Working Mom Struggles

As I mentioned before, the end of our summer got a little crazy at work. For a few months I was working crazy hours. At least 6 weeks of it Jason was basically a single parent, when I never even left town! I easily thought about quiting my job daily. (OK not really since I knew it was only temporary and I love my job).

I've gone through busy periods in my career and had jobs that never seemed to not been in a busy time. Everytime that happened though, there was only one person I was leaving at home. When it was just Jason and me, he was very understanding when I had to work late. Sure I'd get the occasional complaint, but at the end of the day, he understood that I enjoyed my job and sometimes that required a lot of hours.

Ever since Brody was born, I've been in a job where we have busy times, but that really only amounted to 50 hours a week. And I've been very lucky where I can work at home at night instead of staying at the office late.

Then we had an unexpected thing come up at work (it was accounting related, so I won't bore you with the details), that not only did I have to work late and work weekends, it wasn't optional. For the first time in my career, I was told that I had to work all weekend. We were here for 15 hour days for over 10 days straight. Which = not seeing Brody for most of those days.

Things I learned:
1. There is a reason I work where I do...this was a rare situation, where other career paths I could have taken would expect this on a regular basis.

2. I'm not emotionally capable of handling being absent from my family for long periods of time. There were a lot of tears shed... (Also, working 90-100 hours in a week is exhausting)

3. I have the BEST HUSBAND IN THE WORLD! Ok, I already knew that, but, he's always been there for me when I needed it and this time was no exception. I normally take Brody to daycare every day. But in order for me to get home before 10pm at night, I had to start coming in earlier than daycare opened. So he had to go to work late a couple days a week, just so I could be in at 6am. His job is important to him too, so it wasn't easy to have to balance that as well as taking on Brody full-time.

On the weekends when I was at work, Jason didn't just sit at home with Brody staring at the TV, he actually took him out to do things. Our zoo passes were awesome because they would just head out to the zoo for a few hours and then head home when they got bored. He really is a great father.

4. We have a great family. Again, I already knew this, but we had a few people have to come and babysit last minute because I couldn't get out of work. It's a huge help having them around and knowing Jason wasn't in it alone.

5. I do really work for a great company. There were many people who had to go above and beyond this summer and they made sure to recognize everyone.

Family Vacation

Every summer, my Dad, Stepmom and as many children that can make it, head to Grand Haven, MI for a family vacation. Between my Dad and Sara, they have 7 children, 2 extended children (Jason & my step-sisters long-time boyfriend) and 1 grandchild. So we end up with quite the crowd (all pictured above).

Last year, when Brody was about 6 months old, we took him for the first time. It was fun to bring him along, but there were a lot of things we couldn't do with him. He was barely eating solids and couldn't even crawl yet. So, this year, we had a lot of things we were excited for him to do.

First, we decided we were going to take a ferry across Lake Michigan, instead of making the drive around. We had to take a 6am ferry there and an 11pm ferry back to get the best deal, but it seemed worth it to save on sitting in a car for 6 hours. We were wrong...

The ferry ride to MI was great. Despite getting up early, Brody was happy and unlike an airplane, you could actually move around. It was rocky of course, but he was able to walk around and we even went on the top of the boat to get some fresh air and check out the water.

The ferry ride home? Awful! I'll spare you the details, but it was stormy and the lake was choppy. Needless to say, it was 11pm at night, Brody was tired and seasick and I was on my own in taking care of him since everyone else on the boat wasn't doing so well either. I'm never complaining about the 6 hour car ride again!!

Aside from the ride home, the rest of the trip was a blast.

There are several traditions we have for this annual trip. One tradition involves ice cream at a place in town that has a huge variety of yummy flavors. So, despite the fact that I generally don't give Brody much for dessert, he had to have ice cream with everyone else. I did make the mistake of getting his in a bowl when everyone else got a cone. He ended up finishing my ice cream cone instead and I had to eat out of the bowl!

Second tradition is a place called "Pronto Pups." They batter and fry corn dogs in a stand on the road and while completely awful for you, they taste great! Brody's first experience with fried food was a good one of course.

We stay at a home a block away from Lake Michigan, so there is a lot of beach time while we're there. Last year, Brody freaked out when we tried to expose him to the lake. The water was even relatively warm and he wouldn't go near it. So we were a little unsure how he would do this year, especially when I wouldn't go in because it was too cold (and this was in the middle of August!!)
So we walked him to the water....

