Transitions

Everyone has been asking me how the transition to the working world has been going for me and I'm happy to report it's been going well.  Just a few months ago I never imagined I'd be back in the working world, and particularly not in the housing finance field, where my co-workers all have mortgage lending, real estate or investment banking backgrounds.  I was nervous not just about getting up to speed in a new job, but also about how I'd handle the logistics of the work/life balance.  There'd be getting two kids and myself ready in the morning and being somewhere on time, relegation chores and errands to evenings and weekends, less time for friends, hectic evenings, and the biggest adjustment of all, reduced time with my kids. 

I can thank a smooth transition on two things: a short commute and our nanny.  I work three miles from home.  At my last job, I commuted 32 miles of highway across three counties in no less than 40 minutes.  With kids and daycare hours and drop-off and pick-up and getting stuck in traffic, well, it would have been miserable.  Instead, my commute is a ten-minute relaxing drive on city streets and I'm close enough I can run home if I forget something or reach my kids easily if need be. 

Then we hired a nanny.  We thought we'd put the kids in daycare because we liked the reliability of a center with its limited closings.  I'd even dismissed a friend's suggestion of a nanny when she heard how much we were going to spend on daycare.  But when we found out at a family gathering on Christmas Eve that Chris's cousin's new wife, Ashley, was looking for a new job after her other position concluded at the end of December, we e-mailed her as soon as we got home that night and a few days later we had a new nanny.  As my start date approached, if feelings of sadness overwhelmed my feelings of excitement, remembering that Ashley would be taking care of our children in their own home comforted me.

It wasn't until the whirlwind of my first morning when I realized the other stress relief a nanny provided besides peace of mind.  No matter where my kids are in the process of their morning routine, Ashley picks up where I leave off.  One or both kids may or may not have eaten, had their diapers changed or gotten out of their pajamas when she arrives, but she takes over and I can head out the door and straight to work without adding an extra 20 minutes (at least) and all that energy to drop the kids off at daycare.  It's awesome.  I realized this is what every morning had been like for Chris when I was a stay-at-home mom, except he probably didn't appreciate just being able to walk out the door and know everything with his kids was under control.  But I sure do, and again, it's awesome. 

So I'm not getting up at some crazy hour to get everyone ready, packing lunches and diaper bags, trudging to the car with kids and gear, and fighting traffic.  I actually show up at work reasonably relaxed.  I'm even enjoying cubicle life where I have a space to call my own and keep clean and organized. 

Working life has not been completely without its stresses.  For the first two weeks, Oliver cried when I left in the morning and it took a lot of patience and creativity on Ashley's part to keep him distracted, and reminders on my part to take it easy on myself for feeling guilty.  And I've had to change work clothes at the last second on more than one occassion because Soren spit up on me.  And there'll be the day when Ashley gets sick and Chris and I have to make a last-minute decision on what we want to do for alternative childcare.  But overall, the stresses have been minor and nothing worse, even if they're different, than the stresses I dealt with as a SAHM.

My grandmother told me the other night, "You'll love your kids equally, but you won't always like them equally."  Ah, how I totally get that.  (Even if it makes me cringe to wonder at what points during my childhood I was in an "unlikable" stage.)  Every stage of childhood has its challenges for parents, and honestly, sometimes I have patience for some challenges more than others.  So be it.  Every parent hears the phrase, "This too shall pass."  And it shall.

Dinner a work in progress

The only thing that's changed about dinner time at my house since Oliver was born has been standards.  My goal is still harmonious, relaxing family dinners with well-balanced, homemade meals.  In the meantime, I'm expecting that dinner time will be chaotic at least through the toddler years and achieving the vision I'd always had of family dinners is simply a work in progress. 

If I get home from work on time, I have about 30 minutes to feed the baby, set the table and prepare dinner before Oliver hits meltdown mode.  And by prepare dinner, I mean, microwave leftovers or whatever meal exchange meal I'd (hopefully) remembered to transfer from the freezer to the fridge to thaw that morning.  Chris and I learned on the evening of my first day back at work that actual cooking on a work night just isn't feasible.  Chris, meanwhile, entertains the kids, and somehow we manage to pull ourselves together for a family dinner.  Oliver may be throwing a fit about what's for dinner, while Soren suddenly needs to nurse and Chris or I or both of us shuttle back and forth between the dining room and the kitchen for a forgotten utensil or a refill of Oliver's water, but we do eventually make it to the table and sit down to eat together.

