Category Archives: Working Mom

>Jack’s Birthday

>So, Jack’s birthday is right around the corner, and if I hadn’t been keeping track, I might think he was turning two instead of one. Thursday morning he woke up at about 6:30 and when I went in to get him from his crib he said, “Mama! Mama!” And he gave me a big hug. I snuggled with him on the rocking chair and I said, “Do you want some milk?” No, he didn’t, and he told me by shaking his head no. Awww, so cute. And really, who would be hungry at 6:30 am when they had just eaten at 4:45am?

This morning I am happy to announce that my little angel slept until 6am straight through the night. I was so confused when I woke up – what time is it? did I forget to set the alarm? where am I? I remembered dreams for the first time in a year. Crazy, weird dreams. And this morning Jack ate and then slid off my lap to start playing. I sat there, blissfully imagining a productive work day where my head didn’t hit the keyboard at any point in time. And then I said, “Jack, do you want to get dressed?”

He shook his head “no”.

Other questions posed to Jack today:
Do you want some milk before dinner? No.
Are you hungry? No.
Do you want some more? No.
Do you want to get down? No.

And so on.

So now that he waves, high fives (sometimes), says “Dada” and “Mama”, says “nom nom nom” when he wants to eat, and shakes his head no, we are all working on teaching the little gentleman to say, “Yes.”

And at daycare they are teaching him to blow kisses, and if he learns that, I’ll probably forgive everything else for a while.

>The Balance Myth

>I have a lot to say about the B word. (Balance.) But I don’t really have time to write the whole post now. I was thinking about it on the way to a work meeting at around 7:10 am this morning, at Jack’s 9 month check up, on and off during work, while I was riding my bike to the school meeting where I volunteered to be the kindergarten liaison, and I thought some more while I was nursing Jack to sleep, and then while Dave and I were picking up the house. Then I rode my bike to Andrea’s house to make a peanut butter sandwich for Luke’s lunch box since she lives halfway to the grocery store and we were out of peanut butter. So ideas are percolating about the balance myth. Just an FYI about what I am working on, in my little, sleep deprived brain.

Jack Report: He is meeting milestones like a champ, and he weighs 17 pounds, 6 ounces. This is slightly below the 10% percentile. He’s been right at 10 for his whole life and a little drop at 9 months is to be expected since he is so active. Of course, he is 9.5 months, but whatev. 50% for height and 25% for head size.

Luke Report: He did not get the milk! My powers are not as strong as I thought. I am just going to get him a thermos, I guess. At the meeting today a subcommittee was formed to discuss why 15 minutes isn’t enough time for lunch and what can be done about it. If Luke doesn’t want to waste precious eating time, trying to buy milk, I guess I can deal with it. He also came home yesterday and the day before in a very good mood and he made a friend at after school care so all is right with the world. (He now has $29.50 in his online account but I suppose he can use that up over the next 12 or 13 years.)

Megan Report: Speaking of milk, the daycare has been saying I am not sending enough milk and I have been stressing. Jack’s weight drop stressed me even more. I asked the Dr. about it, and I said the only thing I can think to do is add a late night pumping session. He said mother nature is in charge and Jack is doing fine. Whatever I pump is enough and I would be better off going to bed instead of trying to pump one more time. Yea! A tremendous weight has been lifted!

>A Break From the Funny

>Luke hates after school care. The reason: He has to sit on the floor and wait for the Y-Care teacher to come get him while every other kid says, “I see my mommy!”, gives the teacher a high five and walks out the door.

It breaks my heart.

I know a second grader who loves after school care, and a first grader who begs his mom to sign him up. I know a family that says their kids love every minute and are sad to be picked up. I am sure this is a phase and that I am more upset than he is, but it’s rough.

I am trying to remember how long it took from Luke to go from missing his mommy at pre-school to wishing I wouldn’t come to get him so early. I’m not going to try too hard to remember though because I am afraid it might have been a couple months.

