Roundup

Here are just a few things that have been on my mind lately:

1. I figured out the way to clean my closet. It turns out it is more or less like anything else; you have to do it one thing at a time. It took me an hour and a half and there is still a small pile of stuff I don't know what to do with, but my clothes are folded and organized and I can see my entire wardrobe again.

2. Phoebe is, I think, growing again. She's been sleeping more than usual lately. I've also noticed that her feet are flat against the bottom of her Exersaucer, and when we put her in it for the first time a month ago, her toes were just brushing the bottom.

3. Though things are starting to pick up a tiny bit at work, I am incredibly bored most of the time and have been for awhile. It leaves me in the soul-crushing position of hating every second I am there and wanting to quit on the one hand, and being terrified that they will fire me on the other.

4. I am tired all the time. I am tired when I wake up in the morning, and tired when I go to sleep at night, and tired every minute in between. I feel like I shouldn't be this tired; after all, I barely do anything besides sit on my butt and surf the internet and play Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook all day. Occasionally I'll make or receive a phone call. Not exactly expending large amounts of energy.

5. Caetlin is so adorable when she plays costumes (dress-up) with the variety of dresses and costumes we have for her. She puts her fairy wings on and "flies" around the house. Thank you, "Alice the Fairy." ("I have wings so I can fly! I can't fly very high yet, but I can fly really fast!")

6. I finally dragged my father-in-law onto Facebook, so he can see all the pictures of the girls that I post there.

7. I often wish I were 21 and in college again. I wish I hadn't sped through my college years. I was petrified of not finishing. Neither of my folks finished college, though they both made several stabs at it over my lifetime (and prior to my lifetime). Somehow I absorbed that to put off or even slow down school was to fail to finish at all; this despite my sister's model, who by the time I went to college had completed two undergraduate degrees. The same reasoning led me to law school immediately after college, when I could have probably used some time working in between. I really wish I hadn't completed college in essentially three years. I wish I had taken more time. Even though I am only 32, I begin to understand the cynical phrase, "Youth is wasted on the young."

I could go on like this all night, but see point 4 above.

Three

Yesterday at the indoor playground, her little voice calling, "Mommy!" rang through my ears, and I marveled that she meant me.

She made me laugh, too, being silly, a fake har-har-har that cracks me up every time. And then we jumped in the bounce house and collapsed in a pile of giggles.

Later she ate pizza and peaches like a big kid, went potty like a big kid, put her shoes on like a big kid. She is a big kid.

She is so competent, so mindful of herself. When did she become a complete person, entirely separate, with her own wants and preferences and destiny?

She amazes me daily, with everything she is and does and wants to be. She is more like me than not, these days, and by that I mean that at three years old, she is closer to being a grown up than she is a baby. I know that sounds hyperbolic, and I know she has a lot to learn still, but she's fundamentally her own person. She doesn't need me, not like Phoebe needs me.

I am so lucky to be her mom. Happy birthday, my wonderful amazing girl. Who is growing up far too fast. I can't wait to see what the next year brings.

Pack Rat

Tonight, I hated myself.

I have a closet in the bedroom that I share with Bruce. About 3/4 of the closet is my stuff, but there isn't enough room for my stuff even with that much space. What I really need are (big enough) shelves or drawers, because there is plenty of room for the hanging clothes, but the folded stuff- T-shirts, yoga pants, jeans- that's usually a crazy mess. Over the last couple of months, however, the crazy mess has gotten out of control. The closet may technically be a walk-in- even completely empty there's room to take about one step in- but lately, all I can do is peer in from the closet doorway and hope I can find what I need. There is a pile of clothes mixed with other things that is about as high as my hip on the floor in the closet, and it makes the closet almost entirely unusable.

This condition was born of good intentions. I had wanted to sift through my closet, reorganize and weed out and make everything pretty and accessible. I wanted to remove my maternity clothes and bring back my old wardrobe, and I wanted to be able to find everything. That required pulling a large amount of stuff out, off the shelves, off the floor, off the hangers. I got halfway through and got tired, so I shoved it all back in with the intention of finishing up another day.

And I never did.