And this beautiful family harmony, the quintessential image I carry in my mind of what families do together, lasts, oh, about ten minutes.  And whining and crying often make up a good portion of that precious time.  Sometimes we go against better parenting practices and acquiesce to Oliver's request (demand) for a "wahwipop," but it buys us not just extra time at the dinner table, but Oliver's good mood. 

I'm realizing it takes time and a lot of modeling before children are old enough to master social mores, manners and all that.  Like I said, it's a work in progress.

Chris returns from London tomorrow and I look forward to resuming life as part of a two-parent household.  He had more fun than he could have imagined and, as for me at home on the other side of the Atlantic?  It wasn't so bad.  That is, thanks to all the wonderful people my children and I have in our lives.  The relatives who babysat, our reliable nanny who took over every workday morning where I had left off in getting the kids up and ready for the day, and the friends who came over to share dinner, playdates or walks.  The experience made me realize how much more manageable parenting is (whether your partner is away or not) when you're surrounded by support.

Falling in love all over again

Chris only spent a few hours a day at the hospital when Soren was born; the rest of the time he was home with Oliver, who was sick.  I had felt so lonely when Chris left the hospital for the night the day after Oliver's birth.  Chris was getting no sleep there and there was a lot to do at home since we were about to move.  This time I savored all the alone time I had with Soren. Back home, there would be housework and meal prep and most of all, another child who'd want my attention.  I appreciated what a special opportunity I had to spend undivided time with my new little baby.

So during my stay at the hospital, my focus was on Soren.  I spent hours relaxing in bed feeding him, snuggling with him, watching him sleep, marveling at the unique facial expressions only a newborn can make, taking pictures of him, and falling in love with him.  Yes, after a miserable pregnancy and an even more miserable and disappointing labor that had all left me worried that I hadn't bonded with my unborn child, and the anxiety that had built up about whether I could cope with two children, I surprisingly knew within those first few days that I was in the love.  The kind of ridiculous, sappy, I-can't-stop-kissing-his-soft-plump-cheeks in love.

Falling in love had been a slower process with Oliver. As I awkwardly adjusted to parenthood, it was like I had to learn how to love someone who literally had just appeared in my life.  One of the greatest surprises for me about becoming a parent for a second time is that falling in love with my child could come so much quicker . Knowing what my love for Oliver felt like, I almost immediately recognized the same feeling for my new son, and that was incredible.

The cynic in me couldn't help but feel vindicated too.  For all that I had read and comments I had endured about needing to bond with your child in utero, about how drugs during labor, c-sections and not doing skin-to-skin and breastfeeding immediately afterward (to my surprise, I was offered the opportunity to hold Soren immediately after his birth, but I declined because I was just exhausted and thought it'd be too awkward given that I was lying flat on my back and my arms were partially numb) affect your ability to bond with your child, Soren and I were doing more than fine. 

Used baby gear

When it comes to baby products, sometimes I wonder if recommendations about buying new isn't based solely on concern for safety, but with increasing company profits. First it was only car seats that experts were telling parents had to be purchased new, then when the law went into effect banning the manufacture of drop-side crib, suddenly all second-hand cribs, even if they hadn't been recalled and met current safety specifications, were a no-no.  I've even seen some sources warning parents that used crib mattresses are a SIDS risk and others saying that a car seat shouldn't be reused for a younger sibling because new safety features are being added all the time.  I obviously support strict standards of safety for products used for or by children, but what frustrates me is the blanket ban of classes of used products without either an explanation of why a second-hand product is unsafe or education about how to evaluate whether a product could be safely reused.  Sure it's easier to just say, don't reuse such and such, and buy new instead to guarantee safety.  (But given all the recalls, buying new simply for safety's sake can be a false sense of security.)  But parents are going to continue to seek hand-me-downs and honestly, buying new for many parents is not an option. 

Like many expecting parents, Chris and I were overwhelmed with everything we needed to prepare to welcome home a new baby and we bought as much second-hand as we could to save money.  I thought I was being thrifty when I bought a barely-used double-electric Medela brand Pump in Style Advanced breast pump from an acquaintance.  After I delivered Oliver, a nurse offered to show me how to use the pump, but was horrified when she found out it was used.  She explained that the way my pump was designed, there was the potential for milk to pass through the pumping mechanism, meaning that if my friend had a disease, it could be passed on to my baby.  I was frustrated that Medela is forcing every women who wants or needs to pump into buying an expensive new pump just because it designed a pump in such a way that it could potentially cause a transfer of disease, even though the company makes hospital-grade pumps whose design isn't a health risk for the pumps' multiple users.  I wasn't about to demand a medical history from the woman I bought the pump from, and Chris and I decided it wasn't worth the risk, so we threw it out, despite the voices lingering in my head of my mom and ueber-frugal maternal grandmother exclaiming, "That was a perfectly good pump!"

