Work It: a blog for Working Moms

Calm the storm

By Stephanie G.

Have you ever felt like your mind is in a constant rush?  Being a working mother, this is how I usually feel.  I know I make myself feel this way most of the time.  I am the one to blame.  I feel I am needed at so many different areas: home, work, family.  It's a very uncomfortable feeling.  The other day while on an outing with my sisters and a couple of our screaming kids, I did the unthinkable.  I forgot to get my food after paying for it at a drive thru.  Sadly,  it is not the first time.

O.K. here are the details, first of all, I was with two 3 1/2 year old girls.  Their favorite thing to do in the world is fight with each other about nothing and scream at everything else that happens.  When enclosed in a vehicle, this can be very annoying.  Secondly, the food was not for me.  We had already filled our tummies at Mickey D's.  Therefore, food was not on my mind.  It was for my dear mother, who was taking care of my 6 month old baby.  (Oh, I still feel horrible about it, sorry mom!)

All I can remember is that my daughter and niece were screaming for a drink that was almost finished.  We said we would buy them both a drink each.  I guess this is what was on my mind, calming the girls by buying them two kids drinks.  Well, sure enough, the young lady returned my debit card, gave me those priceless drinks, and there I went, off into the sunset.  The bad part is nobody noticed until for some strange reason, about 25 miles on our way back home, it hit me!!  I didn't get my mom's food!  Oh boy, did we have our laugh, just like the employee's some 25 miles back I'm sure.  Yes, it was funny.  Yes, it was sad.  It was then I decided I can't continue feeling so out of it that I forget what I'm doing!

Any suggestions or similar stories, please tell me I'm not alone!

Important Lessons

by Vanessa

Ok, so one of the biggest struggles of a working mom is how to balace work life and home life. You want to be the best you can be in your career, and then switch to being the best mom you can be. It's not easy, but I've learned two very important lessons:
1) You can't expect everything to go as planned
2) Roll with the punches

Once you got that all figured out, it all becomes a lesson in time management. Modern technology is great, but I find that writing down all appointments/activities/errands in one master calendar (I keep on my desk), I can plan my time accordingly. This means, planning every day, from when to grocery shop to hair appointments. BUT, if you refer to lesson #1, you must remember to be flexible.

As I was preparing to defrost dinner, I realized we didn't have what we had planned on eating. Of course! So, I refer again to lesson #1 and find something else. Pork chops in the oven (shake n' baked with some sort of seasoning). As those baked in the oven I made onion rings in the toaster oven and mashed potatoes in the microwave. Dinner was ready in 25 minutes -- I really can give Rachael Ray a run for her money-- and I have modern conveniences to thank.

What would we do without microwaves and such? Well, back in those days, women didn't work.

Today's blog is tributed to: Dr. Percy Spencer - inventor of the microwave

Calmly waiting

by Joy

In two weeks, I am due to have my third child and so far, I am the calmest I have ever been in my history of being pregnant. I thought I would be more panicked than I am, but here I am surprising myself by being rational, calm and incredibly excited. I have purchased all the necessities for the baby, and I do mean necessities, not the entire baby store as I initially did when I had my daughter seven years ago. I have done all the preliminaries – washed the baby clothes, set up the cradle, and even made space in my cabinets for the baby bottles. 

Every time I turn around, I have “well-meaning” people tell me about the horror of having three children.  Based on what I have heard – utter household chaos! Loss of my mind and sense of well-being! Certain bankruptcy! - I should be running screaming for the hills, yet here I am sitting calmly, albeit uncomfortably just waiting to meet my new son. I am actually excited about having my third child. I cannot wait to see those little fingers and toes. Experience the first smile, first giggle, word, step, first everything all over again. I am looking forward to relishing and cherishing all those moments I enjoyed with my daughter and son, somehow this time I know that I am going to savor these moments even more. Perhaps because I am a little older and realize just how precious these moments are. Maybe it is because I am going through other changes in life – starting graduate school to change careers and leaving full-time work behind – I am not sure.