I have hated the way my closet looks. I hate the lack of functionality. I hate that I wear the same five outfits every week, because it's what I can reach and find. I hate that there are things buried in there that I have forgotten I own, things I would find useful.

Last week I was determined to fix it, to clean it up for good. Bruce has been on a kick of reducing our stuff lately, and fixing the house up in general, hanging pictures and packing up books we've read and giving stuff to Goodwill. Inspired by his example and feeling continually ashamed of my closet, I pulled everything out of the closet and into a pile on my bedroom floor, thinking that if I could see it, I could make a plan of how to deal with it.

It sat on my bedroom floor for a week and a half, untouched, just getting in the way of my scale and dirty clothes hamper.

The ladies who come clean the house every two weeks are coming tomorrow, and it was unthinkable to leave it there for them. We don't pay them to organize my clothing; we pay them to clean the floors and bathrooms.

Rather than face the pile, I threw it all back into the closet.

I hated myself when I was doing it. Every armful of clothes I dumped into the shadows of my closet floor whispered my failure, my inability to take care of even the smallest things at home. My inability to hold it together when I am working and the rest of my family carries on without me, my failure to be useful for my family beyond my paycheck.

It was especially reproachful in considering the hour and a half my wonderful husband had just spent cleaning his parts of the room, while I sat and looked at a computer screen. As if I don't do enough of that at work, but somehow it was the only thing I could make myself do this evening, even as my daughters were bathed and dressed for bed and had stories read to them and fell asleep. If there were a time-lapse video of my evening, it would be Bruce and the girls swirling around me, while I sit on my bed behind a laptop, barely moving.

I barely move a lot these days, metaphorically speaking.

I don't know when I'll be able to deal with the closet. It seemed so symbolic, the packing away of mess behind a door, leaving a tidy exterior. I look like I have it together. I look like a good parent, like a provider, like someone "having it all" in the parlance of the feminism I was raised on.

I know the mess waits for me, even as the door is closed, though. It's not just that I don't know when I'll get to it. It's more that I don't know how to deal with it. In some ways, it's just about folding the clothes and finding a place for them. But the the folding overwhelms me. The finding the place for them overwhelms me. I just don't know how to manage it. I don't know how to unpack it, organize it, make it useful again. I just don't know how.

I'm Not Gone

Honey, I'm home! Did you miss me?

Seriously, I have not abandoned the blog. Funnily enough, I often think of things I'd like to write about, but by the end of the day, my writing time, all my thoughts and desires to put any of it to metaphorical paper have bled away. Part of it is Farm Town, the damnably addictive game on Facebook. I'm obsessed with planting my crops and growing my coins so I can buy stuff to make my farm pretty. Within the last week I've realized that the real money is to be made harvesting for others, so I've been trolling the chat rooms for jobs, like almost everyone else who plays the game (that makes it sound so seedy. See what I did there- seedy?? I crack myself up). This takes up enormous amounts of time, so it seems.

Part of my lack of motivation is that I am almost always tired, and for the last week I've been battling a nasty cold. It's been hanging on for over a week now, and it's knocked both kids flat on their cute little behinds. Phoebe has been hacking periodically, and Caetlin wakes up every night at least once crying because she can't breathe because her nose is so stuffed. I hadn't taken anything for my cold, because decongestants tend to dry up milk a bit, and I'm ultra-paranoid about keeping my production up. So it's been hot showers and the neti pot and lots of tissue. I finally gave in last night so I could get some sleep, and the medicine helped quite a bit. I haven't had a cold this bad for a very long time, and I have to say, I don't recommend it. Bruce has been lucky enough to avoid it, though he's clearly been fighting it off, as he's been extremely tired all week.

Anyway, you may note that the last post was dated July 24. That was when I started the post, and it's been sitting three-quarters finished since then. I'm not sure why I couldn't finish it, or why I finally did, but I hope I'm back on the blogging bandwagon.

The First Week Back

It felt strange to walk in after all these weeks, and see that everything was how I left it.

