The Mommies' Diaries…Parenting, One Blog at a Time.

While we wait…we will wonder…or worry…or whatever. (don’t you just love alliteration?)

I woke up to a surprise when I attempted to take a nap last Saturday.  I skipped out of my boy’s baseball game because I desperately wanted needed a nap.  I told my sweet girl that she could pick a long movie (as apposed to a 22 minute Peppa Pig) and that she could only wake me up in a true emergency (“No, announcing to me that you have to use the potty is not an emergency, just do it, ok?”)

Well, the boys left, and I snuggled in and fell fast asleep.  But, our dog, Sproutie, moved to the front couch, where she can watch out our window and therefore about 45 minutes later she starts barking up a storm.  I awaken enough to realize that I do not hear Ariel singing her tunes and wonder why the movie is already off.  (Luckily) I chose to get up and check on my little stinky pot pie who had lined up all our bleach filled cleaning supplies on our back couch and was using all sorts of different sprays on different parts of the house. Naturally, I launch into a huge lecture about how she knows not to touch these and now is no longer allowed to be left alone for a quiet time except for inside her bedroom (where no bleach is stored there, obviously.) She is crying and I am wallowing in a good dose of Mom Guilt for having completely crashed out instead of my half-awake nap I generally take with one ear “open” to catch even the faint sound of windex on my dishes.

I stop to listen to my child who is crying and hear: “I only wanted to be like the Berenstain Bears!” Huh? “They surprised their mommy by cleaning up.” Hmmm.

Now, I grew up loving the Berenstain Bears (my first real “series”…followed by others like Anne of Green Gables and Narnia ) and since having kids I have loved sharing these treasures with my own Brother and Sister Bear.  Last summer we joined two library clubs and read twice the books and raked in twice the prizes and I have good authority to report that the mother load of BB books is at the Burlingame library.  But, I did not suspect that my little girl would choose my precious nap time to re-enact the story in our home.

So, expectations got the best of us both.  She expected that I’d be thankful and pleasantly surprised.  I expected that she would be all snuggled up enjoying the big privilege of watching a whole movie.  And, If I am honest, expectations always get the best of me: in my marriage, in my parenting, with my extended family, with my friends.  I constantly am having to check to make sure that I am not expecting something of someone else that is unfair. My hunnie says: “I never “should” on anyone!” Yet, that is exactly the way my thoughts go…I should do this….You should do this…they should do that.

Becoming a mom for the first time 8 years ago felt a little lot like this quote to me:

“What did you expect, a walk in the park?

not a carefree stroll, but this is like being mugged in the park!” (We need to talk about Kevin, by Lionel Shriver, p92)

This was such an interesting book …crazy theme and characters, but so well written and so many good quotes to get you thinking. Here’s another one that hit home for me the idea of expectations:

“I wanted what i could ot imagine. i wanted to be transformed; I wanted to be transported. i wanted a door to open and a whole new vista to expand before me that I had never known was out there…expectations are dangerous when they are both high and unformed.” (p92)

Now, as we prepare for our adoption phone call, I find myself with expectations and too many “shoulds” along with some positive wonderings and some negative whatifs.  Similar to when I was pregnant, I wondered…

I wonder what my child will look like?

I wonder what his/her temperament will be?

I wonder if he will be a busy sports- loving boy?

Or, I wonder if she will be a prissy, purse carrying princess?

I think these “wonderings” are normal and fine as long as they don’t become expectations that will leave me (and everyone around me) frustrated if (when) things turn out different.

A small step away from wondering, are the “whatifs”…I will differentiate between the two: “wondering” is a more hopeful openness to whatever will be, whereas, “whatifs” center around a worry or fear of the unknown.

What if future child is not responsive to us, and has a hard time bonding?

What if my kids lives are turned upside down by a court process, or an emotional season that ends with us having to return future child to his/her birh parent after a period of time?

What if I say the wrong thing?

What if I never sleep again?

What I am  trying to do is work on that subtle shift away from worry and back to hopeful.  What I am also trying to do is recognize those enemy expectations and set them aside.  What I am really want to do is just experience all today has to offer, with a thankful heart, and deal with tomorrow and the realities that just ARE when I am there.

I’m sure you can relate. Being a mom, my life is full of things I have to do, in order to get to do the things I want to do. I have been looking forward to introducing myself to everyone as the new Working Mommy blogger and can’t wait to get down to it. But, right this moment, I have 30 minutes before I have to pump more breast milk for my 9 month old daughter, and my 3 year old son is shooting me in the face with his Star Wars “blaster”. Why didn’t I spend this lovely Saturday’s successful 2 hour naptime to begin my blogging journey uninterrupted and without boobs that are sending electric shock signals that they are ready to roll? That’s because during naptime, well, I wanted to nap.