Turns out I didn't need that expensive pump.  Like so many other baby products I bought because everyone else said I needed them, I didn't evaluate the need for a double-electric pump based on my particular circumstances.  I was a stay-at-home mom who spent little time away from my baby and I didn't have time to pump anyway. 

But going back to work after Soren's birth made me look into breast pumps again.  I almost considered not pumping at all, given how unappealing it seemed to me, and then the prices of new pumps were stressing me out given all the other expenses I was incurring to get ready to go back to work.  Breastfeeding is touted as being cost-free, but that's only if you breastfeed on demand and never leave your baby, which really, how many can logistically pull that off, or want to do that?  So then you have the cost of bottles, the pump and a myriad other accessories associated with storing milk or cleaning bottles and pump parts.  But I had a supportive office environment and I didn't want to jeopardize my milk supply for breastfeeding outside of work, so I decided I'd give pumping a go.

When a friend offered to sell me her also barely-used Pump in Style Advanced pump during search number two, I told her I'd been down that road before.  Even though she assured me that her pump had not been "contaminated," and she's someone I trust greatly, I realized I wasn't going to consider buying even her pump if I didn't finally examine one and see for myself what the big worry was concerning milk getting into the pumping mechanism.  I happened to stop by another friend's house the next day, and I asked to look at her pump and have her explain to me how it worked.  I'd always assumed the milk passes through the two, long thin tubes that connect the breast shields and bottles to the electric pump, so as soon as that nurse in the hospital after Oliver's birth said that the pumping mechanism couldn't be sterilized, I never questioned the actual potential for contamination..  But once I saw that only air passes through the tubes and the expressed milk drips straight into the bottle and that it would take a major malfunction for milk to backup through those looooong tubes to reach the pumping mechanism, I completely trusted buying my friend's pump off her. 

And then I got really mad that so many women are being scared off from buying affordable, but used, equipment.  As a parent-to-be and then a new parent, I had no idea what to look for half the time.  I couldn't tell a useful piece of baby gear from a worthless, albeit, still safe, piece.  I trusted something just because it was new, even though I had no idea how to eveluate if the product would prove to be safe, (or eventually be recalled) and avoided everything I heard from whatever source, regardless of credibility, could be unsafe.  After being entrenched in the world of baby gear for a few years now, I feel like I have a better handle on evaluating used items.  There are many things I will buy off Craig's List or from consignment sales, and there are a couple of things I'll only buy from trusted friends like car seats and breast pumps.

Even if I threw one perfectly good pump away, I'm happy I didn't end up buying a brand-new one like I'd thought I would have to.  My friend has some extra cash for something she'll never use again and I'm keeping one piece of baby gear out of the landfill.

Missing Daddy

Oliver has been missing Daddy ever since Chris left for London for his J-term class.  The older Oliver gets, the harder it is for everyone when Chris leaves.  Oliver was not much more than a year old when Chris started traveling to Dallas, and because Chris's class and studying schedule meant that he sometimes went a whole week without seeing Oliver.  At that age, our little guy probably didn't notice the difference between not seeing his dad because he came home every night after his bedtime and not seeing him because he was in another state for the entire week.  As Oliver got older, though, he became more attached to Chris, and by the end of the project in Dallas the following summer, I'd have to take Oliver to the park while Chris waited for his taxi to the airport, because watching Dad leave after such a fun day of playing made him too sad.  (And me too.)     

Now that Oliver can talk, I must hear "I miss Daddy," 100 hundred times a day, and that's just while Chris is at work, let alone overseas.  (Chris swears Oliver says he misses Mommy when I'm gone, but I have trouble believing he says that with quite the repetition he employs to express his feelings about missing Daddy.)  So when it came time to leave for London, Chris chose to arrive at the airport four hours before his flight, instead of stopping at home between leaving work and needing to be at the airport. 

