Chef Boyardon't

I go home on my lunch break to test just how short one hour can be.

Take 20 minutes off for driving there and back.

Take 10 minutes off for helping to get Fletcher changed into a fresh diaper and outfit, and playing.

Take 10 minutes off for preparing my lunch and Fletcher's lunch, attempting to feed us both, and staining us both with Chef Boyardee's Red Sauce From Hell (or RSFH, if you will). I wipe it up and turn away to try to put a spoonful of food in my mouth, and Fletcher picks up his bowl and dumps it all in his lap.

Take 6 minutes off for changing his outfit and wiping the stains into his feeding chair and the rug under the table.

Take 3 minutes off for helping Fletch drink his milk.

Take 10 minutes off for Fletcher spitting up the RSFH while he's running across our living room, and we get busy wiping the stains into the carpet.

In the last minute, I get to say goodbye to a little boy who knows I'm leaving, who doesn't want to let go of me, who throws a fit if I set him down. During this last minute, Andy's doing what he can to clean the rug, the carpet, and whatever else was hit with the RSFH. And he's asking me why I'm not leaving.

When I walk out the door, it all stays with me. I don't take a "break" and leave parenting behind me for the afternoon. If those 60 little minutes were stressful, you can believe the rest of the day will be. I can't stop hearing his tantrum voice and wishing I were there to help clean up the mess.

Instead, I'm at work, where a slew of tasks waits. I'm here, with stained pants and an almost empty stomach, shirking responsibility for two minutes so that I can write this. It feels as though everything I want to do – personally, professionally – is all compounding on me as every moment passes, and it is too overwhelming to manage.

As I pick up my professional to-do list and my stomach rumbles, I'm wondering how hungry Fletcher is, and what his daddy will feed him while I'm away.

I'm guessing it won't be Chef Boyardee.

forget juggling

I was writing a comment on J. Elle's post when I realized I had too much to say about being a work-outside-the-home mother.

Coincidentally, the topic comes during a week that makes a very good example of why working and mothering at the same time is, in one inadequate word, hard. Another word is pressure. It's like being squeezed from all sides until I think my head might pop off.

My job is important to me. I like the work, I'm good at it, I enjoy being needed and wanted in a professional capacity, and it's GREAT having reliable income in this economy.

That being said

Nothing -- no great feeling -- comes even within an inch of how desperately wonderful it is to be this baby's mother, how fulfilling it is to care for him, how hard it is to be away from him. I don't care at all (yet?) that being a mother is thankless, and maybe that's my professional-self talking. Maybe if I spent the entirety of every day being mommy-and-only-mommy, I'd feel like dooce and many other stay-at-homes who call it rigorous and tireless and wish they could get a BREAK.

I get that.

But I still want it.

I've said before how incredibly lucky I am, that as a work-outside-the-home mom, I am as close as I can be to a stay-at-home -- work is about ten minutes away, I don't do daycare, and I see him and nurse him during (almost) every lunch hour. Our routine is complicated in order to make it work, and involves a morning schedule and grandparents and a sleep-deprived daddy. But I'll do whatever I can to keep the routine.

All of this will change, and probably soon. For one thing, we may be moving. For another, being the mother of an almost-eight-month-old is a PIECE OF CAKE compared to being the mother of a couple of toddlers, or at least that's the impression I get. Whether you're at home or not.

When it comes to being a full time mother and full time worker, I can't juggle. I just can't. All the balls tumble down, starting with the least important.

I don't wear makeup. I don't do a thing with my hair. I'm just lucky if I'm relatively clean when I leave the bathroom in the morning with a cranky (I have to force him to stay awake) baby. I go to work looking like a hungover college student.

When we need things, I don't make it to the store. I squeeze in some Amazon shopping when we're desperate for diapers. (Thank you, Amazon Mom.) There isn't time for the basics like paying bills, trimming nails, cleaning floors, cooking meals (ha!). My gourmet dinner last night was Kraft Mac 'N Cheese. (I even eat like a hungover college student.)

So if you want to know how to juggle it all, don't ask me. When I'm not doing the paid work, my hands are busy with the baby. I just watch all those pretty balls drop and bounce.

6w 5d ghost

Yesterday, Andy was kind enough to pick up some drive-thru for lunch and bring Fletcher to my office. Then the three of us went to my doctor appointment, where I got a nod of approval, a prescription for progesterone-only birth control, and was sent on my merry way.

The physical normality makes me feel like I should be back to normal emotionally as well. Not the case.

The lost feeling is still here, no less intense. But about 50 percent of the time, it's quiet -- a little more hidden, a little less obvious that a huge part of me is gone... It's like I'm less substantial away from him. A ghost.

