Leading Mama

Wherever You Rome

Perhaps you’ve wondered “where in the world is Leading Mama these days?” I hope so.

The answer? I’m recently back from a work-related trip to Italy with toddler in tow. Here’s what I learned.

1) Two-year-olds want the window seat but can’t actually see out of the tiny airplane windows when they are belted securely into their CARES restraint system (which, in leading mama’s humble opinion, is one of the best devices ever made for toddler travel). My son’s straining and grunting attempts to see the “choo choos” on the tarmac that carry the luggage to and from the aircraft were amusing for the first 5 minutes, and then…not so amusing.

 

2) Air travel is exciting – so exciting that some toddlers won’t sleep even if they haven’t slept in days. (Okay, not days, but it felt like it!) Fortunately, the rush of jet lag catches up with the weary toddler just as his mama tries to drift off to sleep at 2 a.m. in an Italian hotel.

 

3) Jet lag is like kryptonite to even the most super of parents. Why else would I say “do you want to watch Ice Age: The Meltdown in bed?” or “Let’s have pizza again tonight”?

 

4) A one-to-one parent to toddler ratio reminds you that wherever you are, no matter how tired or frustrated or lost, you are completely responsible for your child’s welfare. This is a heady realization when times are good and a frightening one when times are bad. I came to this conclusion after a 4-hour fiasco in the Rome train station. There’s a lot to be said for having some back-up.

 

5) Even if your toddler won’t patiently visit art galleries and operas abroad, you’ll see the world in a whole new way through his eyes (and hands and mouth). You’ll notice rocks and birds. You’ll dip your fingers into the cool glassy green water in the piazza fountain. And you won’t miss the chance to see street performers juggle glass balls and bowling pins because it is time for the Pope’s appearance at the Vatican,either. Because wherever you Rome, you’re still a mama first and foremost.

Beware Anger Management Failure

Besides being a writer, I currently work for the federal government as a social scientist/researcher. Some days I wish I was a lab rat locked away from the rest of the team (really, it’s like doing your taxes in a room full of 12-year-old girls who are gushing about the latest boy band) and when I want to be really productive, I work from home. But I am a social scientist, after all, and observing our office social – and anti-social – interactions is fascinating when I can avoid being completely sucked in to the vortex myself.   

 

This week I wasn’t so lucky. You know how people’s hair stands on end in a lightning storm? Picture me like that, sitting at my computer Tuesday afternoon.

In walked our newest team member, a writer recently hired to help draft the huge report we’re producing on a very short timeline. We’ve met three or four times in the past month (for a total of about 16 hours) to get acquainted, explain where we are with the project, clarify expectations, go over the outline and discuss the finer points of the introduction, which we’d asked her to draft using information we supplied.   

 

Who’s the “we,” you ask? I share my office with another analyst who is in charge of pulling together the report, and she and I are collaborating very closely on the process and the product. We both feel some sense of responsibility for this report, but she’s the one with the lead role. (insert suspenseful music that alludes not-so-subtly to the possibility of violence here)

 

So the new writer comes breezes in and asks me if I have 5 minutes to talk. Sure I say, have a seat. I’ve gone to see the boss, she says. Just wanted to fill you in.

 

Hmm. Okay. It’s standard practice to have an office call with the big boss when you come on board – say how happy you are to be hear, get a “glad you’re part of the team” handshake – so I figure it’s nothing earth-shattering. And she only wants 5 minutes.

 

“I clarified with the boss that I report directly to her,” she says. (I hear sirens go Wah-wah-wah LIGHTNING IN THE AREA) “I’m putting together an alternate outline for the report and the boss and I agreed I’d have it done by the 14^th,” she says.

 

My head nearly popped off, I’m sure. Somehow when you come face to face with an act of passive aggression this huge, it doesn’t feel passive at all! The three of us had been playing so nicely together, and she’d gone to the boss to sell her ideas and grab control of the process behind our backs.