What Oliver doesn't understand at this age is how much he's still a part of his dad's life even when they're not together.  Chris and I have been fortunate to be able to talk to each other every day and a lot of our conversation consists of exchanging anecdotes about Oliver - from my end, updates of what he did that day and from Chris's end, stories about things that reminded him of Oliver or places he went or things he saw that he knows Oliver would have loved. 

Oliver loves buses so much that "bus" was one of his first words.  And what's a more iconic image of London than the red double-decker buses?  In between class and socializing with his professor and classmates at a nearby pub and attending his first English football match, Chris has been venturing out to see as much as London and he can.  He totes along a toy bus he bought as a present for Oliver, and along the way, he'll stop and take a picture of the bus against the backdrop of London city life.  And I know how much he looks forward to coming home and being able to show Oliver the pictures from his trip and what he and Oliver's new bus got to see. 



My brother, Scott, is a big-time runner and hopes to have two future runners plodding along behind him (or preferably in front of him) in a race some day. 

Soren update: 3 months

I can already see the shift from newborn sleep patterns to baby sleep patterns in Soren.  It happens so quickly that it took me as a new parent by surprise.  I finally thought I'd mastered combining parenting and a social life by carting Oliver with me to restaurants or parties at friends' houses, when he suddenly seemed to have forgotten how to fall asleep anywhere.  He had slept through the fire alarm going off right above his head when I almost burned the house down two days before we sold it and moved, yet the chatter at a dinner party sent him into hysterics.

But I was better prepared with Soren.  On my birthday two years ago, I was out to dinner with family and I could hardly enjoy a rare evening eating out because I didn't think Oliver would make it through dinner napping in his car seat perched next to our table.  (He did.)  This year, my birthday marked the first time I didn't take Soren with me for an evening out with friends.  In his first three months of life, Soren attended a number of social gatherings in an Ergo nestled against Mommy's chest, but the days of being able to take him anywhere, anytime are already over.  He's going to bed earlier and the meltdowns he sometimes has when he gets overtired remind me of those Oliver had until we realized that nothing was wrong with him other than that he wanted to go to bed. 

Soren  is still at a portable age though, and we can go out for walks and assume he'll nap in the stroller and bring him along wherever Oliver is going without concern for his nap schedule, which is still non-existent.  He is sleeping a lot more at night, hallelujah.  As a birthday present to me, he slept from 7:45 p.m. to 5:45 a.m.  He hasn't done that since.  He's still waking once or twice a night, but sometimes I can get away with giving him back his pacifier and getting him to go right back to sleep after the first waking of the night. 

With the major changes in sleep patterns also comes much more awake and alert time.  He's not always content to just sit in his bouncy seat while we eat dinner and likes instead to sit on my lap at the table.  He's quite good at sitting up and I can easily support him with one arm while eating with the other. 

In other physical development, he's starting to try to roll to the side.  Oliver is probably assisting this as he's always darting around the room and I think Soren's realizing he's got to be able to do more than just lie on his back and look at the ceiling if he wants to be able to see what Oliver is doing.  He's also discovered his fists and likes trying to shove them in his mouth. 

The jury is still out on Soren's eye color. If anyone thinks that Soren's heavily blue wardrobe is a sign that I've begun to conform to gender stereotypes in clothing, I'm in fact trying to sway his eye color. If I just keep dressing him in blue, I'll keep believing that his eyes really do look blue, when in reality, I think he's going to end up with brown eyes like everyone else but his mother.

The poor kid is already taking abuse from his big brother.  Oliver is actually very good about being gentle around his baby brother and I don't worry about him even accidentally hurting Soren, let alone doing something on purpose.  So I was shocked when I left the two of them lying on the floor together and came back into the room a second later to see Oliver sitting on Soren's face and proudly announcing, "I sit on baby's head."  Soren, the ever easy-going one, wasn't even crying by this, but both boys were

by the time I had lunged for Oliver and yanked him off his brother.  For the life of me, I can't think what possessed Oliver to want to sit on his brother's head. 

I'm enjoying the baby stage so much more the second time around, because I have the perspective that this is an easy and innocent stage and parenting Soren is only going to become more challenging.  Even though Soren is at an "easy" age, there's a lot about caring for a baby that's pretty monotonous.  But I have a big kid who's doing more interesting things and who gives me an excuse to do things with a baby I wouldn't have otherwise bothered to do.  We waited until Oliver started crawling before taking him to the Children's Museum, but Soren has already tagged along countless times, which he's luckily really chill about doing.  We go wherever Oliver wants to go, but I let Soren participate in the few little ways such a little baby can, whether it's taking him with me through the tunnel of mirrors as I trail Oliver, or letting him roll around on the mats in the tot room while Oliver romps about. 