Maybe panic may never come. With three children, husband, school and a household to take care of, there may not be room for panic. The well wishers may be right, exhaustion, exasperation, and exhuberation may take up too much room. In any event, I know that in about 2-3 weeks, my world is going to change yet again and I cannot wait!

Kindergarten, Here we come!

by JenMarie

In a few short weeks we’ll begin the process of kindergarten registration for my oldest.  I can hardly believe she is even old enough to be ready for school!  I am so very excited for her, what a wonderful adventure she is about to embark on.  We’ve been working very hard at home and at preschool to be sure she is ready, from learning her address and phone number to learning to get along with everyone. 

With three kids currently under five, my biggest concern now is making sure everyone is picked up by six o-clock at night.  Drop off and pick up times can vary as long as they are within the allotted time frame, which is fabulous since I am often running behind.  I am also fortunate that both the daycare and preschool provide all meals so I am not packing lunches/snacks either. 

Once school starts we’ll have buses to catch, breakfast to cook and lunches to make.  Not to mention school related activities and a new schedule to work out.  I know that I need to come up with a plan or chaos will be the order of the day.  From what I’ve been able to gather so far, it seems like the biggest recommendation is to do as much as possible the night before.  I would like to have Sydney be more responsible for getting herself (somewhat) ready but I do not want to have unrealistic expectations.   

I would love to hear how others do it, in particular anyone who has one (or more) in school and others still in daycare/preschool. 

What tips do you have to help avoid the morning crunch? 

Post Vacation Blues

by Amy W.

It happens every time. We go away for a weeks vacation, and we come back to our regularly scheduled life, and it just is not the same for the first couple of weeks.

 

First, it is getting back into work. I spent the first day back from vacation sorting through over a hundred emails at work. The second day, I still was not in the mood for work, but at some point I had to get focused and get back on track.

And after eating out for a week, coming home and actually cooking dinner just does not sound like my idea of fun. I rather liked having my meals delivered to me, warm and delicious.

 

And it was not any easier for the kids. My youngest is having a hard time with drop off at daycare in the mornings. She normally goes right in and waves bye to her Dad, and that is it. She has been crying and holding on to her Dad like she had never done before.

 

And I understand. It was a week where it was just us, being a family and enjoying time together. There was no separations, no classes to go to.

 

I know this will all pass, but what can we do to make the transition from vacation back to routine easier?

How to do No. 2 (baby, that is)?

by Jennifer

It seems like so many women I know are having child No. 2 (or in the case of two cousins, No. 3 and No. 4), "perfectly" spaced 2-to-2.5 years apart. Everywhere I go, I see a toddler strapped in a stroller pushed by a mom with a cooing newborn strapped in a sling or Baby Bjorn. My son will turn 2 in early October and we've long said that our kids would (hopefully) be spaced 3-to-4 years apart.

Actually, this was my decree. Being a full-time worker with a full-time worker husband, juggling what we already have on our plate seems like almost as much as we can handle. Then, of course, there are the financial obligations. A second child means two daycare bills to pay every week. And then...the dreaded two-in-diapers household. To me, it seemed that I'd be more sane if we had a second child when my first is closer to 4-years-old because he'll be potty-trained, more independent (and, admittedly, interested in and able to help. As in, grab mommy a paper towel as unbelievable amounts of spit-up spew from baby's mouth) and in free pre-k (daycare costs go down). I also thought by then I might be able to negotiate a few afternoons of work-at-home to make the end-of-day daycare pick-up easier.

Seems like I thought of just about everything. Except I didn't think I'd ever wonder if I even wanted baby No. 2. Let me clarify. I want another child in that maternal, family-oriented, instinctual way. But both emotionally and rationally, I'm having trouble with the idea. Maybe I will get that work-from-home deal two afternoons a week, but it's likely I will ALWAYS work full-time (plus). I feel like the amount of quality time I get to spend with the one child I do have is barely enough. To split that time between two children seems horribly unfair and conjures up the sort of guilt I feel I've mostly avoided so far. And I've pretty much cut out 90% of the me time I ever had. To cut out that quarterly pedicure and rare morning shopping with a friend would be bad for everyone in my family.