 

I didn’t lose it completely, but I wasn’t feeling calm. I asked her to explain herself, clarified what we’d discussed and agreed to earlier, and (after 2 hours of conversation) ultimately came to the conclusion what she was doing was not going to completely derail our efforts. I felt comfortable that she would go out and get to work.

 

Suffice it to say, when my office mate returned and I explained what had gone down, she wasn’t happy. Initially, her hair stood on end (like mine). Then the smoke started streaming from her ears. Her head turned round and round on her neck like a demonically-possessed individual. Her white-hot anger raised the temperature in our office by at least 10 degrees. Really.

 

The following day she called the writer by phone. She got angry. She didn’t want to discuss, she wanted to explode. And that’s what happened. She started by dragging me into the conflict – yelling about how the writer had wasted two hours of my time.

 

(I’m thinking “That’s the not real issue here.” More warning sirens go off. I say nothing.)

 

She followed that fight with a discussion of who works for whom here. Told the writer that she (the writer) doesn’t report to the big boss (no one here does) and re-asserted her role as the leader of the report-writing effort. The writer blathered on about the collaborative role she wants in the process, but continued to argue she takes her direction only from the boss. The writer asked for the boss’s phone number and told my office mate she’d call the boss to clarify. Fine.

 

(I’m thinking “You need to address her behavior head-on. Tell her you are angry that she went behind your back, and that collaboration requires trust that has clearly been violated here.” I say nothing.)

 

The writer says we should have a meeting to discuss the issues (I’m picturing another 2-hour dialogue, with more people and more vitriol.) My office mate flatly refuses. She tells her we are too busy to get together on Friday, have interviews to conduct Monday, can’t do it. She says “I think we can work together” through clenched teeth, but refuses to spend any more time discussing “the incident” or clarifying roles. Her usual in-your-face-aggression has become door-in-the-face-aggression. She shut the writer out.

 

(I’m thinking this will be painful, but there has to be a discussion or we can’t work together. I say nothing.)

 

To make a long story not quite as long as it might be, the next morning the writer quit. She opted out of a contract worth more than six figures that she would have completed in the next 4 months (yes, that’s about 25K per month). She said ours was a hostile work environment and she couldn’t handle it.

 

How’s that for the eerie calm after the storm?

 

We all feel like we were hit by lightning this week. Our hair is singed, our energy drained. I picture us all walking across a field together, our clothes in tatters. No one really knows what hit them.

 

Misused anger burns everyone. Beware.

 

Protecting Kids in Cars

A couple of weeks ago, the Washington Post Magazine’s feature story (titled Fatal Distraction) focused on parents who’ve accidentally left their infant or toddler in a locked car, resulting in the child’s death from hyperthermia (overheating). Between 15 and 25 children die like this each year, mostly in the stifling summer months.

 

Though each was in some ways unique, the stories Weingarten described were also eerily similar. Each parent was so absorbed in his or her own thoughts and tasks that they simply forgot the child was there, in the backseat, awaiting daycare drop-off. The parents weren’t deadbeats, they weren’t unloving. They were simply overwhelmed and exhausted. And who among us isn’t?

 

Families are busy. Parents work long hours, often at more than one job, to keep up with their mortgage payments, save for kids’ college, and afford music classes and family vacations. Our brains are constantly buzzing with to-do reminders and the worries of modern life. We travel to work and back largely on auto-pilot, repetition numbs us to the details.

 

Even when we’re driving, we’re not focused – we’re multitasking. Talking, text messaging, reading, eating – you name it, people do it behind the wheel. If you’re a parent, I suspect you sometimes drive to work while talking on the cell phone with colleagues from work, eating your breakfast (black coffee and a power bar, anyone?), and making silly faces in the rear-view mirror to entertain your fussy pint-sized passenger. We’ve all been there. 

 

Leading Man doesn’t often read the Washington Post Magazine. He prefers the newspaper itself, and devours the international news and sports sections while I slurp coffee and read the Magazine. But he usually asks about the feature story, and I give him the highlights.