He's a bit like fuel. The longer I'm with him, the more full my tank. The longer I'm away, the closer I get to empty. By the time my lunch hour rolls around, I'm getting pretty desperate, and the time with him isn't long enough to take me back to full.

Fridays, when I can't hold him until 6:30 or so at night, I'm pretty well destroyed for most of the day.

What is it that makes it so impossible to be away? It's not like I don't trust Andy or the rest of our family. It's not like I don't realize how incredibly spoiled I am by this arrangement. But I still find myself spending the day obsessing... is he crying right now? Sleeping? Cooing? Thirsty? The root of the problem seems to be that if I were home right now there would be no wondering. So why is "wondering" so terrible, when I'm not actually worried about his care?

Why am I unsatisfied that anyone other than me is meeting his needs?

pooped family on independence day

Note the final novel in the Harry Potter series. I started the first one on the morning I went into labor. Finishing the series this week felt a little like closure. I'm not sure I like it. I kind of feel like picking up book one again. I'd read the Twilight Saga for the twentieth time if it weren't for the fact that Andy would kill me... or worse, burn the books...


From "Impossible" by Shontelle, a song that has been stuck in my head all week.

Tell them all I know now
Shout it from the roof tops
Write it on the sky line
All we had is gone now

Tell them I was happy
And my heart is broken
All my scars are open
Tell them what I hoped would be
Impossible

5w 4d superwoman

Today is bad, like the first day. Worse, maybe, crying more. It's sinking in that when my baby needs attention I'm not there to give it to him. When he's hungry I'm not there to feed him. When he's awake and quietly curious (my favorite), I'm not there to stare back at him and make smiles with him and share life with him. Three days was long enough -- too long; how can I get through today and tomorrow?

Tomorrow will be the worst, as Andy or I will have to drive Fletcher to Hartford before work, and drive back to get him after work. I won't have my lunch time with him. He will no longer be 12 minutes away. He'll be on the other side of the county and I will have to experience, again, the greatest separation of distance and time that there has ever been between us.

Then this weekend, which I had counted on as my recovery time, has been overrun with plans. Everyone wants Fletcher. What I want is to relive maternity leave for three days -- just the three of us at home, focused at all times on giving Fletcher what he needs and wants at every moment of the day.

But maternity leave -- those beautiful, brief weeks where I could be the mom that I want to be -- is really over. I can't believe I won't get to experience that again, at least not until we have another baby. I can't be selfish anymore. Nearly six weeks in, and I'm supposed to be adjusted already.

Realization: I am not superwoman. No amount of effort will fix this fault.

If I'm honest with myself, I'm sure that Fletcher hasn't noticed any difference and I'm sure that he's perfectly happy with life. He doesn't go back to the doctor for almost four weeks. He has a fairly severe rash on his face and head (cheeks especially), of which we aren't sure the cause. We're being careful not to touch it or put anything more than water on it, and now we just need to be patient and non-panicked while we wait for it to go away.

5w 3d routine

I've failed so far to properly put into words the dichotomy caused by this new routine.

How can you explain being the happiest and most content you've ever been in your life, and simultaneously anxious, agitated, needy...? So full, yet so void.

In writing about the heartache, I feel like I've under-emphasized the power of the love, the good, the happy, the peace. If I wasn't so wrapped in this love, it wouldn't hurt so much to be separated.

As everyone has said, it will "just" take time. How can you successfully adjust to something when you don't want to?

In one way, it is better today. The pain of separation isn't any less, but a routine is taking hold. Part of me is beating my fists against such a routine, but having one serves as a reminder -- surviving yesterday means surviving today.

P.S. I just found out that late last night was the first time Fletcher managed to roll from his stomach to his back all by himself!

5w 2d grief

Shocked disbelief has turned to anger. This has brought to mind the stages of grief. It's quite melodramatic, isn't it, considering how lucky I am to be with my baby for a short while during my lunch hour (most days) and then all night? No one has died. No one has left me.

But I am angry. Punch-something, pull-out-my-hair angry. I cried a little less today, but I can't say it's because "things are getting better." I wish I could.

I want something to blame, something to be mad at other than "circumstance." But there's nothing. I keep asking why this is the way it is, but there's no answer.

If it is a kind of grief, when will I reach acceptance rather than just bearing it quietly? I keep thinking that if this were temporary -- if it were a day spent away from him, or even a week -- this would be easy. The fact that this schedule is forever makes it impossible to accept. (Am I at the bargaining stage already?)

Fletcher, our baby, so dependent on us... and now I, so dependent on him...

Of course, four hours of sleep and an empty stomach do little to mollify this new pissed-at-the-world temperament. I'll find a snack, get to work, and return to the quiet enduring.