He checked it out...

And within minutes he was laughing like crazy and loved running into the waves. This is the kid the can't handle it if his bath is lower than 98 degrees. Yet he went running into a freezing cold lake with no problem. What a crazy guy.

We knew the sand would be his favorite part and it definitely was. He even let Jason bury him in it. All was fun, until he ended up with sand in his eyes...

The best part about vacations with the entire family is not only the fun we have together, it's also a huge help when you have a little guy. Everyone there is more than willing to help take care of him and keep him entertained. And since we stay in a house, it's easy for him to adapt to a "home away from home" atmosphere. It's by far the easiest vacation with a toddler. And next year he'll be able to do even more!

Laughing our way through Toddlerhood

It's been way too long since I've blogged. First, it was because I was working ridiculous hours...I mean "ridiculous, I haven't seen my child in 5 days" kind of hours. Then I was back to working normal hours and spending every waking minute with my son, husband, family, friends and then catching up on all the house related stuff we ignored.

Now...we're catching our breath, so it's time to blog again! Which is really a good thing, because, seriously, toddlers are funny. I mean babies are cute, sleepy and cuddly. But toddlers are really fun. They're also difficult, stubborn and stressful. But very fun.

Brody is in a stage where he freaks out if anything isn't the way he expects. Example: he likes it if you give him a cheese stick whole & he'll take bites off of it. If you break it into little pieces for him, he doesn't want it, and will literally cry about it. In his mind, it's just not the same! You learn which battles to pick and move on.

So this morning, Brody and I were walking out to the car in the garage like we do every morning. However, today, I wasn't wearing any shoes. My shoes were in the car already and I was going to put them on in the garage (my husband is probably rolling his eyes right now that I didn't at least put sandals on and now my socks are probably dirty).

And Brody, could not handle it at all. "Mama, shoes!!"

When I reassured him that they were just in the car and I could walk out to get them, he just started picking up every other pair of shoes I had by the back door.

"Mama shoes, mama shoes" as he hands me one shoe after the other. He actually refused to walk out the back door until he saw me pull my shoes out of the car and put them on.

It's times like this that you just have to laugh at how his little brain works. If you're not laughing, you're probably pulling your hair out trying to rationalize with him...so we choose to laugh.

More stories, including a catch-up on how our last 3 summer vacations went (Michigan, Green Bay, New York), coming soon!

Children Come First

I believe this is a phenomenon that happens with all mothers, we tend to put our children's needs before our own. However, I found that not only do I put Brody's needs before my own, but my choices for him are held to a higher standard than my own. Let me explain...

--When I was pregnant, I stopped drinking my daily lattes and cut down to one caffeinated beverage a day. Brody's health came before my addiction to caffeine. Despite the fact that I was able to survive with less caffeine for 9 months and it's clearly healthier for ME to cut back...it's just not enough motivation.

--I have never taken Brody outside for more than 5 minutes without putting sunscreen on him first. Yet I seem to forget every once and awhile to put it on myself. And I have the peeling skin to prove it.

--Vegetables with dinner? For Brody? Of course! Do I make enough for myself? Not always...

--I won't feed Brody take-out/drive-thru food, yet I'll eat it myself. We go out to dinner and Brody eats grilled chicken and broccoli and I'll order a breaded chicken sandwich.

I do try to take care of myself and know that I need to live a healthy lifestyle so that I can be around to watch Brody grow old. It's just a lot easier to make the right decisions for him than it is to make them for myself.

Road Trip

Early in June we took a 4 day weekend to drive down to Kansas City. The city that started it all for us. Jason & I only lived there for about a year and a half, but fell in love with it pretty quickly. We had many firsts in that city: first time we lived together, first year of marriage, first car, first house. Not to mention, it was the first time either of us had lived outside of Wisconsin. We grew a lot that year, both together and as individuals.


We absolutely loved living there, but for my career, ended up moving quicker than we would have liked. We're now back in Wisconsin because we love being close to family and friends, but if we could convince all of them to move to KC, we'd do it!


The drive is long, but I wanted to save the money on the airfare, so we did it anyway. The first night of our trip we slept in a random hotel in Iowa after driving as far as we could make it. Back up early to get on the road, we arrived in KC mid-afternoon on Thursday. It's was a little later than we planned, but not driving too late the night before was worth it.

