Remembering why (the work edition)

I flew. I pumped. I networked. I conquered.

The dreaded first business trip is complete. And honestly? It was great.

H was fine. We had milk to spare. My mother-in-law got some great grandbaby time. I got some great professional time. (T is still waiting for his great relaxation time.) It was good to get away and be out west again. It was good to remember the good work I've done in the past, to get recharged about the good work I'll do in the future.

The truth is, I love my weird corner of the professional universe, maybe especially because I never really meant to call it my own. Given the bubble of DC and my current project, connecting with other folks in my field and learning from other projects is something I need to do more than ever. And of course, in the constant juggling act that is working momhood, it's harder than ever to make it actually happen. Having a reason to go and an excuse to suck it up and make it happen? Critical. I worked on Tucson's streetcar project way back in late 2007/early 2008. These things take time, as we know. Back then I was chasing love much more than the idea that I'd be at the system opening in 2014. I'd only been in Dallas a few months when I worked on that FTA application - T and I were just figuring out how to live together. We'd adopted one cat, maybe two. There was not yet a marriage, a move to DC, a house, infertility, a baby girl. Those things struck me in Tucson last week, seeing this project go live in a cool little town that reminds me in so many ways of the great one I left behind seven years ago. It's funny how things work, because pursuing transit was the professional path that made my choice to leave Albuquerque for Dallas as practical as it was romantic. I miss New Mexico like mad, but the decision was the right one.

All these years later, this streetcar project and I ended up meeting again. That's one of the reasons I love community planning and transit projects - you can always visit. Sometimes we all need a reminder of why we do what we do, why the headaches are worth it, why the unnecessary drama is sometimes just something you need to work through until the smoke clears. Last week refreshed me, and being away from H helped me see the big picture, to be honest. Some day I want her to know that her mom's work matters to her because she believes her projects help make cities better places to live. What I do might not always look exactly like it does today, but I hope that broad definition will still fit. And even if I decide some day to buy that little bookstore I love in the Outer Banks and leave it all behind (note to self: need to inform husband of these plans first), we can visit my projects together, anytime we like: that streetcar a mile away from our house, or the one in Tucson or Dallas or Ft. Lauderdale, the commuter train in New Mexico, or spots scattered around the country that are maybe a little more vibrant than they used to be - the Lehigh Valley, the South Valley, the Piedmont, and more. The thing about this work is, you get to leave your mark.

As for traveling to visit one of those marks, it was a juggle of course, but not as bad as I'd feared. I timed things similarly to my office, found a few breaks in the schedule to steal away solo, had refrigerators in my rooms, traveled with ice, only filled my bags to 100 ML to speed up airport security (which I didn't even need to do, it turned out), and basically just made it work. As we do. The only real wrinkle was just an embarrassing one, and saved for the flight home. Despite verbal warnings insisting otherwise, congregating in the aisles is in fact still rampant on airplanes. I discovered this the hard way after pumping in the tiny airplane bathroom for just ten minutes to take the edge off (having learned my lesson from the flight over - ouch and oops), and exited to find the bathroom line literally running halfway down the plane. Seriously people? Oh, the dirty looks. (Although they might have thanked me when they realized I did no harm in there.) At any rate... at least my freezer woes are no more!

Transitions

Friday was my last day at home with Miss H. I'm going to miss our lazy mornings each Friday, but the truth is, it was time.

You'll remember that I used to work entirely from a home office. Then we finally opened a DC office, but I stayed home on Fridays as a way to have some quiet time to myself, work without interruption, and often, get a lot more done than I could in my real office. I love the freedom of telecommuting - not having to get ready in the morning, being able to cook real food and prep dinner, taking the dog out for a walk when it's slow, etc. The pace of my professional life didn't allow for five days a week at home anymore, so I made sure to savor that one day each week that I had all to myself.

When I returned back to work from maternity leave (those eight weeks at home honestly feel like a century ago), I kept up my Friday at home schedule. For the first few months, it worked like a charm. Like all newborns, H slept a lot, and when she was awake she was amenable to my multi-tasking.

Flashback alert: Hi tiny girl, peacefully hanging on my lap during conference calls!

Now, though, just shy of eight months old, my girl cannot be contained by her mom's work calendar. Over time my Fridays transitioned from my most peaceful day of the week to my most stressful, juggling two full-time jobs at once - managing an active kiddo and my paying job. No one wins with that kind of pressure.

For our last workday together, I took off a half-day so I wouldn't feel as pressured by my phone and inbox. We ran lots of walking errands around the neighborhood, got dinner ready for a high school friend coming over that night, and then... H crawled for the first time! I love that she made the day special for me.

This gal is going places. Time for me to make some new Friday traditions.

