Skip to main content

ambivalence

pic of the day: day 23
mommy don't go
my boss has a saying that she shares frequently when we discuss the challenges of being a mom who works out of the home. she says, "wherever you are, be there 100%."

surprisingly, that's not the part of being a working mom that i struggle with. when i am at work, i am focused on my work, in part because i love what i do and i love where i work. and of course when i am at home, i love being home with my family. i am blessed to have a challenging job that i don't have to take home with me, mentally or physically.

no, the difficult time for me are the transitions. that, friends, is when the ambivalent feelings rear their heads. as i get ready to get out the door on the way to work, i want to go to work, but i don't want to let go of my little bug. towards the end of my work day, i can't wait to get home to john and his daddy, but i don't want to stop working on whatever project i am engrossed in.

that is my personaly tight rope. that is the razor's edge that i walk each morning and each evening, trying to balance the two biggest sections of my life. (can i whip out one more silly cliche to explain it all? maybe if i try REALLY hard ...) of course it's true to a smaller degree for any of the less-prominent roles i play in my life.

and i guess at the end of the day (had to get that last cliche in!) these feelings will never go away. so i will pluck that extra kiss from john's lips and that extra hug from my husband. i will allow myself five more minutes buried in the task at hand. i will be where i am, 100%. and i will look forward to being 100% somewhere else when that time comes as well.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

on lullabies

i am not a singer. if you've sat behind me in church, you know this to be true. (and i'm sorry.) a musician, yes. a singer no. and yet i find myself singing to john almost nonstop. and the beauty is, he seems to actually like it! (there's no accounting for taste. he also thinks i'm the most beautiful woman in the world. i'm no ogre, but i'm certainly not winning any beauty contests outside of my son's brain!) and actually, i've written some lullabies for john that are pretty nice. and it made me think: did your parents sing to you? do you remember what they sang, and better yet, if you have kids, do you sing the same songs to them? reply in the comments!

pull up your big boy undies

"what time is it? mommy? what oclock?" john's teacher told me something amazing today. "you should bring me some big boy undies," she said, "i haven't changed john in weeks." it seems that at school, since they check in with him periodically to see if he has to potty, and since his very smart teacher has noticed his (very regular) bowel movement schedule, john is potty trained. at 9am at 2pm, she plops him on the toilet. he might sit for 20 minutes, reading a book. when she checks on him, he says, "i just poo-pooin', miss meka." and when he's done, he's good and done. we're not quite that far along at home, but tonight we go shopping for big boy undies. and i'm sure we'll have a few accidents, but that's just a part of the process ... and soon my little boo will be in big boy undies full time. and ... it's a great time for him to be out of diapers. because good lord willing and the creek ...

i'm furberizing my baby

ok, let's get this straight right off the bat: i don't know if i am literally following dr. furber's methods of sleep training. there are so many versions out there. but saying we're furberizing john is WAY more fun than saying that i'm letting him cry his little lungs out in an attempt to teach him to sleep on his own. it's night two of our efforts. he went right to sleep last night, which was great. and he slept for 5.25 hours (!!!!) before waking up at 2:30 a.m. when he woke up crying, i let him cry for 5 minutes before going in to soothe him. (the soothing barely works at all, by the way, but it's what i'm supposed to do ...) then i let him cry for 10 more minutes before going in to soothe him again. next on the agenda was a 15 minute stretch of crying - but he fell asleep after 8 minutes. so a sum total of 22 minutes of crying. not too bad for night two. i've heard night three can be the worst ... so we'll hold on to our hats tonight. mean...