New Year- New Momma (kinda)

Welcome 2014! I think I am moderately excited about your arrival. Hard to tell though. For sure, this is going to be a year where I try and get my act together. The last year was such a mess of finishing my Ph.D., moving across the country, starting a new job (and trying to figure out how to teach my own classes) and buying our first house. So while it was an amazing year, I felt a little lost in it. Since having the little man, I have been going full tilt toward my grown-up life as a professor. Now that I've settled into that job (for the most part), I need to get my act together. Anyone who has been in grad school knows how busy it is and how you are forced to balance life and work and school. The new job however, is all on me. And my personal motivation is lacking right now. I feel like I just crashed. I am telling myself that a slight break is ok since I have been working crazy hard for so long but I know that 2014 needs to get back on track.

So how do I do it?? That's the hard part. Is it daily planning? Big picture planning? Total life revamp? Just don't know. Plus, I feel like I'm good at the planning but not the follow through. This year needs to be exercise! publishing! being a decent mommy! Maybe January I'll be a really good fitness individual and then switch in February. Or crappy at all three all the time (that's my MO right now). I have a grand plan of sitting down and planning out the next 30 days. Wonder how well that will work out....

Transitions

Now that the degree is done, the move undertaken, and daycare started, it is time for me to come to the realization that I am now a full-time working mom. That's not to say I wasn't working my ass off as a graduate student mom, but this is different....it's an OFFICE and ORIENTATIONS. The life of a grad student is a bit like the life of a ghost. You sort of move in and out of buildings without anyone really noticing or caring most of the time. As long as you make deadlines and show your face at appropriate moments, your time is your own. For a faculty member, the life seems similar but with more responsibility. No one would particularly care if I walked out of the building now and went home but there is more of an expectation that I not do that. Whether it's because they are paying me to not be a lazy professor or because of my own level of personal responsibility, I am not sure. There is work to be done but I'm having a bit of trouble getting my productivity back. I miss being home with the little man (although after a few days, I always change my mind and am ready to go back to work). Or maybe I just miss having total freedom over my day.

Perhaps it is just this period of being in between that is so difficult. I've never been a true stay at home mom or a true working mom until this very moment. I've had 19 months of a weird hybrid situation that I both loved and hated. I loved getting to spend that much time with my son, seeing all his firsts and knowing that I had that flexibility. I also hated it since trying to be a full-time student with a second full time job of being a mom was exceptionally difficult. Most of the time I felt like I was failing at both experiences. That I wasn't paying the proper amount of attention to either part of my life and executing both tasks poorly. Looking back that clearly isn't true. My son is happy and bright and my dissertation is done and I have a job. But somehow I still feel guilt about splitting my attention. Maybe it's the Catholic upbringing.

So now the transition to working motherhood. There is somehow both more and less guilt. I feel less guilt since when I am home, I can give my family my full attention and when I am at work, I can give my work my full attention. There is more guilt since now I see the little man less than before. There is also that guilt associated with my personal enjoyment of being out of the house. Time spent away from being slapped by a pissed off or overtired toddler, is time well spent in my opinion. The guilt comes from thinking I must be a terrible mom to enjoy being away from my family. I know I shouldn't feel guilty. My working provides my family with additional benefits that we wouldn't have without my job.

New Home and the Terrible Twos

Who doesn't love a temper tantrum? Oh, right! EVERYONE!! Since moving into our new home about a month ago, Little Man D has decided to have an opinion about everything. While it is exciting to see him learn and interact, his tantrums when all does not go his way are painful to say the least. D will go so far as to walk across the room to try and hit you when he's mad! It's almost comical since it's not like he could do much damage. You aren't allowed to laugh though, they covered that in Parenting 101. After googling things like "toddler hits" and "toddler won't take nap" about 500 different ways, I have learned nothing. There is no real advice. Just inane comments like "walk away," "ignore it," or my personal favorite "speak to him in a calm voice and ask him if he is frustrated." Ummm, no shit he's frustrated. Seeing as his English is limited to describing some household items, I doubt we can have a frank discussion about why his cracker breaking in half warrants a serious meltdown. Plus if you get down to his level to talk to him, he tries to slap you in the face. Ahhh, kids!