>Party Time

>I have a great Now and Then post but it will have to wait for tomorrow because the videos are taking forever to upload and I want to go to bed. So instead I am going to talk about a really fun party we attended on Friday.

The party was for a bunch of people who used to work together, (pre-layoffs and outsourcing) and that is great for me because I do my best networking with a beer in one hand and a baby on my hip. “Sure it’s a 24×7 job, but don’t you really need someone to work just until 3:00 pm? My customers love me, you know that!” And this wasn’t just any beer, this was Michelob from the kegerator on the porch. The kegerator next to the cotton candy machine.

Oh, and did I mention the zip line that went across the pool?

We stayed until about 9:00 (late!) and Jack fell asleep at his normal time like a good boy.

OK, I’ll be honest, this post is just to annoy my co-workers (one of whom is knitting a voodoo doll as I type) by flaunting my sleeping baby. Speaking my my co-workers, it’s time for another get together with Baby Katie, aka Pinchy, because I get a lot more hits when I feature Jack’s girlfriend. I mean because we have such a good time!

And I am sure I am jinxing the sleeping through the night thing that we have going on!

>Blog It Out

>
Monday night I was live blogging our first attempt at crying it out while simultaneously googling “crying it out”. Who knew that allowing your baby to cry causes most of the problems in our society today? Probably lots of people. Of course it wasn’t as easy as letting Jack cry for 10 minutes, as I reported, and the next day I sighed, and rubbed my eyes, and commiserated at work with my fellow mommies about how I was up until 12:45, when I finally gave in and nursed my little baby to sleep. And then we were up again at 6am. Poor me. And then I was banished from the club, stripped of my complaining rights, and that was that.

Since other people have it worse, I did not volunteer the fact that Tuesday night, Jack slept from 8pm to 6am. So it seems that our evening of crying it out was totally effective, just what the doctor ordered, and the answer to everything! (Probably not.) Or maybe Jack was just having a hard time adjusting to the crib after sleeping so close to his mom and dad and brother all weekend on our camping trip. (Oh, the guilt.) Regardless, the damage has been done and Jack is now as ruined as his older brother.

In other sleep related news, I will now begin getting a lot more of it because we watched the last episode of Deadwood this evening. That makes 36 episodes in about 6 weeks. I will now go into withdrawal, and to get through it I think I’ll try to get to sleep before midnight a few time a week.

Now to sleep – last night I dreamed of a skunk eating all the vegetables in my garden. Possibly as it was actually happening. Darn that skunk and it’s zucchini, melon, and pumpkin leaf eating!

>Customer Support

>I have been working on installing a new piece of software for about a month now, on and off. I finally gave up and put in a ticket with the vendor. We went through three rounds of “actually that documentation is wrong, try this” until the issue was escalated up to the next level. A conference call was planned between Level 1 guy, Level 2 gal, and me. It started at 1 p.m. and first, Level 2 gal validated everything I had done so far. She found one error and we fixed it. Still didn’t work. Then she started instant messaging Level 3 guy and got one more suggestion. We got one step farther, but it still didn’t work. Then Level 2 gal got two co-workers to look over her shoulder and we went through the whole thing again. No good. So by the end of the 2.5 hour call, it was me, Level 1 guy, Level 2 gal, Level 3 guy on IM, and Level 2 gal’s co-worker 1, and co-worker 2 on the call. (And I could hear some of them looking for answers on google.) Oh, and Jack. Did I mention I was working from home and that Jack was also participating in the call? During this call I nursed Jack, burped him, put him down to play, where he screamed happily and then unhappily, then I put him in the sling and set my laptop on the counter so I could stand, sway, and work. Then I put him down for a nap. When he woke up, I changed his diaper and fed him again. He played with books in my lap. All the while I was troubleshooting this problem, and if Jack had been silent I don’t think anyone would have even known. Of course, we was very vocal. And there was one point where I had to put him down so I could type with two hands and he screamed. SCREAMED. Level 2 gal begged me to pick him back up. I am a fast one-handed typer, but sometimes I need to be twice as fast. I picked him up and he was fine.