Okay, so good news, my son has moved on to pretending he is a ninja, and my boobs can wait. Please allow me to introduce myself. I am the new Working Mommy, though to be clear, all moms are working moms – hard working at that. I also have a few other gigs that are away from my kids. I work full time as the Operations and Human Resources Manager at a nonprofit foundation in San Mateo. I’ve worked with this organization for nearly 7 years and absolutely love it. Most recently, I have had the privilege of helping to lead the start-up and transition strategy for a new nonprofit organization we’ve created to expand on the work we have already been doing to get underserved youth connected with the outdoors. So basically, I have an awesome job – which makes me lucky. At least when I have to leave my kids, it’s to do something I believe in. I also work part-time (for free), managing the business operations of my husband’s construction business. Most of this work happens at night, on the weekends, or anywhere else in between. So also, I’m ridiculously tired. But these are the things I have to do, in order to provide the life I want to give to my children.

I know I’m not the first, nor will I be the last, mother to have forged her way through the professional world. I personally come from a generation of moms who work(ed) outside the home. My grandmother, who is now 88, had to work outside the home in the 1950’s while also raising four little girls. At that time, it was essentially unheard of to have a mom with a job. And such circumstances signaled certain economic challenges to those who made judgment calls about the class of one family or another. But man, my grandma is seriously cool. In 1943, she abandoned her own dreams of graduating college to get married before my grandfather was sent off to war. Eventually, my grandparents had a family, and my grandma stepped up to help pay the bills since my grandpa was also working two or three jobs. Although my grandma spent the majority of her life being a fantastic mom, she never forgot she was also an individual. Forty years later, my grandma went back to college to follow-through on her dreams and received an undergraduate degree when she was 58 years old. My grandma rubbed off on my own mom big time. She was originally a stay-at-home mom, but eventually went back to school to earn a certificate as a paralegal and returned to work full time to, you guessed it, help pay the bills. My mom continues to work in this profession more than 20 years later, and is now the sole bread winner in her household as she cares for my father who is disabled and retired.

I do strongly believe that expectations of moms have increased exponentially with each generation. We are expected to be here, there, and everywhere. We are expected to do more, in a shorter amount of time, and with much higher quality. And still, we put expectations on ourselves to take on the brunt of the parental and household management duties, despite the fact that we are working just as hard as our partners outside the home. It’s just in our blood to do so!

As we all juggle together, I look forward to sharing my thoughts and experiences with you from the perspective of a woman, mother, and professional. Specifically, I want to relate to you all from a place of shared experiences. I have navigated my way through maternity leave and back (twice). I have pioneered the creation of a flexible work schedule for myself and other mom’s with whom I work. I have gone through the stress and anxiety of searching for a daycare provider to take care of my kids for 45 hours a week while I work. I have had to leave work in the middle of an important meeting to pick up a sick kid (too many times to count!). I have been up all night with a crying baby and then trudged my way through a board meeting the next day. I have pumped breast milk in my office conference room, office bathroom, janitor’s closet, and my co-worker’s car on the way to a meeting. And I bet you have too. So let’s do this together and support one another. Because who couldn’t use an extra hand, or three?

Did you hear what happened to Geoffrey the Giraffe, the Toys R’ Us Mascot?  Yeah, he checked himself into a psych ward a few years back.  OK, so maybe I made that part up – but I sure wouldn’t blame him.   Toys R’ Us is just another name for DMV in my book.  Mad chaos.

So far, our Christmas isn’t mirroring the vision I had for it.  As you know, December has brought some good viruses to our household.  In fact, just yesterday, my husband was diagnosed with pneumonia.  Luckily, the doctors caught it at the very early stage, so with a five-day supply of mega-antibiotics, he should be fine.  I keep telling him that there were other, more reasonable ways, to get out of our annual cookie-baking extravaganza.  Anyhow, this is why I ended up at Toys R’ Us without him yesterday.

We were doing the math yesterday morning, realizing that we had less than a week until Christmas.  All of the toys that we wanted to get for DJ would require assembly, so we knew we had to get crackin.  With the little Christmas Angel in tow, I headed to the giant toy store.  I was immediately enveloped by the warm, musty scent of children and the sounds of them not getting what they wanted, when they wanted.  It was a pleasant welcoming.