First item on the agenda was eating at my absolute favorite restaurant in KC. Jack Stack is a BBQ restaurant with amazing food. I was excited to eat there, and I'd say Brody enjoyed it as well!


The best part about this trip is that we had no real plans. So Friday, once we got up and ready we walked down to Country Club plaza which is an outdoor shopping plaza several blocks long. We spent all morning shopping, had lunch and headed back to the hotel for nap time.

I've already blogged about how difficult hotels can be for toddlers. Our biggest problem is that Brody doesn't sleep well in hotel rooms. He can see us up and about, so he doesn't understand why he should be napping. Every day of this trip we had a battle with him during nap and bedtime. Aside from sleeping challenges though, he handled being in a hotel room just fine.


Without the toddler-amenities of home, like a high chair, we did a lot of improvising. But it all seemed to work out.

Friday night we drove out to the suburbs for another one of our favorite restaurants and to drive through our old neighborhood. We were surprised to see a lot of boarded up windows and broken shutters. I guess that the houses were hit pretty hard with the storms that caused the tornadoes in Missouri. The only downside of Kansas was the tornados, though we were pretty lucky while we lived there.


Saturday after some pool-time, we headed to another part of the city, to another favorite shopping area. Again, everything being outdoors, we just loved walking around. We also were able to stop at a restaurant we thought Brody would love, T-Rex, which is themed around dinosaurs. We were right and he loved every minute of it. He kept "rawr-ing" like a dinosaur and making fish faces since we sat by the fish tank. The best part was, that when this restaurant opened up, Jason and I talked about how it looked like a great place to take kids and talked about taking our children there someday. I loved thinking back to what life was like just the two of us back then, and now the three of us.

We headed out of town after that and spent the night near Iowa City. Sunday was left for leisurely driving home and it worked out well enough that we stopped in Debuque, IA to watch our nephew's basketball team play in a tournament.

I'm really glad we made the trip out of town. We have a lot of vacations this year, but as last-minute as this was planned, it was great to have a relaxing but fun getaway. The rest of our travels this year include a lot of other family and friends, which we're really excited for. However, the part that made this trip special is that it was just about the three of us, and I loved it.

Why I blog

As anyone who actually still looks at this blog knows, I have barely written anything in the last few months. So I began reflecting on why I blog...

Well, it started as a way to document my pregnancy and then realized it's also a great way to keep family and friends (who I never have time to call on a regular basis) in the loop on Brody's development as a baby. He was changing daily, so it was nice to document it.

Now...Brody has gotten a little older and while he is still growing and changing at a rapid pace, it's not the same as the first year of his life. Some weeks, I don't have as many things to write as others. Then there are the weeks that I have a ton to write, but don't have the time to do it. Then when I find time, I forget some of the things I wanted to write about.

The other day I was browsing through older posts on my blog and looked at some pictures of Brody that don't seem so long ago. Yet, he looks so different today than even a couple of months ago. And I realized that I'm missing out on documenting his first summer as a toddler. And it's been a busy, adventurous summer!

So on that note, a preview of our 18 month professional photos (taken by McManigal Photography). Once again, she did a wonderful job capturing Brody and our family. These are only the first few that we've seen, but I expect the rest to be just as wonderful.

Our little traveler

We actually have quite a few vacations planned in 2011, so it should be a year of adventure. Earlier this year, we headed to Valparaiso, IN to cheer on our nephew JJ's basketball team. Then this past weekend we headed to Kansas City, just the three of us. Later this summer we'll head to Michigan with more of our family for our annual trip. Then this Fall the three of us will head to NYC for a friend's wedding, with my older sister to help take care of Brody the night of the wedding. Then to end the year off, we'll leave Brody home for a week, while Jason & I celebrate our 5 year anniversary / the wedding of a good friend in the Carribean. At some points all the vacationing with a toddler will be stressful, but I'm excited to start these trips early. By the time Brody is two he will have slept in 7 different states.

I'm excited to share these experiences with him, but even more excited to do more once he's old enough to actually remember them. Needless to say, a lot of the trips this year and last have been about us, more than him. But we love having him along and showing him new things. It also helps this control-freak of a mama get out of her element every once and awhile.