My big desk calendar was still on February. My cartoon-a-day calendar was on March 3. The chill of those days was long forgotten as I could feel the summer morning sun through the window, already hot. My last two-liter of Publix diet ginger ale, the soda that I was obsessed with in the last days, sits half drunk and probably mostly flat where I left it, and the large plastic green cup I used to sip it from still next to it on my rubber coaster. My pens still in the same place, unused legal pads stacked neatly on one corner of my desk.

I have been back since I had Phoebe, of course. I was in to visit Bruce, and take advantage of the printer (mine is kaput at home right now). I checked my mail and worked with Bruce and his secretary to submit our applications for admission to the Georgia bar. It's not as though I haven't darkened the door here in 4 months.

And yet it all felt strange, like an item of clothing that has shrunk in the wash and no longer fits quite right. It was different, for sure. The same- my same stuff, arranged in my same way- but I had grown out of it, or beyond it, or just different and away from it.

And there was the new stuff too- the new black bag that at a passing glance could look like a large tote bag, and its accompanying square-ish cooler bag. You wouldn't know what those were for. You'd think it was a tote for books, or files, or even a large handbag. You'd think the cooler bag was a lunch. Instead, I lock the door three times a day and bottle up motherhood, using the horribly undignified machinery from the black-bag-that-is-not-a-tote. I pack it in little bottles and ice them in the cooler bag and hope they are enough for tomorrow and worry when it seems like less than yesterday, less than this morning, less than.

Bruce doesn't call often when he has the kids. I assume they are busy; I assume they are having fun. I surf the internet. I check Facebook, annoyed when there are no new status updates from the previous ten minutes when I checked it last. I surf through my favorite blogs, news sites, parenting sites. I get sleepy and think how ridiculous I must look to anyone walking by, my eyes closed, face dipping forward when microsleep overtakes me. If any of my plants had been bodysnatchers, I would have been a goner.

I count down till lunch. Then I count down until I can leave. I don't talk to anyone unless I get up to make yet another unwanted cup of coffee. It helps me get out of my office, anyway.

Economic conditions mean that I have very little to do, and likely won’t have much for awhile. I set myself tasks to do every day, which I sometimes finish. Mostly these are personal tasks, like making Caetlin’s doctor’s appointment or calling the bank about a disputed charge on my debit card. Sometimes there is a tiny smidge of work, that I usually procrastinate. When I only have one thing to do, it’s hard, for me anyway, to make myself do that one thing, even though my conscience would be clear about all the web surfing if I just went ahead and did it.

Phoebe seems completely fine with me being gone most of the time. It turns out she is a very flexible baby, able to roll with just about anything, boob, bottle, mom, dad, nanny. In some ways that makes it easier, and in some ways that makes it harder. I wish she would seem to need me a little more, but I am glad for Bruce and the nanny that she is still happy. I miss her face, her ready smiles, her faux-hawk hair. Her little voice cooing and squealing at me. I drink in when Bruce tells me about something new she has done that day, like starting to enjoy playing in her Exersaucer or getting up on hands and knees like she's almost ready to crawl. But I also hate it, hate missing it, feel like a fraud for not being there.

It would be better if I had something to do. What's that old saying? "Idle hands are the devil's workshop?" For me, they are depression and inadequacy's workshop. I am not conflicted about being at work. If I had a choice before, when I went back to work with Caetlin, I most assuredly do not now. Plus I have made my peace with the fact that I like to work and don't really want to stay home with the kids, unless Bruce could do it too and we could have lots of help. (I need us to be independently wealthy, apparently.) I'm not in the same place at all that had me gaining 20 pounds because I was so unhappy about leaving my kid when I went back after Caetlin. Three years have taught me that my kids will be smart, happy and healthy even as I go off to work every day. That helps a lot.

So I go, and I sit behind my desk and surf the internet, visiting the same sites over and over, feeling like my behind is growing into my chair. I smile at people in the hall, and field well-meaning inquiries about the baby. I collect my paycheck.

Here's hoping things pick up soon, for the sake of my hours (because the pressure to work hasn't abated and in fact has grown stronger since Bruce's layoff), but mostly for my sake. Because I need something to help me grow back into this role of a working mom. Emphasis on the working.

