-freak tendencies and desire to clean the floors on my hands and knees weekly, I'm relatively low maintenance - I don't iron; I rarely wear makeup besides mascara and lip gloss; I've never been one of those girls who shaved her legs every day; I don't care if my clothes or Axel's are covered in spit up. I guess I'll have to be even more low-maintenance if I want to hang on to more than four hours of sleep a night. Should I just resign myself to showering every three days and invest in a nice wig so I don't have to do my hair every morning? I'm a multi-tasking fiend, which used to mean reading the New Yorker and eating oatmeal while I blow dried my hair but now means folding laundry while sitting on the floor and playing with Axel and trying to eat lunch without dropping any food on Axel's head or the clean laundry. Maybe now's the time to enroll myself in some freaky scientific study and grow a third arm.

Once again, I'm turning to you, dear readers, for advice. (On a side note, how did our parents do all this without the Internet? The comments and advice I get from Babble readers, and insights from reading other blogs, have helped keep me mostly sane through this brand new mama phase.) How do you juggle babies and housework and eating and showering and work outside (or inside) of the home?