I have never understood why they make the aisles so small, the toy displays so large, and the bottom of the shopping cart without cross bars?  I mean, even Safeway knows that folks need a place to store their flats of water so as to leave room for the milk and eggs.  Whatever.  So there I was, trying to load three ginormous boxes into one tiny cart – no help to be found, just angry mobs of equally distressed parents.

We made our way through the migraine-inducing maze, over to the check out stand.  I was greeted by a talking can of paint.  Well, not exactly, but the checker’s personality was so lacking that she could very well have been anything but human.  We stood there for some awkward moments as she stared at me, and I stared at her.  I finally asked, “Is there a problem?”  “I need the bar code.”  “OK, is that something that I need to get for you?”  “No.”  And there we stood again.  I piped in again, “OK, so do you need to call someone?”  “No, I just need that box lifted up here.”  Wonderful, now we were on to something seeing as I was capable of lifting.  BINGO!  All scanned in, ready to pay and even under budget!

Thank goodness for the Shopping Cart Fetcher in the parking lot.  He was by far the most helpful person on the premises.  He offered to help me unload the nonfunctional cart, and even jammed a mammoth box into the upholstery of my backseat.  He was, actually, very well intentioned, and I was, actually, grateful for his background in Costco’s art of bulk loading.  Wait, have I mentioned yet that it was pouring rain?

We made it back home, and successfully transferred the boxes to Santa’s workshop, aka – the garage.  DJ was exhausted, and I didn’t even curse my husband for having pneumonia.  However, you can imagine my reaction when DJ was more excited over the wrapping paper and box for the one gift we allowed her to open early (a Cabbage Patch Kid that I had ordered on eBay and couldn’t wait to arrive!).  I was immediately reminded of a conversation that I had recently had with a friend, where I arrogantly said that “this would be our cheapest Christmas ever” – knowing that DJ would be more interested in the wrapping than the contents.  Why had I forgotten that I said that?  I knew that.  My expectations shouldn’t have changed.

Perhaps DJ, at her young age, has a few things to teach us.  I mean, it’s really not about the gifts after all, anyway.  She would be perfectly happy playing with an old rattle so long as it meant she had our undivided attention.  So, I am attempting to adjust my attitude and forgive my trespasser,  Toys R’ Us.  It’s not about the crowds desperate to fulfill the expectations and visions of gifts under the tree, but about our ability to stop everything and just be together – really together.

Five days until Christmas.  Let’s get it together, people.  Fa la la la la la la la la la.

We attended my family reunion on Saturday – 50 Italians in one place, oh my!  It’s like being in the midst of a “who can talk the loudest” contest, except the only prize is actually being heard.  There was no shortage of good food – raviolis, prime rib, and the quintessential sausage and peppers.  No shortage of entertaining conversation, love, laughter, memories resurfaced – and adoration for our sweet little DJ.

I don’t know why it continues to amaze me just how much joy the smile of a baby can bring to an already buzzing room.  I feel like everywhere we go, the world stops – if even for just a few seconds, to take in DJ’s rosey cheeks and lively eyes.  I am finding a renewed sense of goodness in the people around me, and catching a nice break from the hustle and bustle of how life had always been before DJ was born.  The comments about “what a happy baby” she is force me to slow down, and to exercise my rusty social graces.  It’s refreshing to say “thank you” this often.

However, adoration for DJ also provokes a huge sense of pressure.  Knowing that the mere sight of her, let alone quality time with her, can boost a person’s mood feels like we’re guarding a magical elixir.  Her giggle has been known to give hope to the brokenhearted, her cooing to calm the discouraged, and the bounce in her knees to offer peace to the weary.  Her presence seems to be in such high demand that we’ve become seemingly chained to the spontaneity of others when they just happen to be passing through our neighborhood (I’m thinking of charging admission to help pay for her college education).

As a new mom, I have to remember that boundaries are healthy to maintain.  While we certainly want DJ to have a close relationship with all those who are dear to us, we also want to feel confident in enjoying our baby in the confines of our intimate family of three.  As DJ’s parents, it is our privilege to know her in ways that no one else ever will – and that is the delight of parenting.  The very baby who captivates the spirit of others, is the same baby who looks to me and my husband to meet all of her needs. While DJ may charm others, she trusts us.

The happiness that she continuously brings to, and receives from, others is so fulfilling to witness.  It’s a beautiful reciprocation of mutual adoration that we’d never want to hinder – and exactly how DJ is learning to be in healthy relationships.  And though we may share DJ with others over a sea of linguine, she’s still ours to raise up.

Selfishly, we’re trying to hoard some unshared moments with her before she realizes just how utterly uncool we are.