Business trippin'

In two weeks, I'm headed out of town on my first working mom business trip. Cue all the angst.

I'll be out west for three nights, no doubt worrying about baby meltdowns and the milk stash throughout my heavy schedule of meetings and events. If it wasn't important for me to be there, I wouldn't go. And so the quandary of being thrilled to have my presence deemed a professional necessity while also being stressed about the working mom juggle continues.

My mother-in-law is coming to help T while I'm gone, which I'm so grateful for. In the meantime, I'm trying in vain to store away the freezer stash necessary for that amount of time. It's tough going, given that I've been on cold meds, H is going through a feeding frenzy growth spurt, and my hormones seem to be all out of whack (preemptive TMI detail stoppage). Our travel schedule to hang with family hasn't really helped matters, but my next two weekends at home should help. Here's hoping I can bear down - with H, my sinuses, and my hormones in full cooperation - and get this right before I skip town. Gulp.

So there's the frantic prepping of the homefront to ready everyone for my absence. The other side, though, is something I haven't spent much time worrying about - probably for the sake of my sanity. How, exactly, am I going to find the time and space to pump and somehow discreetly carry three days' worth of milk around Arizona? Also: going through airport security with colleagues, while carrying breastmilk? Oy.

But this kid. Oh, she is worth it. Ten days' out from turning eight months, here's a look back at her last two official photos:

Such a chubby, tall, happy bunny, this one. So close to crawling now, eating her solids like a champ (all hail BLW!), and generally charming everyone around her. Except for nighttime, of course, when she wakes to discover she's in her crib and shrieks like she's on fire. This girl is happiest sleeping with her parents. Are her parents happiest sleeping with her? Not exactly. But these days, we're too tired to put up much of a fight. I look forward to the magical night when we have the power to shush her back to sleep in her own room at 3 a.m. instead of just bringing her into ours. One day, one day. Ever the optimist over here.

My fellow working mamas who've pulled off the pumping business trip - tips! tricks! anything you have! I'm all ears.

Bag lady with a breast pump

In not-breaking news that you've heard a million times before: being a pumping, working mom is not easy.

Exhibit A: The bag that follows me around everywhere I go. (LL Bean, natch.)

Exhibit B: What I look like from afar - a bag lady. A bag lady in J.Crew, but still.

Exhibit C: The mess I haul across our office and into the "pump room" twice a day, every day (this photo taken while attached to the pump, of course).

Exhibit D: The amount of water I need to drink daily in order to pump effectively. (My pump room is also the water room, conveniently.)

And then there's the noise. This article puts it perfectly: Shouldn't the breast pump be as elegant as an iPhone and as quiet as a Prius by now? Why, yes it should. I feel like I will hear this thing echoing in my brain for the rest of my days. So, perhaps, will my coworkers.

I continue to feel grateful that I'm even able to pump at all, I do - breastfeeding has been fairly simple for me and I have a supportive office. I know that many women would love the chance to do what I am currently complaining about. The crux is that as a career woman, I've fought for the chance to be at important meetings, to be on-call, to be a decision-maker. And I am... except for when I can't be due to pumping. And that conflict is difficult for me.

Some days, I literally have to schedule my entire workday around being able to pump. Today I was supposed to have three off-site meetings, scattered throughout the day. At first glance, there was no time to go back to my office at all in between meetings. Could I pump on-site? Drive and park somewhere, then try to pump in the car? I'd have to carry my pump bag to a fairly important local government building - how annoying and weird would that be in the meeting? Not to mention, I can't drink my 50-gallon water requirement on the go like that. I ended up doing something I don't like to do, but will when I have to: I rearranged my schedule, moving my first two meetings to alternate days. I also made transportation decisions based solely on not having to carry the pump bug to the afternoon biggie with the suits. And so it goes. This isn't just me, either - every pumping working mom makes these decisions every single day.

On the home front, Hazel's eating more food every day and has lessened up ever so slightly, occasionally, on the milk she needs while I'm gone. Not enough to really change my pump schedule, but it makes me wonder where we might be headed. Some days my pumping goal is nine months - nine months in, nine months out, nice and clean. Most other days it's a year. Some days I think I can go longer. Bag lady or bust.

The bottom line here, for all of us juggling work responsibilities and hungry breastfed babies, is that there's no single right answer. We're all doing our best and making the choices that are right for us. My battle isn't really between the reality of my days and a common consensus, it's between the reality of my days and what my heart wants. I don't know what my end date will be - I think I'll know when I'm ready, though, and I've promised myself to be kind to my heart no matter how long I last.

