My Day, The Rundown

I really enjoy it when people tell me just exactly how their day goes. I think probably because I'm nosy, but also because it's just fun to consider someone else's day. Something different from my own.

I think I enjoy it just like I enjoy it when people leave their curtains open at night, and I'm out for a walk, and I can peer in and see how my neighbors decorated and what they're watching on TV. Am I the only creepy person who enjoys that? Yes? Okay, moving on.

My day is always different. It depends on whether or not I actually get up with my alarm, or hit the snooze five hundred times. It depends on whether or not daycare comes to me, or I take the kids to daycare. It depends on whether or not I am feeling ambitious about my morning routine, or really if I'd just rather skip it all together. BUT, okay, in general my day goes like this:

5:00 AM: My alarm goes off. This does NOT mean I get up at this time. Typically it means that I use my super find-the-snooze-button-in-the-dark-and-half-asleep skills. You have those skills too, right?

5:00 AM - 5:30 AM: Depending on how many times I found that snooze button, this is when I drag myself out of bed. The next 30-45 minutes is 'me' time. Or, the only time I have to make myself look somewhat presentable.

6:00 AM - This is when I'm supposed to be heading out the door with the kids, but typically it's when I'm doing my darnedest to drag Liam out of bed and get him to go potty for dang sake.

6:20 AM - I'm fortunate enough to be able to simply get the kids out of bed, find clothing and shoes, add a jacket and put them in the car. (Ha, as if that was simple!) This is typically the time we are actually pulling away from the house, a good 20 minutes late.

7:15 AM - Usually, this is when I make it to work. Something like 15 minutes late. Most people seem to just understand that when I say my start time is 7:00, what I mean is my start time is 7:15. (Note to self: I should maybe start setting my alarm for 4:30 AM).

3:15 PM - I don't take a lunch so that I can maximize my time at home with the kids. And since I showed up late, it seems only fair I should hang around that extra 15 minutes. This is when I'm doing all I can to escape the office. Sometimes I make it, sometimes I don't, because of course, it's in that 15 minutes that my phone will ring or I'll get called into an inpromptu meeting.

4:15 - 5:00 PM - Time for the kids to play while I make dinner. Or, while I call Domino's, or while Nate makes dinner. You know, one of those things. We do try to eat at 5:00 PM though, and amazingly enough, we usually make that mark.

5:30 - 7:00 PM - The best part of my day. My time with the kids. We play, or maybe go to the park, or maybe it's bath night, or maybe we're having complete melt downs, but whatever is going on, this is the fleeting time a working mother like myself gets to have with my kids during the week. This hour-and-a-half is the reason I try so hard to get to work early, and skip lunch, and do my best to leave on time, because otherwise I wouldn't have this time at all.

7:00 PM - There was a time that the kids stayed up until more like 8:00 PM, but then we figured out they weren't getting enough of this little thing called sleep, so we pushed bedtimes back. This is the time we are wrangling the kids into bed. I should say wrangling Liam to bed...Quin has always been, and continues to be, a superstar sleeper. (Note to Quin: Keep that up, please.)

8:00 PM - 9:30 or 10:00 PM - Time to catch up on a book, or my favorite show, or lately, homework. Yes, this is the bit of time I've reserved each day to complete my MBA.

And that's my day. Evangelical stay-at-home mothers everywhere have just said a silent prayer for me and my misguided ways, but you know what, I wouldn't change a thing. (Well, maybe that thing about the snooze button.)

Full

I think it should almost be my mantra that I tend to bite off more than I can chew. For the brief moments in my history when I have the "right amount" of things going on, I tend to feel really shifty and ready for my next big thing. Ready to get married, ready to buy a house, ready to have a baby, ready to change jobs, ready to move states, ready to have another baby. And so on AND SO FORTH.

I don't know why I have always been so restless, but it's just a fact of nature. So it should come as no surprise that in addition to working full time at my Advertising job, and raising my two beautiful boys I've decided to add in the start of graduate school and a big move to a new house within only a week of each other.

There was this article in the local newspaper this morning about this woman who is a Minnesota Vikings cheerleader, and though I didn't manage to read the entire article, the basic gist was something like: feel sorry for this poor, tired, overworked Target executive who somehow manages to also be a cheerleader and a wife. And all I can think is BIG WHOOP lady!