 

Our discussion of this particular story was somewhat one-sided. I described each of the families Weingarten interviewed, talked about their similarities, the enormity of their losses. For me, it was impossible not to feel some sense of personal connection to these parents – any one of us could (given the right but oh-so-wrong circumstances) forget that we hadn’t dropped our child off on the way to work. Especially if something unexpected happened and our usual routine was upended somehow.

 

Leading Man's response: “That could never happen to me. I’m always focused on being a parent.”

I (mostly) left it at that, since I didn’t want to slip into psychologist mode on Sunday morning. But evidence against his position mounted in my mind.

 

The positive illusions that keep people sane and happy make them unlikely to see the potential for negative events such as leaving your child in a hot car all day. Our identities as loving, capable, devoted parents are 180 degrees out from forgetting about our children. But memory is fickle – when we’re under stress, it fails us miserably. We simply need to believe this could never happen to us. The alternative is too much to bear.

 

I’m sure parents whose errors have injured or killed their children never thought it could happen to them, either. That’s just human nature. But I think it’s healthy for all of us to slow down, tune in, and take precautions so it doesn’t happen to our own children. It’s not so hard to look in the backseat before heading in to the office – I’ve started putting my purse and my laptop back there so it becomes a habit.

Watch Me Pull a Rabbit Out of My Hat

Since I added another job to my Leading Mama juggling routine, I’ve found it’s increasingly difficult to stay sane. If it felt like I had no free time to myself before, I have less than no free time to myself now. I wonder whether mathematicians and physicists would support my contention that working moms have less than no free time – as a social (not rocket) scientist, I say, truly, it’s possible.

 

Frankly, I feel a bit like a magician. On the good days, I amaze even myself. On the not-so-good days, the furry white rabbit who’s supposed to pop magically from my hat never shows, and I pull out a ferocious dingo instead. (I know, you can imagine me dressed in a magician’s cape fending off the dingo with my dainty magic wand. The audience roars, but it isn’t so funny for the magician!)

 

Here are three tricks I’ve found for managing the madness.

Make music. Get a new CD, download new tunes (or old favorites) to your iPod, or pull out the mix tapes you made in the mid-80s and give them a listen. Music has the power to transport and transform. Sing along.

Run away. Even if you have to take your kids with you, get out of the routine long enough to miss it (if you bring the kids with you, you’ll be missing that daily grind in no time!). I traveled to San Diego for 46 hours this month. It was my first nights away from my son. And the longest two days of my life.

Freeze up. When you’re cooking this week, make extra portions of two or three family favorites and freeze them immediately. Put a sticky-note freezer inventory on the side of the fridge so you’ll know what to thaw on those nights when you simply can’t imagine cooking dinner.

Make Mine a Chili Dog

Before I became Carson's mom, I was Houston's mom.

 

I didn't become a dog mom because I wanted practice for the real thing, or because I thought I might never have human children of my own (though my mother sent me an article on how to adopt babies from China when -- at 25 -- I was *still* single and without prospects).

 

I did it for the love. The pure, simple, written-all-over-his-wiggling-furry-body kind of love that only a dog can give.

 

This week, I had to say farewell to Houston after 14 long, full years together. We met in rural Illinois, and lived in nine houses in six states since then. In each, we went for walks, took a Christmas-light viewing car ride, shared popcorn on movie night, and turned in for bed together every night. He grew from my dog baby into my best dog friend. And I miss him terribly

 

On Monday, after the vet left with his body, I cleaned up the artifacts of dog life scattered throughout the house.  A water bowl near the back door, a leash near the front. A food bin and dish in the second-floor bathroom, where I'd placed a special non-slip rug that prevented the door from closing but also kept Houston from falling down while he ate his dinner.  The suede, cedar-smelling dog bed under my desk.  It had to go.