That leads to another dilemma. People are starting to ask about baby #2. How does anyone have the desire to add another baby into the mix? The only time it seems like a good idea to me is if he's been an angel all day and then mommy has a few drinks that night. In the cold light of day, however, my sanity returns and I realize I barely control the one child. Supermarkets, daycare drop off, even walks down the street can all have hidden minefields waiting to explode. How do you grocery shop with two trying to either commit suicide by jumping out the front end or screaming at you because they are infants and that's what infants do?? Maybe when LMD is bigger, it will seem like a good idea but right now major props to parents who do it.

The Final Push (birth pun intended)

So, it's done. I have finished my Ph.D. It feels almost anti-climatic for the amount of time, stress and energy that went into it. It's not that I'm not excited, I obviously am, but it's also just a little sad. While I am thrilled to be done, being done means leaving California. Leaving my friends, the comfort of a group of colleagues that I know and respect and having to learn how to navigate a whole new city. It also means packing up an 18 month old and moving him across the country. That should be fun, I'm sure.

It has been an interesting ride, this whole Ph.D. adventure. Looking back there are a few things I realize I did that made my life harder but better. The decision to get married and have a baby all while being in school full time added some extra complications to the degree. Clearly, they were worth it since I have an awesome husband and a beautiful baby but this whole process would have been a lot easier if I didn't plan a cross country wedding during classes or defended my dissertation proposal four days from my due date.

Food Wars

Ahhh, food! Declan and I have begun the amazing journey of introducing solid food.  It's been a fun (and messy) time.  It's also been one of the first mommy wars I've been subject to.  While sleeping, cloth diapering and breastfeeding have all been the topic of comments by other moms, I've never really felt like I had to respond or defend myself the way I do with food.  First there is the debate about when to introduce solids.  4 months you say? Clearly you are trying to ruin your child's stomach lining! 6 months is clearly the ONLY appropriate option.  Well, what about 5 months? Or 5.5 months? Or even 7 months? My favorite part of this whole debate is how quickly people cite research and recommendations.  Research they have not actually read but rather have taken the highlights from (e.g. research now says waiting until 6 months is best).  While I am all for using quality research as the benchmark for some decision making, it amazes me how it can be used as a weapon of "rightness." 

So now you've decided to introduce food.  Are you doing it correctly? Probably not.  I was really interested in Baby Led Weaning when I first started thinking about solids.  A lot of the moms in my circle are of the "hippy" variety you might say.  So all the chatter around BLW sounded really promising. I like the idea of letting the baby choose their food and eat at their own pace.  For us though, it didn't really seem to work.  He liked mushing food but not eating food.  So I started making some purees.  Homemade purees (because clearly I love my child more than someone who buys baby food from the store).  For the most part, I like making the purees.  It makes me think of food combinations that might be interesting for him and makes me buy a variety of foods.  As you can see from the pictures above, I also bought some food packs because they're way easier when on the go.  So now at 7 months, Declan eats a variety of foods.  Purees, melting biscuits and snacks, and bites of random foods like tater tots (the best moms feed babies tater tots...haha). 

On to the food wars.  I've gotten comments about everything from using a spoon is force feeding him, and he'll never learn to eat on his own (for purees), to horror stories about choking and not giving the baby enough food (for BLW).  It's not that these comments are particularly horrible or nearly as divisive as breastfeeding comments but it's the frequency that's interesting. Unlike breastfeeding, where only a handful of people know I breastfeed (or know my secret hidden desire to supplement with some formula), a wide audience sees me give him bites off my plate or a puree off a spoon.  I've never had anyone be rude to me in public while I breastfeed.  That is not the case for feeding him solids.  Once when he was noshing on a piece of mango I even felt the eyes of judgement upon me even though no one said a word.