There are times when people ask me how I manage all that I do. My response to that is, I don't really know how I'd manage to not do all that I do. I'm compelled to do them. It makes me happy to be constantly striving for something more, it give me something to reach for. I like that.

I think that what I'm trying to say is that I can sense a change in where I'm heading with this blog. Because if a 30-something cheerleader who also has a job (GASP!) and a Husband (you mean, she manages to be a cheerleader and isn't single?!) is somehow a big feature article, then surly you, my loyal 5 blog readers, will find entertainment in me: the 20-something career woman, wife, mother-of-two, graduate student. Right?

Would you enjoy the latest details about what a nightmare it is to pack for the big move? And on that note, for some godforsaken reason we have kept every single bill we have received in, like, TWO YEARS. Do you know what a chore it was to go through each and every one to be sure that there isn't anything IMPORTANT in that pile? And also, do you know that U-Haul has the gall to charge nearly $400! for a set of boxes and markers needed for a move? No, I didn't pay $400! for boxes and markers, but for the love of all that's holy ARE YOU SERIOUS?

Would it interest you to know just how excited I am to go back to school? No, really. Like so freaking out kind of excited that I actually read the descriptions AND CUSTOMER REVIEWS attached to the textbooks I ordered from Amazon. Yeah, that excited. And I may be changing my tune when I'm up to my eyeballs in school work and can't even catch a glimpse of Grey's Anatomy because there is too much to be done, but, would you be interested to know about that when it happens, too?

Do you care to know that I sometimes lie awake at night wondering what I'm going to do with myself when my kids are grown up? This is because I am a young mom and I'll only be in my early to mid-forties when that happens and above every other thing I have going in my life, raising my kids is 100% number 1, and when that job is gone, then what?

I don't update this blog as often as I should, mostly because I often convince myself I don't have anything interesting to say. But you know what, this blog is as much about preserving this time in my life as it is trying to entertain other people, and in that respect I have A LOT to say. So say away I'm going to do. You know, until I am completely overwhelmed with my job as mother, wife, employee and graduate student.

Identity Crisis

It occurred to me the other day, while I was shampooing my hair, that when my youngest son graduates from high school I will only be 43 years old.

Forty. Three. I started to panic. Forty-three is so young, and my children are my life. What am I going to do with myself when they no longer need me? I’ll have most of my life left to live and the most important thing I will ever do, raising children, will be over!

Then I started to hyperventilate. Have I really let my entire identity become so intertwined with my children that I no longer know who I am? Am I really panicking about something that will happen 17 years from now?

And this is where the motherhood conundrum gets messy. I love my kids so very, very much that I WANT them to be my world. My everything. But I also want to have my own identity. But I feel guilty about having an identity separate from my family. But I know I should have my own identity. But how could I do that, when they are my identity. But…you get the idea.

When I look at Liam, so often my mind pops right back to the very moment he was born. The tiny ball of baby placed on my chest, the collective gasp in the room when he let out his first cry. But here I am, 3 lightening-quick years later, and he’s not even close to that little baby anymore. I love 3-year-old Liam, but I’m STILL wondering whatever happened to my baby?

The other day I stared hard at Quinlan, cruising along the couch with those cubby little legs. He's beginning to say words! Actual english language words! He's feeding himself, seeking independence, rapidly moving toward his first birthday. All I can think is, Wait a minute! Wasn’t he just born, like, last month? I cannot fathom how almost a year has already gone by.

And before I know it, I’ll be 43. Setting up the cake and decorations for my youngest child’s high school graduation, and wondering, now what?

It's important to me that my kids see that I have my own life, my own identity apart from them. I want them to form their own opinions, seek their own passions, have their own unique and glorious identities. But I just can't shake this gut-wretching, heart-dropping feeling that when my job is no longer raising my children, I will no longer know what on earth my job is.

Forty. Three. Oh my god, what will I do?

Update

Remember this post?

I can almost, kinda, but not quite scream I TOLD YOU SO.

But, only almost and kinda. Because this tragic story has a good ending.

I am a magnet for layoffs. I mean that, or at least I meant it because I am SO DONE with that. (P.S. Read The Secret, it will change your life.) And I’d just been expecting something to go wrong. And so, just like the The Secret said it would, it did.