I wish the problem was solved, but this was just a necessary step on the way to solving the problem. A long, 2.5 hour, headset-less, one handed, baby-holding phone call. And usually I don’t get anything done when Jack is being fussy!

Photo Credit

>Moms In The City

>For some unknown reason, I had been lying to the pediatrician at each visit about my work status. At one appointment I said I hadn’t started working yet, when I had already started working. Then, later, I said I was working part time, when I was actually full time. I also said there were only 4 kids in Jack’s class at daycare, when there are really eight. I guess I was fearing judgment, or feeling guilty. Or maybe I thought the pediatrician couldn’t handle the news all at once and I needed to break it to him slowly. Regardless, at this 6 month checkup I came clean. Working full time and there are 8 kids in his class at daycare. The pediatrician asked what Jack is eating at the day care and I said that I was pumping, and he was getting breast milk. Reaction: “That is just great. That means you can have a fulfilling career, in addition to the career of being a mother, and Jack can still get all the benefits of breast milk. It can be done, and I wish more mothers knew that. There needs to be something on the television that educates women about pumping at work and continuing to breast feed.” I took that to mean two things.

1.) It is socially acceptable to return to full time work when you have a 6 month old. (And maybe even earlier. I don’t know because of my truth telling problem.)
2.) I should take my blog and turn it into a best selling book, and then turn my best selling book into a TV show like Sex in the City, but about combining careers and babies. There would be a few differences. Say, more flip flops, fewer Manolo Blahniks, replace Barneys with Gap Kids, fewer designer clothes, more mom jeans. JUST KIDDING about the mom jeans.

I try to follow the pediatrician’s advice, and if he thinks this TV show needs to exist, then I need to get started.

Plus, shenanigans at work this week provided enough fodder for the two part season finale. Guys using the lactation room for who knows what, non-interested parties butting in; I don’t want to spoil the whole plot but let’s just say that one of the best comebacks ever uttered in a fit of rage was uttered, sadly, not by me. “Why don’t you eat your LUNCH in the BATHROOM!?”


>A Case of the Frump

>My spring wardrobe has always been lacking, and now that I still have some pregnancy weight to lose, and I must always wear something that makes nursing convenient, I am really limited. So limited that in the past few weeks I have been ranging from minor fashion faux pas to major fashion don’ts.

It all started when I quit my glamorous career on the cutting edge of database technology in exotic Broomfield. It wasn’t the epicenter of fashion, but I only saw someone wearing rubber clown shoes to work once, in three years. And it was close to a shopping mall. Now that I never need to sully my compact car with the dust of Broomfield, and I have actually been trying to bike to work more, and I still have weight to lose, and Old Navy left Boulder, well let’s just say I haven’t quite figured out my new fashion niche. (Pronounced neeeeeesh by my brother.)

So I end up biking to work in a pencil skirt (with shorts underneath) and heels one day, and then trying to convince myself that flip flops are socially acceptable for work the next day. I did end up wearing my flip flops because during my reverie, I accidentally dropped a chunky heeled sandal on my foot and thought I broke my toe. Here is what I learned about wearing my (really cute) new flip flops to work: I am short. And flip flops make a lot of noise in a quiet office. And they look terrible with the capri pants I should have donated to charity 5 years ago.

Also, when I meet all the local hot mamas and their children for a dinner playdate, I should shower, wear my contacts, and sport something other than my gray fleece.

Will I lose those last 7 pounds? Or just break down and buy some bigger clothes? Can I strike the right balance of bike-wearable-professional-fashionable clothes? Should I just try to meet some uglier friends? Stay tuned.