Then there's my husband. He's doing better since starting medication for his ADD (something I wrote about in previous posts), but I wonder if a second child would throw his balance too far off. I'm not okay with that. Then there are the logistics. How do I get my son to pre-k in one place (and later, kindergarten) and the baby to daycare in another in a timely manner without starting our mornings even earlier or being constantly late to the office? I treasure my mornings with my son: we eat together, read a book or two, play the get-dressed-brush-teeth game, watch and learn with Elmo and cuddle up for extra hugs. Rushing through through that or cutting it short to get to school and day care and work on time seems unfair, to me.

I could probably hire a teenager or regular sitter to pick up one or the other or both children and bring them home, giving me/my husband an extra 30 minutes to get home each night, but--maybe I am just stubborn--I want one of us to be there at the end of the day. The excited look and the cheers of "Mommy! Mommy!" or "Daddy!Daddy!" make my day.

I've always wanted more than one child, as long as I can remember. I still do, particularly when I see the moms in my neighborhood (many of whom do not work outside the home or work very part-time). But I'm always gonna work and always gonna have a career. The two seem to be at odds and lately, it feels like there's a growing gap between wanting another child and feeling like it could ever be manageable. 

For those of you in the same situation--but with more than one child--did you ever feel this way?  What happened when you added No. 2 and how have you made it work. What have you compromised, changed or just accepted?

How Daddy Does Mornings... and an ADD update

by Jennifer

All those hours I've been working, all those trips out of town... finally... thankfully... over. But with that, my big project of the year is set to hit news stands this week and I've traded in late nights for early mornings. Yes 7 a.m. arrivals for television segments are fun and can be exciting. But they also throw a wrench in our sort-of well-oiled machine. I have the morning parenting shift. My husband usually leaves at 7a.m. and picks our son up from day care at 5:45 p.m. I leave at 8:45 a.m., drop our son off at day care at 9 a.m. and leave work by 6:30 p.m. It works for us. This week, we had to switch shifts.

Let's call it a blessing in disguise. Daddy has never experienced mornings with our son. Weekends don't count since we're usually going at a slow pace. Weekdays... well, you've got to get yourself ready, get the dog taken care of, get our son ready and get out the door. For my husband, leaving at 8:45 a.m. wouldn't work, so he had to do all of this by 7:45 a.m... another wrench in the works. You see, Elmo is on from 7:38 a.m. until 7:54 a.m. and it is the only TV our son watches or even cares about.

At 8:15 a.m., I got a call from my husband. Our son was excited and smiling walking up to the day care. But then he screamed and cried and tugged on my husband's leg when he had to leave. My husband wanted to know if this ever happens to me. My response: "Yup. Usually four days out of five." But hey, I stand by the elevator and listen for him through the door and often wait for him to stop crying before I go--he usually does stop before the elevator arrives to get me. Then I say some sort of affirmation to myself that I am a good mom and I am not hurting my child by sending him to a loving day care (mind you, he doesn't usually want to leave when we pick him up at night and he's practically singing when I tell him we're on our way to day care). My husband's reply: "I don't know how you can stand it." Me either.

Perhaps when this week is over, my husband will have a new appreciation for what I do every morning and realize that his 60 to 90 minutes alone with our son in the evening is a cake walk in comparison. I've done the evening... our son is a little tired, fairly patient about eating (not so in the morning) and ready to sit quietly with mom or dad and a book or some toy cars.

(Speaking of cake walks... a quick update to my post about my husband's newly diagnosed ADD. The first medication seemed to help, although work got most of the benefit of that. But something I'd almost classify as a miracle happened on the first weekend he was taking the Ritalin... we were at the park with another couple. It's a very busy NYC park for toddlers. And my husband... for the first time EVER... was able to have a conversation with his friend AND keep an eye on our son at the same time, without missing a beat on either one. I'm not sure he noticed, but I really did. He's had a follow-up with his doctor and he's started a new, longer-acting, stronger dose medication. Improvements at home should be more noticeable, says the doctor, in the next week. I'm looking forward to it. I'll keep you posted.)

