Knocked Up : working mother

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.

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...

We're Staying....For Now

knockedup — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 03:40:00 GMT

The conversations I dread most, the questions I don't want to ask, the things I'm afraid of saying - I'm reminded time and again that those are the things that I should be saying, the conversations I should be having. You guys were right. Even as I wrote about the nasty comment that I overheard, I knew that I had to talk to staff at Axel's childcare center about it. Whether we leave or whether we stay, that teacher is still spending the day with somebody's kids, and since I want to live in a world in which people help one another out and don't just stand by and watch as people do things they shouldn't, I had to say something.

It's often easier to stay silent. It would've been in this case - to keep my mouth shut and quickly withdraw from the situation. There are many reasons to remain silent, depending on the conversation or the question. I don't want to offend people. I want people to like me. Sometimes I want to keep on liking them, or keep a relationship in tact that wouldn't survive the airing of concerns. I want to keep things simple and avoid challenges that might come out of a discussion. But - at least for those who, like me, tend to mull things over instead of speak, would rather write than talk, forget to mention their plans for the day to their spouse because they're too wrapped up in their thoughts - speaking up is often the right thing to do. It clears things up. It forces us to deal with the problems in our relationships that we'd rather ignore, and prevents us from ending up in relationship limbo and then waking up five years from now and wondering why we're still having dinner with friends we don't really like or why we're still dating someone who doesn't want the same things we want. It gives others the chance to clear up our misconceptions, or to show us that our perceptions were, for better or worse, right on. It means we're really engaging in our schools and communities.

Speaking up is one of the many things I hope Axel can do better than I can. I hope he's less cautious than I am; I hope he's able to take risks and to speak his mind without second, third, and fourth-guessing himself for days. I hope he doesn't get shakey on his way to an event that requires mingling with a roomful of strangers. I hope he doesn't care quite so much what other people think. And if I want him to be better at these things than I am, I've got to take more risks myself.

I talked with Axel's teacher, and with the director of the daycare. While this was a small risk and an important thing to do, the potential for conflict really, really made me want to puke. Most days, I'd rather have a 10-lb baby without an epidural than knowingly pursue a potentially tense and angry conversation. I had to take many deep breaths and remind myself that I was being a total wimp and needed to open my mouth and tell Axel's teacher what I'd heard. I had to remind myself that anger isn't necessarily bad.

I had to remind myself - as stupid as this sounds - that I am now a parent and it's my job to be actively engaged in my child's school. That includes voicing criticism, no matter how lucky you feel to have actually gotten into a school and gotten an in-demand spot, not just wearing the ugly orange crossing guard vest or joining the PTA.

While I came away from talking with the director wondering if she'd really heard what I'd said, my conversation with Axel's lead teacher was reassuring. She was shocked about the comment, emphasized how important communication with parents is to her, and also told me about some changes in the works. I was glad that we talked, and I'm going to follow up again on Monday. The changes the lead teacher mentioned mean that I'm comfortable with Axel staying at his current childcare center until he's between a year and eighteen months - the age at which he could attend some of the other centers near us that seem to have potential.

The comment I overheard, well, it sucked. There are other reasons that are harder to articulate that add up to a sense that, though the teachers in Axel's room are caring and engaged and though I know he has good days at his center and enjoys it when he's there three days each week, it isn't quite the right fit for him, or for us. But I also don't have a better alternative. I don't know that I could find a temporary nanny (that we can afford) who would be better than the teachers he has now. I can't take an indefinite number of months off of work until we find the perfect center. I also don't feel confident that a perfect center exists, at least not one we can get Axel in. We already failed to get a spot in my favorite center's lottery. I guess I'll find out as I tour other centers. I'll be looking at them over the next month or two, trying to sort out the difference between all the different philosophies. I'm sure there are some valid differences, but I still keep coming back to the importance of the teachers themselves and the fit of a given school with Axel's personality.

Mean Teachers and Wait Lists

knockedup — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 01:42:00 GMT

Here's what I heard yesterday when I picked up Axel from his child care center: "He wants to be picked up again. You know what? Your parents don't pay enough for us to pick you up all the time. Get up." This was said to a 20-month-old who'd plopped down on the floor in front of the door to the hallway that leads to the classrooms. It was not a joke. His toddler class had been playing in the gym, and two teachers were herding the group through the lobby and back to their classroom.

I'd just walked into the lobby after making faces at two of the toddlers, who's paused to make blowfish on the glass doors. I don't know if the teacher who made the comment noticed me waiting for the group to cluster and weave down the hallway. Maybe he was having a bad day, maybe he did want to be carried all the time, maybe he was just being a not-quite-two-year-old and being difficult. Maybe she was having a bad day and just wanted to be carried herself.

The teacher was right - we don't pay enough for each of our children to be held constantly. That would mean all the parents would have nannies and one-on-one care for each child, and, umm, they wouldn't be in group care. Rarely are early childhood teachers aren't paid what they're worth.

I can think of lots of reasons why she might have said what she said. But I really don't care. What does matter is that she thinks it's okay to say that to a baby - and if she says that when a parent is around, what's she saying or doing when they aren't?