Cherry Blossoms, and goodness

It's High Cotton over here these days. I have a fridge full of milk and am working on a freezer stash. Hazel's dealing with teething but still being the snugliest, funniest, happiest babe she can be. Vacation is inching ever closer. I'm fitting into my old clothes almost consistently. We spent a happy family Easter in NC. Work is rewarding. And finally, it's that time of year again... our cherry blossoms are blooming.

I can't even express how happy these puffy blooms make me every day. Cut to mornings when I'm taking Eleanor out or afternoons when I get home from work. That's me out in the yard with my camera, goofily snapping away at the flowers. Just. Gorgeous.

Semi-serious semi-philosophical question: Are cherry blossoms more gorgeous than they might otherwise be, just because they're so fleeting? (Cue dreamy wonder-sigh...)

  

 

 

Ready to take on the world.

Much love to everyone who commiserated with me after my milk mantra this week - you really helped me ride out a dry spell. My luck changed today: 27 minutes just got me 8.3 ounces - huge improvement. Patience and perseverance is the name of the game over here!

This morning we had our cherry blossom photo shoot at the Tidal Basin, and I can't wait for the results. Naturally, our eternally smiling baby decided she wasn't interested in smiling for our awesome photographer Amanda. Isn't that always the way?! I'm hoping we got at least one happy expression in there, because we sure did work for it! After the outdoor shoot we went back to our house for some nursery photos. I've only taken casual Instagram shots of H's nursery, so I can't wait to show the details here in full! Her room makes me so happy.

Speaking of fun, it really doesn't get more fun than this, does it? I think it's the cutest thing in the world. The world that H can now conquer.

The best.

Milk mantra

Right now it's past midnight and I'm sitting alone downstairs pumping because I'm in a dry spell. I hate these. Everything's going fine and dandy for weeks and then omgwillibeabletofeedmybaby happens. H is a beast of an eater - 25 ounces just while I'm at work?! - and I so want to be able to keep up with her. So I'm working in late-night pumps and dawn pumps until my body sorts itself out. In the meantime I smell like maple syrup due to all the fenugreek, which makes me even hungrier than I already (always!) am.

Hazel's such a big eater that I find myself only barely staying ahead of her. It's a delicate balance to be sure, sometimes veering dangerously close to the edge. Some days I have one extra bottle in the fridge when I get home from work. Often there's nothing left over, and we have only what I pumped that day. There is no freezer stash. And no Plan B. And so when my body decides it's temporarily only going to work for the baby and not her mechanical equivalent, I have to go into overdrive. I can't not do everything I can to get her what she needs, even though her needs appear to be a tad on the extreme side. The pleasure she gets from eating probably comes from me anyway. So here I am, filling a quiet house with the loudest machine ever as the clock ticks.

I wonder if she'll ever know what this is like. The crazy balance of moving my computer and papers two or three times a day at work to set up in a different room, muting conference calls over my incessant whirring, having all of my colleagues know my pumping schedule? It's weird. But it also just feels like life, like the realities of women in the workplace, and there's a part of making people get over their weirdness about it that I really enjoy.

H is so awesome, though. She's my girl. Her grin just melts me. She's teething already, and having a tough time the last few days as a result. She's also rolling like mad and moving so much at night that she'll wake herself up, stuck in a crazy position. So between the extra pumping and middle-of-the-night wakeups to rescue an upside down baby, it's a tired house. That grin, though! Worth it.

This week we're attempting our first real family photos. I meant to do newborn photos, but I got cheap and time just sort of flew by. She's so much more fun now anyway, so I'm excited that we'll be capturing her at this age. My Wednesday morning work calendar proudly says "PTO - Cherry Blossom Photos." Part of me thinks my colleagues assume this is a euphemism for a strange pumping ritual and don't want to ask questions. I'm excited, though. And since I'm always calculating events as being good or bad for the supply, Cherry Blossom Photos are a WIN. Bonus hours of feeding her myself. Birthday dinner date on Friday with a babysitter at home: bad for the supply. And so it goes. One day at a time, though, that's the milk mantra around here.

Speaking of that most precious liquid, I'm now 30 minutes into this pump with 4.5 ounces on the books. Not great. But every bit counts. And tomorrow is another day.

Recent favorites

Some favorites boppin' around my world lately:

This song. I could listen to it endlessly. It's been months, and it's still on heavy rotation over here.



This show. 

Man, am I hooked. I started Season 1 Episode 1 while nursing H one day, thinking it'd be a casual fling I'd have over maternity leave. By Episode 3 I was calling in T so he could join the fun. Marathons being what they are, we finished the entire series a week ago. So there we were, halfway through Season 3, ready for new January episodes… and it's not coming back until the end of February?! What are two hopeless addicts to do?