 

These things would only trigger tears, I thought, I needed them out of sight. I put his bowls in the dishwasher and took his bed downstairs. Then I vaccuumed the black hair from the carpet in our bedroom before getting Carson at daycare. I was falling apart but at least the house looked calm and collected.

 

On the way home, I explained that Houston had gone away and wouldn't be there when we got home, but I'm never sure how much my almost-2-year old understands. Not long after we arrived home, Carson pulled his step stool over to the counter near the refrigerator and opened the junk drawer. He loves to look at the screw drivers, tape measure, and other tools in that drawer. But Monday he pulled out Houston's brush, brought it to me, lifted his hands in a quizzical gesture, and asked "Yeesh?" He went room to room looking for Houston while I sobbed in the kitchen and reminded him Houston is gone.

 

He hasn't looked for Houston again.

 

But I still expect the dog everywhere I look. I wake in the night suprised he isn't lying directly in the path to the bathroom. I turn the corner in the kitchen thinking Houston needs dinner, only to remember he's gone. Houston's death left a hole in my life big enough to fall in and get lost.

 

Last night, I came home from work to find Houston's plastic dog dishes on the kitchen counter. Our Afghan house guest (who I call my Afghan son, though he's 24 years old and has a mother of his own) had partly emptied the dishwasher and partly reloaded it (strange, I know). As I made dinner I found a few dishes out of place, and put them where they belonged. Then I cleaned up the kitchen and took my son up for his bath.

 

As I sat on the bed reading books with him, Leading Man came in the bedroom to report that our houseguest was eating a bowl of chili in Houston's porcelain water dish. The one with the dog decorations on it and the picture at the bottom of the bowl with the word "woof!" It was so surreal, I had to see it myself.

 

Sure enough, there was our guest at the kitchen table eating chili from a dog dish. He didn't know it was a dog dish (obviously) and I don't know where he put the bowl when he emptied the dishwasher, but there it was.

For once I was thinking about Houston and laughing (not crying) on the inside. The universe has a strange sense of humor, that's for sure. But comic relief feels great. So I say, "Go ahead, Universe, make mine a chili dog."

The Drama Drags On

I’ve got that too-much-to-drink-slurred-speech-schouldn’t-operate-heavy-machinery kind of feeling this morning. And no, I didn’t tie one on last night (too bad for Leading Man, huh?).

 

The daycare transition separation anxiety drama drags on. I am having trouble typing because my motor skills are sluggish and my brain is cluttered, but thought I’d fill you in on recent happenings

 

Last week wasn’t great. Here’s the recap:

 

Monday:         

Federal holiday for Martin Luther King Day, no daycare

Tuesday:         

Inauguration Day, another federal holiday here in the DC Metro area. Carson went to daycare for 3 hours, just to ease back into things. Since no other children came that day, he hung out with Christine’s family; her two older girls who are so, so good to him, but he had a rough morning.

Wednesday:    

He woke up on the wrong side of the crib (you know what I mean). Had his milk and got dressed for the day. While I was feeding the dog, he vomited sour, congealed milk all over the floor. Not sure if he was sick, I kept him home for the day. No other symptoms of illness that day, but he was quieter than usual.

Thursday:        

Went to daycare. He cried when I left. (Me, too, but not in front of him!) Woke up from his nap at daycare feeling sad. Sat at the table for snack but didn’t eat much and didn’t get up from the table for the rest of the afternoon despite lots of cajoling from Christine. When I arrived to get him, he perked up but I couldn’t hold back the tears. He was so sad.

Friday:

Woke up way too early but went back to bed with Mama for an hour and got up in a good mood. Had a fun day at daycare. Enjoyed playing with everyone; ate well; napped well. Didn’t want to go home!

Oooh, look. It’s Monday again. (Where DOES the weekend go?)