So the latest trip? Overall I'd say it was a success! Though it did have it's ups and downs. Pictures and stories to come...

Routine

From early on in Brody's life, we've worked to keep his bedtime routine fairly consistent. Usually, we take him upstairs for pjs, put his sound machine on, read a book, hug and kiss goodnight and lay him down. We've had to switch it up a little over time, like when we stopped bottles & formula and rocking him to sleep, we started reading books. Since he's such a good sleeper, I try not to mess with what works.

Though generally stick to the routine, we're not at all rigid about it. Sometimes he falls asleep in the car if we've been out, every other night we do bath, some nights if he's tired enough, we don't even read a book.

So apparently we weren't being consistent enough for Brody...

He's going through a stage where he's latched onto one book that he has to read before bed EVERY night. No matter what. And there's no playing tricks on this kid, he knows right where the book should be each night and demands that it's read to him.

After several nights of reading the same book over and over, I tried to put it in his closet. He caught me doing it and started crying and pointing at it instantly. Fine, we read it anyway.

Then...last night I thought I'd lucked out. He brought the book to the bathroom but then got distracted by the running water and set it down. He loves baths just about as much as this book! After bathtime, we went to his room, leaving the book behind. He instantly went for the shelf where it belongs. When it wasn't there he looked up at me with a sad face, like where did my book go?! Then, he quickly remembered where he left it, ran out of his room straight to the bathroom door.

So what did we do? We read the book. Why mess with what works?

P.S. Thanks to Grandpa and Grandma Sara for the "Baseball Counting Book," he loves it, we hate it. :)

Daycare Fun

Yesterday I got the following e-mail from daycare:

"Once again Brody was the only boy in the room. When I was putting 'prettys' in the girls' hair, Brody pulled his own hair and signed 'Please.' He even looked up at where we keep the rubber bands! With the new refined 'please' baby sign and those big blue eyes I couldn't say no..."

She also added that she told him that some football players wear ponytails too! And then said, I hope you don't mind! This type of thing doesn't bother me in the slightest, I think it's cute. With Brody's mohawk the first year of his life, it isn't the first time a teacher put his hair in a ponytail! I laughed, put the picture on my phone and forwarded it to Jason right away.

However...Jason thought Brody should have a hairstyle more like Daddy's...so here's what he looked like this morning...

I do have to say, the styled look does make my heart melt. He looks like such a big kid!

Easter 2011

Easter was great this year and we got to spend a lot of time with family. Of course I always over-book every minute of the holidays which ends up stressing me out, but I'm not sure I'd really have it any other way. I love that we have so much family to enjoy the holidays with.

After early church service, which Brody did pretty well (we sit in the cry-room at church which makes it easier), we headed for a quick visit with at my Nana's house. We don't generally spend Easter with my Mom's side of the family (since we do Thanksgiving with them), but it's been too long since Brody has seen his Great-Grandparents, that I really wanted to make sure we stopped by. Brody played the shy-guy routine the whole time we were there, but since it takes him an hour to warm up to new houses and we left after about an hour and a half, I couldn't expect much more out of him.

Since we were hosting Easter dinner with my Dad's side of the family and Jason's family, it allowed us to get Brody down for a nap before the guests came. As stressful as hosting a holiday dinner for 17 people can be, it easily offsets the stress of lugging Brody from house to house, trying to squeeze in a nap and some sort of normal routine. That, and our family helps out so much with the food and prep for holidays, that I can never really complain!

Dinner seemed to go pretty well and despite the fact that I burned the glaze for the ham & had to make a quick substitute, I think the food turned out great.

The Easter Bunny brought Brody a lawn mower to play with outside and a basket with a few smaller goodies. He seems to like the lawn mower & the bubbles that it makes, but probably loved throwing the plastic eggs more.

When to expand

We get this question all the time. Are you ready for #2?? When are you having another baby!?!

I keep saying, we just had one - leave us alone! Then as 15 months is coming up, I am reminded that I was born when my sister was only 15 months old. 2 babies right now? I don't know how my parents did it. They're amazing.

But I'm more practical about my limitations. I was useless the first three months of my pregnancy falling asleep almost immediately after getting home from work. I know I won't have that luxury next time. Then I imagine myself 9 months pregnant trying to carry a toddler, or waking up in the middle of the night with a newborn, but still getting up early with a toddler. I am quickly reminded that I am just not ready yet.