>Prospecting for Liquid Gold

>
I may be about to jinx myself into writers block, but events transpired today to assure me that I will not soon run out of material for this blog. Earlier today, my friend said, “i just picked up a piece of garbage flying around the yard that says our block party is saturday.” And I said, “Can I pretend it happened to me? I don’t have a blog post for tomorrow yet. ” But then an exciting thing happened. Wine was delivered to me at work! I drunkenly joined a wine club in Napa 2 years ago to get 20% off all my purchases that day. The plan was to quit when I got home. Woo hoo, 20% off! Then I thought, why not just get one shipment and then cancel? So four times a year I get wine shipped to me at work (can’t be shipped at home because an adult has to sign for it.) I always think, “Yea! wine! I’ll plan a special meal and drink delicious wine with it! Then I make my usual weekly menu of pizza, spaghetti, tofu stir fry, chicken something, leftovers, burritos, and The Southern Sun. I did recently make risotto and had to use some good wine and it was soooo good. But mostly, I am accidentally building up a collection of wine by not canceling my wine club membership, not drinking the good wine because I never plan a good meal, and then buying Red Truck whenever it’s on sale and drinking it with pizza.

ANYWAY, my wine arrived today, and I picked it up on the way back from the lactation room. I always mean to bring some sort of milk satchel, with which to conceal the expressed breast milk, but it’s not that hard to conceal 3 ounces in the palm of your hand. Unless you are carrying a box of wine. So I picked up the wine, and laid the ziplock bag of milk across the top of the box and went on my merry way across the parking lot back to my office, contemplating the blood of life, and mothers milk. It was sunny, and I was smiling. I smiled at the VP in the suit when I walked in, and he even seemed about to smile back at me when I tripped and the bag of milk went flying and landed at his feet.

“Ahhhh!”

“Aaaah!”

That was the conversation we had instead. Very professional. I snatched up the milk and ran away. Stopped at my bosses office and had this conversation:

“I just tripped right in front of [VP] while carrying milk and a box of wine.”
“I hope you saved the wine.”
“I did save the wine, but the milk is more valuable!”
“Is it? You can always make more milk.”

Fortunately the milk survived too. My dignity on the other hand? Not so much.

(Photo Credit to either Melanie or Jill who took this picture after we were bullied into a tour at Gundlach Bundschu)

>Rolling, Rolling, Rolling Part 2

>Tuesday the daycare poured out a bottle of Jack’s milk because they tried feeding it to him and he fell asleep. When he woke up the milk had expired. I have milk issues people! You can’t just feed the milk to other babies or pour it down the sink! I furiously turned to the internets for backup, but the internets seem to think that the milk needed to be poured out or else it would be spoiled. This never happened when Dave stayed home with Luke! Oh, yeah, he probably did not concern himself with milk storage guidelines and that was fine with everyone.

I left work at 3:15 to nurse Jack. Another baby was being fed when I got there, and I kid you not, the bottle had 10 ounces in it. I struggle to eek out three 4.5-5.5 ounce bottles a day. 10 ounces? Are you kidding me? It turns out there is this stuff called formula. All the babies drink it. All the babies except Jack that is, which may be why they don’t realize I’ll have a minor heart attack if they waste any milk. Long story short, I am awesome.

But the point is, after I fed Jack, the oldest kid in the infant room, who is anxiously awaiting a space in the toddler room, kept coming over and putting a big cube on Jack’s lap. Then Jack pushed it off, then the kid put it back and I realized: It’s time to start teaching this kid to play ball!

So, after dinner Jack sat on my lap, and Luke rolled us a ball. Jack picked it up, and threw it back. It was the greatest thing ever! Except when Luke got tired of rolling and felt the need to toss it so it landed exactly on Jack’s legs where he’d have an easy time picking it up. OK, that was fine, but when Luke missed it got a little worrisome. Luke was also constantly correcting my method of teaching Jack to roll a ball. I finally said, “Do you know how to roll a ball? Who do you think taught you? Yeah, that’s right, I did. I know how to teach someone to roll a ball. Do not question my methods.” Then when Jack spit out the pacifier in favor of gumming the ball, it was all over. You know, for someone who has had everything he ever wanted all to himself for 5 years, Luke isn’t that great about sharing his toys. Oh. Yeah. Got it. It’s only gonna get worse, kid.