The bottom line is this: of the eight positions on my team, four would be eliminated. Mine was, obviously, one of them. Two new positions would be created, and one position would be “outsourced” to our advertising agency, which would presumably hire one of us. Long story short, it was a cruel game of musical chairs, one of us is out. We all had to re-interview, and wait. And wait, and wait, and good gracious it’s been five weeks already! (I am working on that “patience is a virtue,” bit. So far, I haven’t done well.)

Well today, my friends, I accepted one of the new positions on my team. I get to keep my job. Okay, collective sigh in 3, 2, 1…

No more am I a magnet for layoffs. I am a highly sought after, very valuable employee. So there. End of story.

There is the update you seek. Get back to work.

Mommy Wars

There is this girl. I met her on craigstlist, after hastily deciding not to send my first born to the daycare I'd been planning on for months. She and I had many similarities. We lived in the same town, we got married and had kids at close to the same age, we both had one son. But that's exactly where the similarities ended, because everything else amplified my personal, daily conflict. The one where I chose to work.

I knew, almost instantly, that she would be the perfect person to watch after my newborn three days a week. He would get personal attention there. She was skilled at looking after young children, and she seemed to genuinely care not just for, but about him. I really couldn't ask for more. And he did do very well in her care.

I still consider her to be my friend, but I doubt she realizes just how much knowing her has put my own life's trajectory in question. Of two differences I don't question. She is devoutly religious, while I am anything but. I believe in God, but I'm just not sure what kind of God, and I'm pretty sure I'll never know. That's just fine by me. She is also very conservative, and I am quite liberal. This, too, is just fine by me.

But it's the final difference that I grapple with everyday. She is a stay at home Mom (SAHM). She is there for her kids every single day. No matter what the day holds, rain, shine, happy kids, sad kids, trips to the library, or snuggles on the couch, she is just simply there. Soaking in every detail of their upbringing, not missing a second. To be clear, she is not the bane of my existence. She is more the metaphor for the struggle that so many Moms like me have. The struggle that has inspired a fervor of emotion on both sides of the debate. But, I'm here to tell you that my emotion is as much directed at those who resent my decision to work as it is at those who applaud it.

I've reminded myself a hundred times over, being a working mother is as much for my benefit as it is for my family's. I've told myself that I'm not cut out to be a SAHM. Staying at home during two different layoffs had all but driven me to the brink. I considered my career ambitions to be a strong part of my identity. And I've always firmly believed that I really can "have it all."

But I also backpedal on my convictions, almost daily. How on earth do I manage convince myself that I'm not cut out to stay at home with my kids? I maintain a warm, loving, and mostly even demeanor when my preschooler is begging me not to leave in the morning. Only to climb into my car and let the tears fall freely on the way to work. I study my infant's sleeping face when I lay him in his crib at night, knowing that he'll still be sleeping when I leave in the morning and I won't get to see him until the following evening.

It's gut wrenching, this struggle. The hard facts are that, at the moment, I couldn't afford to stay at home if I wanted to. But, I'm not so sure that I would if I could, and does that make me a ground breaking American woman, or does it make me a bad mother? I'd be proud to raise boys who understand that the woman's place is not necessarily in the home, but I have to constantly convince myself that I'm not doing long term damage in the process.

I realize now that this term 'Mommy Wars' is not so much about two groups of women tongue lashing each other for their personal decisions, most of us are far too civilized for such banter. Rather, it's about a personal war that so many mommy's have. I know I'm not alone when I say that.

Walking around any office, it's easy to see which co-workers have kids at home. They're the ones whispering into the phone to the caregiver, grasping for minute details of the day that would otherwise be lost. They're the ones spending too much time uploading and arranging pictures for their computer screensaver. They're the ones found occasionally gazing into space, yearning to be home. They're the ones with that look of guilt that just can't be cleanly wiped away. And, occasionally, they're the ones sneaking off to their car just to cry a little bit.

I don't need a working mother to tell me I'm doing the right thing, nor do I need a SAHM to tell me I should be home with my kids. Because this war? It's far more nasty when it's fought with yourself.