Daycare

About a month ago, I finally broke down and had to put my dear spoiled (in the best way...haha) baby into daycare twice a week.  I found this amazing Iranian woman who runs a daycare out of her home and is open to cloth diapering and whatever other hippie nonsense I have researched and decided is necessary.  It has been an interesting adjustment.  When I was pregnant I (perhaps naively) thought it would be possible to be at home or school with the baby and still get work done.  At first it was feasible since I have to admit, I was blessed with a remarkably easy baby.  He likes to eat and nap for the most part, does both without much complaint.  The problems arose when he started wanted to roll, crawl, play, poke the dog, etc.  It just became too hard to focus long enough during nap time to be productive.

Hence the daycare.  It was a remarkably hard decision.  There are costs involved (both financial and emotional).  I needed to do work.  I have a dissertation to write, classes to teach and research to conduct.  But it felt (and still feels) selfish.  Was I tossing this little man into an unknown world just so I could get some work done? That seemed so petty.  But the bottom line was, it needed to happen and so the next step became finding a place that I felt comfortable with.  That part was actually easier than I had expected since I had a recommendation.  The woman is lovely.  She's sweet to my son and gives me hourly updates about every song they sing and puree he eats.  I fully trust that he is in good hands.

Liking where he is makes dropping him off easier but it is still hard to knock on that door and hand him over. 

A Student of Sleep

Sometimes I think that it might be rough being the child of a social scientist.  Poor Declan is going to be stuck with my innate desire to "test" everything.  For instance, we've been working on his sleeping.  Of course, in our house this is a process.  First, research! Books, blogs, message boards, and personal stories all offer insights.  The internet is amazing since people are all very willing to give their personal advice/ opinions about EVERYTHING baby related (each person is a greater expert than the next....so judgy! haha).  Some of the books are no better- individuals with few credentials giving "expert" advice while sniping at the authors of other books and techniques.  But the question remains, "What should I do to help my baby sleep?" That question, however, leads to many comments and offers of advice but no real answers.  Thus, the experiment (with an n of 1) has begun. 

So our (I'm including Declan in the process even though he's clearly just along for the ride) experiment has begun with a step by step process of moving the baby from our room to his room and testing when the baby is really hungry and when he just wants comfort.  The final steps involve extinguishing non-necessary wake ups.  And there involves the tricky part and where research seems to fail and opinions run rampant.  If you let the baby cry, you are a HORRIBLE mother.  Your baby will grow up to distrust you and be distant since you have blatantly broken their trust in you.  Wow! Just a little bit of guilt there! The other side of the fence has you answering your baby's cries each and every time because a baby wouldn't cry unless they need you (or something).  Now you're a HORRIBLE mother if you aren't feeding, walking, shushing, placating your baby at all times.  While I agree that's a gross oversimplification of the schools of thought about baby care, the sense that you are always doing something wrong remains.  I mean, come on! I love my baby more than anything.  If my days were free and I could live my life without sleep, I would cater to his every whim.  Sadly, I am required to do things with my day that not only need my time but also a fair amount of cognitive processing (remember that pesky Ph.D.?).  Being brain dead from exhaustion does not really help me finish my degree.  Thus, the experiment.  I think that breaking down the process of sleeping in a step by step experiment allows me to remove some of the guilt associated with having to help my child sleep through the night that does not involve me getting up every 45 minutes.

Maybe Declan will let me know in 18 years if I totally messed him up (more than expected).  As a note to my sweet baby boy, you are sleeping peacefully in your swing right now as I try and test how many times you awaken during the night from the comfort of your swing (rather than the evil crib that you seem to dislike so much).  I apologize in advance if this scars you too badly.  Much love from your mom.