(Answer: House of Cards, Season 2, starting February 1.)


This sketch. Because there's simply nothing funnier on the internet to me right now, weeks after my original guffaw. (Confession: this ditty actually gets stuck in my head worse than the aforementioned actual song that I love.)



This photo. There's not a shot in the world that's ever made me happier… and the competition is pretty fierce.

In the morning we're heading up to New York to meet T's family for a big hockey game. My baby daddy's excitement at taking H to her first college hockey game is adorable - a tiny letter sweater is involved. There will be photos. 

On Monday I'm back at the office, and I feel good about that. I miss work. I know I'm heading back earlier than a lot of people do, and I'm partially complicit in that, thanks to the demands of my pet project. The other part of it is, you know, this. I'm nervous only about how well daytime pumping will go and if I can keep with her. The rest is, well, the stuff of life. I'm sort of ready to get that going already, you know? 

Six weeks of wonder

In the blink of an eye, Hazel is six weeks old, Christmas is behind us, and it's already 2014. It's hard to believe how quickly the days are moving by, and yet I can hardly remember life before her. She's... awesome. Obviously I find everything she does to be miraculous. Every day I look at her and marvel that T and I (with the help of some awesome science-doctors, of course) created something so amazing. I can't wait to see what she becomes.

My favorite thing in the early days was feeling like somehow I already knew her. Maybe that's just what happens when you bring someone who's half you into the world. She was born and entirely new, and somehow instantly familiar, like she'd been with me all along.

Most people think she looks like me, but I do think she has her dad's expressions, and his legs. So far it appears that we lucked out in the lottery of baby temperament. She's almost always pretty mellow and happy. At first all she wanted to do was snuggle. These days she enjoys sitting upright and looking around the room, especially at sunshine. And her newest trick is seeing not just the morning sun, but us. When her big eyes actually lock with ours, I melt in a major way. And don't even get me started on her smiles... I'm sure she already thinks we're pretty lame, the way we embarrassingly fawn over her.

When she's not mellow and happy, we call her Hazel the Hippo - a fiery beast who demands food at any cost. The hippo gets what the hippo wants. (And hey, I get hangry, too, so I can't blame her.) She loves baths, which makes me hopeful for a future water girl. She runs hot like her mom, waking up at night sweaty and wanting to shed layers. Speaking of nighttime, at six weeks she's normally waking up once a night at 3 or 4 in the morning. Usually ten minutes of milk and she's back to sleep until a reasonable hour. There are certainly bad nights here and there (and a few in a row when she had her first cold, poor thing), but we really do feel lucky with our mellow babe. Her parents are pretty mellow too, so her attitude fits right in. She's a huge eater, also like her parents. Her birth weight was 8 lbs 2 oz, and on Christmas Eve she was already up to 10 lbs 10 oz. My body's keeping up with her, which I'm so happy about. Keeping a little one nourished and full is no small task.

Staying home with her has been both rewarding and challenging. By the time I was feeling strong again and was home alone, I began to feel like I wasn't doing enough during the day. As we know, I tend to have a few too many pots on the stove at once, so having just one task in front of me was new. So there I was, stalking my work twitter feed in between feedings and going through work emails. Although the job in front of me is arguably the most important there is, the feeling that I wasn't contributing to society was hard to handle. T would remind me that my contribution at home those first weeks was even bigger, but working solo for my person instead of the people are two very different things. The timing of my maternity leave was sort of a professional nightmare due to the timing of a large project milestone at work, and until we reached our goal I wasn't able to let go very well. I couldn't stay away, didn't want to. The last two years of my professional life led to a single night in December, and I had to be part of it. Baby H was part of the festivities too, of course. She's our project's Infant Ambassador - lots of important duties with that title!

Once my project's year-end milestone passed, I was able to relax and let go of work a little more. I decorated for Christmas without many email checks, and went home for the holidays without "work brain" for the first time in ages. H met her crazy crew of cousins - she is number five - and we all spoiled each other. Good stuff, all of it.

Now here we are, in a new year. Our dear friends and their two-year-old traveled here to usher it in with us. I go back to work in two weeks… time is flying. I want H to grow up knowing that her mom is doing work that fulfills her and that she thinks is important - not going back to work wasn't a consideration for me. I think the best example I can make for her is to do work that means something to me. We're all happier when I feel like I'm contributing toward something bigger than myself.

The hippo is starting to come out beside me, so there's time for just two more photos. Here's H's birth announcement:

I adore her serious, thoughtful eyes in this photo (we had a mother-daughter photo shoot one afternoon on the sheepskin rug). But because she's already changed so much since that photo - and learned to smile since then! - let's end with a happy little lady in her purple leisure suit:

Wow she is cute.