State of Fear

I graduated with my Bachelor's degree in December 2004. And in that short amount of time, I've been laid off twice, people. Twice.

So you can't call me crazy for being just a little more than paranoid right now. Nevermind the fact that I couldn't possibly be in a better business, doing advertising for a very large grocery wholesaler. (Because, while anyone can decide not to buy that TV this year, everyone needs food.) There's been no talk of layoffs at my company, in fact, they're still hiring. But still, I find myself in this state of mind numbing, paralyzing fear.

Even the minuit detail that I managed to land this job as the economy was sliding and I was 30-weeks pregnant can't subside my confidence that anytime I get called into my supervisors office it is to hear the words no one ever wants to hear, "Your job is being eliminated." Nor can the knowledge that while I was on maternity leave I got more than one dire message that I needed to return. None of it matters. I can't shake the notion that in this big, big world I'm still just a peon. And as such, I'm easily disposable.

Back in February I interviewed with Best Buy. I didn't get that job, not least because I applied more for the great perks Best Buy offers than for my skills related to the position. This week I hear that Best Buy is offering buyouts to every single corporate employee. That's right, from secretary's to VPs, they will offer an average of 7-1/2 months of pay plus a year of medical and life insurance if you quietly walk away.

Which begs the question. What would you do? Take the buyout and keep your fingers tightly crossed that 7-1/2 months is enough time to find something else? Or, stick your heels in the ground and refuse, knowing that in six months your job could be eliminated anyway and without such a generous offer?

These are uncharted waters. And why do I bring it up? Maybe to help me stay sane. I think/worry/fret/obsess about it on a daily basis, so I want you to join me. But maybe also so that when the day comes that my job disappears too, I can say, See! I told you. I TOLD you!

For now, I think I'll gaze into my future. Melodramatic? Not a doubt about it.

Working It Out

I had a baby, relatively recently. And he's really cute. But he's on the outside now. And, my company has a free gym. And, they offer classes. And, I have a co-worker who signed me up for the daily calendar reminders of said classes. I have no more excuses.

Attempt 1: I'm PUMPED! I shaved my legs in the shower, I gathered up my super spiffy workout clothing, I have chosen a class to start with (yoga), I have carefully studied the class schedule to be sure I don't show up at the wrong time. I am psyched, ready, all systems are a go!

I excitedly announce my co-worker that TODAY I am going to start participating in the workout classes!

"Oh," she replies. "The instructor is out today."

Shit.

Attempt 2 (two weeks later): It's yoga day again. I love yoga, I'm sticking with this as my introduction to fitness classes. I'm invited to Body Sculpt with my co-worker, but NO, I want yoga! I give myself plenty of time to dress. I've got the whole locker room to myself. Nice! I saunter up to the gym, and enter as all the Body Sculptors come streaming out. Suckers, I think. Yoga is SO much better! I meet the instructor. She explains that she isn't sure anyone else is coming.

What? But what does that mean?

No class.

So there I stand, in my yoga pants and socks, waiting around like a fool for fellow yogaers that aren't going to come.

"Well, there's lots of machines to use," the instructor suggests apologetically.

Thanks. I didn't even bring shoes.

I trudge back to the now full locker room, and do my best to blend in. Maybe they won't notice that I was just in the gym and came back without doing anything.

Attempt 3: This is the day that the calendar invites start coming. Crap. It's on my calendar now. I can't ignore incessant reminders at 15, then 10, then 5 minutes before the start of class. I could have ignored the invite, but, well, I DO need to go. Okay. I'll go.

I show up to a locker room full of female co-workers that I don't know eyeing me with that familiar glare of "Who the hell are you?"

I get changed, head toward the gym, and realize that I didn't bring my badge to open the door. I stand awkwardly at the door waiting for the next gaggle of stranger co-workers to come through and let me in. I stare at the bulletin board as they walk past, as if I meant to do that.

It's a step class. I haven't been to a step class in years. I grab too many levels for my platform, despite warnings, and go about my business. Class starts. I'm dying! I don't know what I'm doing. Step left, scissor over, rotate back, Charleston left. WHAT have I gotten myself into.

At the end of class, I glare into the mirror at my tomato red face and think to myself back tomorrow?

Yes. I begrudgingly think back. Back tomorrow. It'll be on my calendar after all.