As I followed them down the hall - this group came from the classroom just beyond Axel's - the other teacher, the quieter teacher who seemed like the (kinder, gentler) assistant teacher talked to a couple stragglers, pointing out a picture of an elephant on the wall and shepherding them along. She seemed like she actually liked kids. Why one would go into childcare - or stay - while resenting babies for being babies I don't know.

I didn't say anything to the teacher - who I've never met and whose name I don't know - or to the director of the school. I just went into Axel's classroom, still a little stunned and mulling over what I'd heard - and picked up Axel from his teachers (who I generally like). I'm not quite sure what to say - I overheard a teacher make a snotty comment? I'd feel like a tattle tale. Also, I assume that the director knows that this particular woman isn't the best or the brightest of her staff. Further complicating the situation: the director is retiring in December, and from what I've seen, the woman has started to check out. She's leaving on a jet plane for a leisurely retirement somewhere she won't have to change any diapers or wipe any noses and the rest of us will have to fend for ourselves.

At the same time, though, I'd sure want someone to say something if that kid was my son. Sure, he wasn't hit or screamed at, but that sort of nasty sarcasm doesn't have a place in the lives of toddlers. Maybe I'm overreacting and she was just venting. I've told Axel he's being a butthead a half a dozen times. But there was something about her tone that made me tighten my jaw. This teacher is in the room that Axel will move to next, once he's over one and walking. That's three months or so away.

There's no way Axel's going to go in that room, with that teacher. He's already on three wait lists for centers that serve children over the age of one or eighteen months. I'm looking at adding him on even more. Some of these wait lists are never ending - we've been one for over a year and a half, and were supposedly going to get a spot last June. But odds are that we'll get one. And if we don't, I'll take a month's vacation or we'll make our budget do some magical rhythmic gymnast type stretching and get a temporary nanny for six months to cover the interim.

Here's what I want: a safe childcare center where kids get outside everyday, do art projects, make messes, have storytime, eat real food, snuggle down for naps, explore the world, and - most importantly - have warm, qualified teachers who love their quirks and their silly baby habits, who kiss them when they fall down and who love it when the babies give them hugs, who tell the kids no when necessary and comfort them when they cry. I still haven't figured out which preschool approach is right for Axel - Montessori or play-based or Waldorf or academic or what have you - and I don't think I'll have it figured out until he's three and a half or so. He's got lots of time to have his days packed with enrichment activities like Japanese lessons or yoga or playing the flute. For now, just a warm, loving, safe place will do - a place where snotty comments get directed at the parents who can stand up for themselves, and not the kids.

Is that too much to ask?

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.

Working Nine to Five, Part Two

knockedup — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 17:04:00 GMT

Tuesday marked my return to work - and the land of my non-sweatpants-wearing, minimally-covered-in-spit-up, mostly groomed self. And it's been fabulous. No tears have been shed. I have loved almost every minute of it.

The work part has been pretty minimal so far - mostly going through thousands of emails and a stack of mail. The rest of my time has been spent showing people pictures of my boy, and hearing how great I look. (Note: I'm not bragging. I don't think I look so good but, in comparison to the last time most of these people saw me -- at nine and a half months pregnant, boated, irritated, waddling everywhere, grimacing from sciatica, with a belly the size of an ATV - - the still carrying some baby belly and slightly exhausted postpartum me looks not so bad. It's all about your reference point. Heidi Klum walking the runway in lacy underthings two months after giving birth I most certainly am not.) In terms of actual work and assignments, this is the honeymoon phase of being a working mama, before the full deluge of tasks hits my desk.

Here's what so fabulous about it: I get to go to the bathroom when I want to, instead of thinking, "I just got Axel to calm down and if I put him down in his pack and play he'll get all riled up so how long, exactly, can I hold it before I burst or cause some sort of damage to my bladder?" That's GREAT! And I can drink a cup of tea while it's still warm and eat my lunch all in one sitting. AMAZING! And having conversations with several adults in one day? It rocks.

Sure, I miss Axel a little. I miss him snuggling up against me in his sling, his gleeful and toothless smiles, and cheering him on as he swats and kicks the toys dangling above his floor gym. But I did not cry when I left - I was leaving him with his very capable and loving father. Maybe I'll cry when he's in daycare in a few months or when I'm away from Axel for more than a few days a week, but, for now, this transition is smooth like I Can't Believe It's Not Butter. Getting out the door is rather hectic, what with juggling feeding the baby and myself and the dog and cleaning up after all three of us and trying to make sure I have my pump and my purse, but I figure as long as I'm wearing shoes (and they match!), and have brushed my teeth, I'm good.

Stay tuned for part three of working nine to five: take your baby to work day. My employer has a policy in which you can bring a "quiet baby" to the office with you for up to three months after maternity leave. With meetings and whatnot, I can't do this everyday, but I'm going to try to swing it for a day a week or so which, combined with the option of working from home, means I'll be able to stay with Axel for two or three weekdays every week for a few months. (Three cheers for family friendly employers!) Next Tuesday will be the test to see if Axel fits the "quiet" criteria. Anyone know where I can get a baby muzzle? Just kidding. Maybe I'll just play some Mozart really loudly to drown out any squawks, under the guise of building his synapses and whatnot.

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?