So, any moms out there ever switched shifts with their husbands? How did it go? And what do you do when work gets in the way of routine?

Two jobs, a dog, a child--and ADD

by Jennifer

Oh boy... a week or so ago I wrote about those times when it all just feels like too much. What I didn't reveal then is that after years of believing my husband had a serious case of ADD, I'd finally approached him about it in early May. He was receptive to the idea, did his own research on the subject, told me thought he should be evaluated... and then a downward spiral that led to my last post. I had literally had it up to my eyeballs--and beyond--and my husband saw the click... you know the one... the flip of that internal switch where you've officially checked out. It comes right after the very last, last straw. It's the flip of the switch that isn't always reversed. It was then, when I was seriously contemplating walking out the door--and he saw that it wasn't a threat--that he asked for my help and got moving on the ADD evaluation.

What I didn't know until then: he was starting to have trouble focusing at work, not just  at home. At work, he's always been able to hyper-focus and hone in on details so clearly that he has become a star player. I discovered, too, that for work stuff, to keep on track, he keeps extremely detailed organizational reminders in a small notebook. At home, though, he is  all over the place. There's no home notebook. He gets up and walk around while I am speaking to him, doesn't concentrate on much (except baseball games), is quick to get frustrated and--the piece that finally drove me to broach the subject--is not very able to tune in to our son. I hear our son call out "daddy" four or five times--and my husband is a foot away (seriously) and it doesn't register. Or, our son will be looking through books, trying to figure out what things are and my husband cannot not sit for even a minute (honestly) to tell him the names of the animals before he moves to another toy and tries to lure our son over. I rarely get the feeling that he's "present." These are just some examples.

So, this week, my husband went to his not-covered-by-insurance $375 ADD expert evaluation. And as anyone who knows him more than casually would have already guessed--he scores fairly high to off-the-charts on the ADD screening questions. Yes, he has ADD. And now he also has a prescription in hand. I know people feel strongly about medication--some pro and some con--but I have to be honest, I've hung my hopes on the pills working enough for my husband to be present at home.

Here's why: First off, for our son's sake. My husband is very loving and he's a caring father, but even he knows that he's out of tune with our son. I want to see their relationship change. The rest of my reasons are very selfish. For one, my husband gets social cues at work, but at home and with his family, he's totally clueless (a big ADD symptom, I've learned). Body language? He can't read it well. Crying wife? I might just be missing my grandmother, but he doesn't tune in and think, "Oh, she needs a hug" and yet, he is a loving person. He interrupts, floats into conversations he wasn't really listening to... What's more, I do everything in our family (except vacuuming--leave it to me and it won't get done--and laundry--my husband has this thing about separating clothes and I could care less, so he does it). Bills? I make sure they are paid. Child care? I take care of all the arrangements and conversations. Going on a trip? I plan everything, pack everything, arrange everything, checklist everything (including my husband's list), load the car, keep track of the money, etc. Dog needs medicine refilled or more food? My husband doles out the medicine in the morning. If I forgot to check on how much was left, it might be two weeks before he tells me the pill bottle is empty. I've got to work late and our son needs to eat? If I don't leave instructions on what to do, they eat cheese and deli meat.

Decisions to be made on where to go, what to do and how to get there? Maintenance in the apartment? Furniture to put together? Doctor's appointments to make?  EVERYTHING? I do it all. It's not that my husband won't (although I did believe that for a long time), it's that he can't. He literally cannot plan a trip or deal with small details like bill-paying. So I do most of what needs to be done to keep our life in order. Oh, and I also work a full-time job that, many weeks, requires more hours  than my husband's does.