 

This morning Carson woke up at 4:45 AM and we couldn’t get him back to sleep (drink of water, crying it out, laying with Mama, singing lullabies, warm milk, singing lullabies, laying with Mama, leaving him to cry it out – not necessarily in that order!). I know, inconsistency is the key to failure (and subsequent exhaustion), but I wasn’t firing on all cylinders, okay? At 6:15 I gave up and we “started” our day.

In my sleep-deprived delirium, I am confident I’ve chosen a wonderful caregiver for Carson but I’m unsure how to handle his anxieties. He (and I) need to sleep well, eat well, and enjoy our work/play time.

So, Reading Mamas, I ask you – What other ways do kids show their separation anxiety (I need to know what more to expect!)? And what’s a Mama to do about it?

You’re Now Leaving the Comfort Zone

One of my goals for 2009 is to meet with other writers to learn about writing, read and comment on each other’s work, and share successes and frustrations. To that end, I joined a group called Scribes and Scribbles. They (or should I say we) hold a biweekly meeting in a coffee shop in Old Town Alexandria.

Tonight is my first chance to attend, and I’m feeling a little anxious about the whole thing.

 

Wallflower I’m not. But on the continuum from shy to socialite, I fall somewhere in the middle: I stay pretty close to the comfort zone most of the time. Social butterflies flit around in my stomach when I think about tonight’s meeting. And the psychologist in my head has to overanalyze it all. (Indulge me, please. Admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery, right?)

 

I can think of (at least) three reasons for the social jitters. First and foremost, trying new identities is scary. Though I routinely tell people I write articles for magazines, I rarely utter the phrase “I am a freelance writer” aloud. Appearing at the Scribes and Scribbles meeting feels like going out in public wearing nothing but a giant sandwich-board that reads “I am a freelance writer.” The rest of what makes me “me” isn’t so relevant at this meeting. I’ll be claiming a new identity out loud and in person. Wow, scary!

 

Did I mention I won’t be wearing any clothes under the sandwich board? Venturing beyond the comfort zone feels a lot like running through the mall naked. You know everyone is looking and judging, even if they’re too kind (or too mortified) to say anything. Social anxiety is most troubling in evaluative situations. I know I’m not supposed to care what others think, but I do. Most days that’s a good thing – it keeps me from going to the store in my pajamas and hair curlers. When it keeps me from exploring new opportunities, it’s not so helpful. A writer’s group is evaluative by definition (but in a constructive sort of way, I hope). Evaluation is jitter-provoking reason #2.

 

What do I expect from the meeting? I don’t know. Stressors we can predict and control are a lot less stressful than those we can’t. Rats who received electric shocks to the tail suffered from ulcers and suppressed immune functioning when they couldn’t predict or control the shocks. Their rat colleagues who received the same amount of shock but whose actions controlled its’ duration fared better.  Lesson to be gleaned: Unpredictable situations are stressful, but they feel better when we remind ourselves we’ve got some control. As I head out the door tonight, feeling like a naked neophyte writer, I’ll remind myself I can come back to the comfort zone any time I please. I feel better just thinking about it.

 

Empty Car Seat Syndrome

    If I had become a mother right out of high school, I’d be sitting bleary-eyed in an empty nest wondering what I’d do with my time now that the kids are off at college. But I didn’t.

    I had my first child at 37, and now – nearing 40 – I find myself sitting bleary-eyed behind the wheel of our Volvo S80 looking at an empty car seat in the rear-view mirror. I can’t hold back the tears. As I drive past the cranes doing highway construction on the Capital Beltway, I have to stop myself from pointing them out and narrating, “The cranes are helping workers build a new bridge. Look at what they are lifting on their hooks.” There’s no one in the backseat to notice the cranes and marvel at their size. No one pointing and questioning “Whazzat?"

    Carson is at daycare. He’s eating breakfast, playing with toys, hearing stories and doing crafts. Later he’ll take his first nap in a bed that isn’t his. And I miss him. 