Tomorrow Is the Day

So...I go back to work tomorrow. I wish I had another month. Or 6. Or 12. It's been especially nice that Bruce has been home with us lately, though unfortunately it was a result of his being laid off.

Phoebe and I are not really separate beings at this point. I mean, of course I see and understand that we are two people, but she doesn't get that yet. And I haven't worked at all to emphasize it. Anytime she cries and I can't soothe her any other way, she gets the breast. My body is hers; I'm sure she sees me as a large extension of herself. I am her hands, her feet, her eyes, her food. I have had to do everything, be everything for her. This was true for Caetlin as well, but less so, in part because I went back to work when she was so much younger than Phoebe, and in part because Phoebe is so much more enamored of me. Caetlin loved me, but Phoebe loooooves me. I calm her more easily than Bruce when she cries (and not just with my boobs!), and she just generally usually seems happier with me.

So, tomorrow will be traumatic for her. And for me. It's not that I think she won't be cared for- she totally will. She'll be with our nanny and Bruce, and she'll be perfectly fine. But she'll miss me. And I will miss her. Every time I am away from her for any period of time, I miss her, like she's a fifth appendage. Even though sometimes I resent being so tied to her, and her to me, when I'm untethered from her I also feel unmoored. I worry for her. I worry that she won't understand that Mommy is coming back, and will only know that she wants me and I'm not there.

And then there is the breastfeeding and pumping thing. I am so nervous that she won't continue to nurse. That is what Caetlin did when I went back to work, and though the circumstances are somewhat different here (Caetlin never nursed without a nipple shield and therefore a bottle was much easier for her, plus she was never an avid nurser like Phoebe anyway), I worry. I want to nurse in the mornings and evenings and pump during the day, rather than pumping everything. Down that road lies madness, as I well know; I pumped for 3 more months with Caetlin after she stopped nursing. Despite my frantic efforts, I never pumped enough for Caetlin to have only breast milk, so after my store of frozen milk went away, I was only able to pump about 40% of the milk she needed as she grew. And to eke out that 40%, I was pumping up to 8 times a day, wrecking my productivity and my emotional state.

My big concern about Phoebe is that she has grown so aware, so interested in the world around her, that she will prefer the bottle because it will be easier to look around while she eats. I know I just need to relax and accept what comes, but it feels like such a personal rejection when the babe refuses to nurse. Such a referendum on my mothering. Or on my decision to keep working (not like I have a choice now, but I have had in the past). At times like those, the internet criticisms of "Why did you have kids if you aren't going to raise them yourself?" haunt me the most.

Anyway, going back is not just about these big things, of worrying that I won't be able to continue nursing Phoebe and fearing the pain of separation from her. It's the small things too- having to get up with an alarm in the morning, instead of waking up with the kids. Not being able to wear my comfortable, machine washable clothing, and generally putting less effort into my appearance (I'm always clean, but I don't remember the last time I put on full makeup, and I stress far less about a spot on my shirt). Having to plan my days more carefully, thinking about kids' mealtimes and pumping and getting to the gym and what deadlines will I have at work, when the past four-plus months have just been one unbroken, underscheduled stretch.

And then there is the frustration of work, of trying to scratch out a place for myself in a department that is indifferent to my efforts. The worry about Bruce, and whether and when and where he will find something. Tomorrow will be the first day in over 4 years that Bruce and I have not worked together (barring my maternity leave with Caetlin, when one of us is sick, etc.). And there is the added pressure of being the breadwinner. Though Bruce is continuing to receive a paycheck, that will run out faster than I can even think about it. It makes me scared for my job, scared for us, even though the numbers crunch just fine on only my salary. I don't like the pressure of carrying the family, not in this economy, in my line of work.

Anyway, I can't stop tomorrow from coming, and it will bring what it will bring. I know from experience that Phoebe will be just fine in the long run. I went back to work much sooner with Caetlin than I have with Phoebe (and can I say just how incomprehensibly short 12 weeks seemed with Phoebe, to the point that I have no idea how I went back when Caetlin was so incredibly young? My hat is off to anyone who can or must go back to work any sooner than that, as I know many women are required to do), and she's a perfectly fine and happy and well-adjusted almost-three-year-old. And she was a perfectly fine and happy and well-adjusted baby after I went back. We will all get used to our new normal, probably pretty quickly. If I keep things in perspective, I know it is not the end of the world, not the end of our relationship, not a sign of poor parenting. It's just...different. Different is not bad. Just different.