But then, Jason and I will be watching a tv show with an adorable little baby and how quickly I forget about everything else. Babies are just so cute! How easily a cute little smile from a tiny baby can melt your heart...

But...no, we're not ready to expand yet. And no I don't know when we will be (or I should say, when I will be...Jason is probably already there). But we do know that there will be another one, someday.

Working Mom - 1 Year

One year ago today, I returned to work after 12 wonderful weeks of maternity leave. I will be honest, I was happy to return to work and 12 weeks was actually a little longer than I think I needed. Brody was taking 4 hour naps at home and I got a little stir-crazy. With a second child (down the road...) 12 weeks probably won't seem boring when you have an older child to take care of at the same time!

Now, a year later, I am still glad that I work. As hard as it is at times, I do love my job and what I do. I know that Brody is well taken care of at daycare and I know they are much more creative than I would be as a stay at home mom.

There are a lot of challenges to being a working parent. But I think the one thing that makes us working mothers stress out more than our male counterparts, is guilt. I constantly feel guilty that I'm not doing enough for Brody or spending enough time with him. I feel that men can look at this more rationally, where I tend to be more emotional about it. Jason will be the first to tell you that we need time together just the two of us and that we both need to make sure to make time for ourselves as individuals as well. But then I instantly worry that it's taking away from Brody. Especially since I spend so much time away from him at work.

I will also tell you that I am definitely my worst critic. I often feel that I could be a better mother, a better employee and a better wife. Don't even get me started on how I could be a better daughter, friend and sister... That said, Brody is obviously thriving, I was promoted at work and my husband continues to love me. Clearly I'm not failing!

This isn't a blog for reassurance that I'm doing okay, this is just something that I think most mothers struggle with and I'm no exception. The desire to do the best for all of those in our lives with not enough hours in the day to do it.
While I know that one day it will probably get even harder, for now the three of us seem to have a system that works and I love every minute of my life with my favorite two boys.

I know this works somehow

Today Brody was determined to figure out how to put his shoes on. Apparently he didn't like that I took them off and wanted them back on. Hmm, maybe these socks should go on first... Ok, I give up. HELP!

Best Purchase Ever

There are a lot of silly purchases we've made since we found out Brody was on the way. But more often than not, we end up getting something that works out really well.

This past month we bought Brody a play kitchen. Winter seems to be never-ending in Wisconsin this year (though I'm truly hoping the 70 degree forecast for Sunday turns out to be accurate). All of us have been feeling a little stir crazy. So we need something else to play with in the house.

So a few coupons and my employee discount combined, we got this kitchen for steal. And it was worth every penny. Though I have to say, I end up finding pretend food scattered across the house. I found an orange in the bathtub tonight...the same orange that is in the bookshelf in the picture below.

Even tennis balls make their way into the play kitchen somedays. The best part is that I really think it will last for awhile as he gets older.

Go Brewers!

Yesterday was our 2nd Annual Family Trek to Opening Day at Miller Park. Taking a 2+ month old last year, was much different than a 14+ month old this year. But for the second year in a row, I'd say it was pretty sucessful.

Unfortunately, it was FREEZING! I looked back at our pictures from last year, and the sun was shining and we were all wearing short-sleeve shirts. Yesterday, we were bundled up with hats and gloves. That made tailgating a little less fun than normal. But we got there early, attempted to play washers (only one of us could actually score a point), and grilled some brats. Brody loved the food and running around. Unfortunately we were on a slight slope in the parking lot, so when he tried to run downhill he ended up on his face. Not to mention he had a strong desire to run circles around the grill. We spent most of the morning stopping him from hurting himself.

We headed into the game a bit early, even though we actually had seats this year. It was too cold to stay outside any longer. Brody had fun running around the stadium a bit with no one in his way.

Then, the game starts, and Brody passes out...

He slept for about 3o minutes until Jason attempted to move him. Since that was unsucessful, Brody ended up staying awake the rest of the game.

We left after the 7th inning, when Brody started to lose patience. When we left, the Brewers were up 1-0. Unfortunately they ended up losing 2-1 after a couple home-runs in the 8th inning. But if they were winning when I left, do I have to admit that they really lost? Because that's two years in a row they lost the home-opener...

It could have been a warmer day, but it was still a fun one. And needless to say, all of us were in bed early last night.