I can't capture every moment on camera, so the best I can do is hope I can never forget certain images.  And the one from Soren's baby stage I hope I will always remember is when he was cradled in my arms and we were just staring and grinning at each other until he began to fall asleep.  He kept fighting sleep, wanting to keep his eyes open and keep smiling at me.  His eyelids would flutter closed and then he'd force them back open halfway and see me still smiling at him and he'd smile back wider, even as his eyelids slowly fell shut.  I couldn't stop looking at him and watching what was at that moment probably the happiest baby in the world. 

"Rosa Parks of breastfeeding"

I wrote last about feeling lucky that my new job is supportive of female employees pumping at work.  When the woman who told me how to reserve the designated room for pumping popped by my desk on Friday to see how things were going, the guy who sits next to me announced that she's the "Rosa Parks of breastfeeding." 

When my co-worker returned from maternity leave three years ago, she tried using the nursing room, but found it often occupied with people wanting to use the phone or taking power naps or what not and then she ended up wasting time looking for a private place to pump.  After pumping in a storage room, her frustration sent her to Human Resources where she very nicely asked for a dedicated room where nursing mothers have priority.  She matter-of-factly explained the dedication pumping entails, because a woman needs to commit to pumping multiple times a day in and day out or else her milk supply drops and/or she encounters health complications.  The room where a woman could pump in private already existed in our office, but without the simple assurance that she would have access to it when she needed it, her chance at success with long-term pumping was jeopardized.   When she was denied, she drafted a petition and went from desk to desk to talk to her co-workers about the issue and build support.  Who knows why it took a petition, but Human Resources changed course and relabeled the room the "Nursing Room," updated its employee manual to say that nursing mothers have priority for the use of the room, and the world went on turning. 

Although my co-worker experienced some backlash for her effort, (in the form of negative comments from fellow co-workers, such as the one who said that's not something that should get priority) by the time I arrived three years later, the culture had changed.  So I thanked her for paving the way for the rest of us, because I'm not sure if I would have had the guts to stick myself out there like she did.

Pumping at work

One of the best parts for me about being a stay-at-home mom was that I didn't have to pump.  I breastfed on demand and pretty early on in Oliver's life decided that he was going to get formula the few times I wasn't around to feed him myself.  I realized that pumping was time-consuming and a chore and didn't want to be a slave to the machine.  Well, as of today, pumping is now a new way of life for me. 

I started a new job today and among the usual matters one handles on the first day, like meeting with HR, setting up your e-mail and voicemail and figuring out where everything is, I had to track down a place where I could pump and then interrupt my orientation to go do so.  Thankfully the office culture at my new job is supportive of nursing women.  When I told my boss that the HR rep didn't think I could reserve the dedicated nursing room, she took me over to the desk of someone who'd know the real answer - another nursing mom.  (And yes, I can look up when the room was available and block off time on my calendar so I have the room reserved and no one tries to schedule me for a meeting during pumping sessions.)  And I'm lucky I work in a flexible office environment.  I know women who are teachers, flight attendants, doctors and delivery truck drivers who face many more challenges if they choose to pump at work. 

Despite the favorable set of circumstances I was heading into, pumping had gotten off to a frustrating start when my attempt at stockpiling bottles of expressed milk yielded me three ounces by the first day of work.  Since I was nursing full-time on demand a baby who still didn't have an eating schedule and nursed quit frequently, finding time to pump, let alone reasonable quantities, was nearly impossible.  The lowest point was when Soren woke up unexpectedly early from a nap and wanted to eat and I ended up feeding him the bottle I had just pumped because my body hadn't had the time to produce more milk.  Then were the two times Chris was home with Soren and fed him a bottle of my liquid gold when I was just minutes away.  I finally gave up one night when the kids were in bed and I couldn't bring myself to pump, because I was paranoid that would be the night Soren would wake up earlier than usual and I'd be dragging myself from my warm bed down to the kitchen to heat up a bottle.  I reminded myself I wasn't opposed to formula and enjoyed the last few days of not being attached to a pump.  My gamble might be working out.  The number of ounces I was able to pump today was a little more than what Soren actually ate, so he should be set for tomorrow.