So off we go into the great unknown. How will we cope with the changes? I hope better than I did when I went back to work when Caetlin was a baby. At least this time there is not a convenient chocolate-filled holiday nearby, so I hopefully won't put on 20 pounds as a result of being so depressed about going back. That time it was a poorly timed trip to Target- a few weeks before I went back to work, I bought a huge amount of half priced candy that consoled me through the first couple months back at work. Consoled me right into larger sized clothing, too. I didn't lose that weight until about a year ago. Let's hope I can avoid that this time!

In other news, we have spent the last two weeks at the beach, and had a fantastic time. Caetlin, especially, had a wonderful time in the pool and the ocean (Gulf of Mexico, really). She started the vacation in my grandmother's pool with floaties on both arms and a pink inflatable ring around her middle, and she had to be coaxed away from the steps into Bruce's arms. By the end of the two weeks, she was going completely underwater while holding her breath, without her ring (her floaties had been long since discarded). Seeing her gain so much confidence in the water has been really great. I think if we had been there another week, she would have been swimming, as often as she was in the pool. The kid was more or less in her swimsuit from morning until night; we had to pry her out of it. And she's been pretending to be swimming all day today, and asking to go to the pool as well. Bruce and I are both fans of the water (something I remembered about myself when I spent so much time in the pool with Caetlin), so it's no surprise that Caetlin loved swimming so much. I can't wait to get her some lessons so she can really get moving.

Also, Phoebe had rice cereal for the first time today, and loved it. She sucked down spoonful after spoonful and consumed in the neighborhood of a quarter of a cup. She quickly got into the groove of opening her mouth for the spoon. Though she sucked on the spoon, which made a big mess, she clearly loved the whole eating experience. She even started crying and fussing between spoonfuls, because I wasn't pouring it into her fast enough. It was hilarious and awesome and so much fun. When we were done, her little belly was all pooched out and full, and she was basically ready to pass out. After a bath and a short nursing session, she crashed hard (this was after a 2 and a half hour nap this afternoon, which might be the longest nap she's ever taken- girl is sleep deprived and then some from our vacation). I'll look forward to giving it to her again tomorrow. It's something to look forward to about tomorrow anyway.

Reality Comes Crashing In

I go back to work in less than two weeks. That's scary to contemplate. We're at the beach right now, and will be until the Saturday before I go back, so this is my maternity leave swan song. And because we're on vacation, I haven't got the time to really think about going back, to really imagine myself at work all day, pumping a few times, and not seeing Phoebe except in the mornings and evenings. At least, it's easy to avoid that reality, though it is getting harder and harder to ignore.

I thought I was ready to go back. I had a great time at the conference that was held at the end of May, and I really was happy to be back in that professional world for a few days. But now that it's not just a short break from my leave, now that my four and a half months has evaporated like dew on the grass in the hot summer sun, I'm panicking. I thought I would be ready. I've been telling everyone that I am ready. But I'm not ready.

I am more ready to go back than I was with Caetlin, that's for sure. I went back after just 12 weeks, and I couldn't imagine going back at that point with Phoebe. More time is certainly better time.

But she's going to miss me so much. And then she won't. Which is worse?

Maybe not thinking about it is the better way to go. Maybe just confronting it when it's time to set the alarm clock and put on heels and pack the pump is less painful. I really don't know. I'm trying to enjoy the beach while I'm here. We're having a great time. Caetlin loves the pool. Phoebe likes it okay too. We're here with a bunch of my extended family, which is nice. They all love the girls. There is nothing to be sad about when we're here in this tropical paradise.

Yet it is lurking, growing more prominent in my psyche. I'm dealing with some administrative crap already, that needs to be done by the time I go back, so it's sort of more in the forefront than I wish it were. And it's looming large anyway. I can't deny that less than two weeks is not a lot of time.

I thought I was ready. I'm so not.