I get really annoyed. No, I get really, really, really annoyed. It's like I have two kids, plus a job, plus, plus, plus, plus. So, very selfishly, I want the medicine (and the accompanying coping techniques the book and doctor offer up) to work. And fast. I'm kinda tired of doing it all. I want to be supportive. But I want to be less responsible, too. I long imagined that my husband did more around the house and family-wise than a lot of husbands. But I realized that I've sugar-coated it. He does what he can, and without being able to focus, it's haphazard, half-done and inconsistent. Somehow, I've compensated for it and appreciated the effort more than I should have. But it wasn't until the flip switched that my eyes opened and I saw it all clearly. (Disclaimer: since most of this note is about the negatives, I feel I must tell you that he's not like this all the time... and my husband is one of the most caring people I know... it's at odds with the ADD traits.)

I'm curious to know if any of you have a spouse with ADD--or if you have ADD yourself. How do you cope? How do you maintain a supportive role AND keep from feeling annoyed and resentful about being the do-it-all person in your family?  How do you help your spouse (or yourself) connect better with your children?

Grandparents should relieve stress, not cause it!

by Debbie

Growing up is tough. I’m sure there was a point in all of our lives when we couldn’t wait to be 18 and be able to do whatever we wanted. We couldn’t wait to put the stress of our parents behind us. Then we go to college, and we realize that our parents aren’t as bad as we thought they were. We actually grow really close to them during this time and they actually become our *gulp* friends.

So when I started having kids I was pretty excited. Here I had a pair (because of course I had acquired in-laws) of experienced moms, who were my “friends,” that could offer me a ton of advice. It would be smooth sailing. My mom would come home with us from the hospital and stay and help me learn how to be a mom and teach me all of her wonderful secrets. And all the grandparents would want to play with my kids all the time and try to spend as much time with us as possible.

Only, that’s not how it works. Over the past four years I have realized that grandparents can cause a ton of stress. And I think it’s getting worse each year. Chances are you have to deal with not enough help from them, or too much help from them. Sometimes they don’t really want to spend time with their grandchildren or sometimes they’d rather spend more time with their other grandchildren.  Making sure that time is split evenly between both sets of grandparents, etc. I think dealing with my parents and in-laws is worse now than when I was in high school.

I think grandparents are so important. I think they have the potential to provide tons of wisdom and guidance to their children, as well as be great playmates of the grandchildren. They’ve been their before, they know the ropes. Shouldn’t they have to pass their knowledge down?

Unfortunately there are too many moms and dads out their without the grandparent help, and that is just so sad. Thankfully my parents are wonderful grandparents to my kids. Of course there’s more I wish they would do, but overall they spend a lot of time with the kids and love them to death. What more could I really ask for?

I have started a website  - www.theultimategrandparents.wordpress.com - that is all about grandparents, and how, in the minds of parents, one could be an ideal grandparent. If nothing else, my husband and I want to have it to refer back to when we become grandparents, so that we don’t forget all the little things we can do to make our kids’ lives happier and easier. Feel free to check it out and leave your feedback!

Two is the perfect number

By Laura W.

My husband Rob and I have two kids, and we're debating about having a third. He wants it, I don't. We both come from small families, but we had always talked about having three or four. Now, after having two, I'm very sure I don't want another.

It's not that I don't love my kids, because I do. I guess I didn't expect how much more work having two kids will be. Or how much it would take out of me. Physically, emotionally, I feel drained. Rob works nights, so from Monday to Friday I’m a single parent. I have to deal with all the work that comes with having a 6-year-old and a 14-month-old: dinner time, baths, play time, bedtime stories, homework, sports, getting stuff ready for the next day, and the never ending list of house chores that need to be done.

What bothers me the most is the lack of time for me. With two kids there is no downtime, no breaks. Someone is always clamoring for my attention. I can't even go to the bathroom without an entourage.

Sometimes I feel like I'm being selfish. I see the other mothers at the park, with 3 or 4 kids, and I think "well, if they can do it, why can’t I?" But after working at a full time job all day I get home to my second shift, and I know there's just so much I can handle.