    The daycare provider assures me he is going to get through it. She says he’s cried more each day – on Monday he didn’t know what was happening, by Tuesday he knew I was leaving. Wednesday he stood pointing at the window where our car was parked and pulled at my zipper to say “Take off your coat, Mom. Stay awhile.” This morning he clinged to me like a monkey. He may be a man of few words but my son communicates very clearly.

    My current strategy for dealing with this transition includes drinking coffee from a porcelain mug, sampling chocolate in its many glorious forms, throwing myself into my work with abandon and going to an occasional MOMS Club event so I can see my friends’ kids.

    It’s sick, I know. But toddlers smile with their eyes, and those crinkly-eyed smiles are like a tonic when a mama suffers from Empty Car Seat Syndrome. Really.

    So to my pint-sized buddies Cooper and Jack, Abby and Julia, I say THANKS. Your smiling faces and toddling play helped dry my tears yesterday. I’m sure Carson will adapt to his new surroundings soon. And so will I. 

Mixed Emotions

    My son, Carson, is 22-months old today – and it will be his first day in daycare. To say I have mixed feelings is an understatement. My emotions fluctuate between anxiety, guilt, excitement, and relief.

    The anxiety is easy to understand. Anytime we feel we’re losing control of something extremely important and special, we get anxious. And trusting someone else with caring for your child is certainly one of those times. I worked hard to find a daycare provider whose views I agree with, whose daycare center is small, attentive to children’s needs, and well-run. But she isn’t me and I won’t be there. There’s a knot in my stomach that twists just a little tighter and grows just a bit bigger each time I acknowledge that.

    The guilt is more complex. Moms feel guilt over every little thing, it seems. When I get a good workout but learn my son has been crying in the gym daycare the whole time I’ve been gone, I feel guilty. When I’ve scheduled a phone interview mid-day that requires me to plunk him in front of Finding Nemo and sequester myself in the bathroom instead of taking him out for a play date, I feel guilty. When the pediatrician harps on the number of words my son says, and directs a speech pathology consult, I feel guilty. It’s hard to have a life, be a mother, and NOT feel guilty.

    As I contemplate dropping Carson at Ms. Christine’s house this morning, I get a little bit excited, too. I’ve really missed being able to focus on my work. That isn’t to say I haven’t worked (I have) or that I haven’t focused (absolutely, I have). Working from home makes mama focus in a way no traditional job can. If you want to produce a professional, well-written product in no time, ask someone with no time. She’ll get it done in the time her kids nap – she has to. 

    But I’m excited to have the chance to pour myself into a project without constantly thinking about when Carson will wake. I’m relieved that he’ll be busy playing with other kids and enjoying Christine’s fantastic fenced backyard. Keeping Carson busy hasn’t been easy for me, and some days the boredom and isolation of being a stay-at-home mom makes me crazy. 

    As I head back to work outside these walls, I recognize that being a work-from-home mom for 22 months has been a wonderful luxury. Few women have the opportunity to stay home with their children without financial worries or career concerns. I treasure the time I share with Carson, always have and always will. But now our time together will be even more precious – because I won’t always be there.   

Ahhh! A Blank Page

    It’s been several weeks since I’ve had time to sit and think and write. With holiday festivities, numerous visitors, and my husband’s promotion to Colonel this week, life has been a blur. A bustling, noisy, happy blur – until now.

    I’ve dropped off the last guest at the airport. Started the laundry. Cleared the clutter. My son is napping (finally). And so I sit down in front of a blank page to write.

    Usually the blank page seems daunting. It taunts “Can’t you organize your thoughts?” “Don’t you have anything interesting to say?” “Have the toddler tantrums and food fights turned your brain to mush?”

    Today the blank page feels good – surprisingly good. Its blankness feels like an opportunity, not an indictment. The blank page reminds me that a New Year is not just a chance to do more, see more, and share more. It is a chance to do less, relax, and refocus on those closest to me.

    So this weekend, I’m flexing my “do nothing” muscles for a change. I’ll let you know how it turns out.