Working Mamma

Back to Work

There are definitely things I love about business travel - the hotel rooms, the food, meeting people (yes, really), coming home.

I'm back to work today, and so glad to be, because there are things I don't love about business travel, like being away from my kids, being out of touch at work, coming back to a thousand and one e-mails.

In other news, it was a beautiful day outside yesterday and we actually did yard work.  Well, my husband did yard work.  I helped.  Kind of.  It's not so much my thing, the outdoors.  All in all, glad to be going back to my clean and bright temperature-controlled and bug-free cubical today.

Brave New World

Traveling for work, while breastfeeding, without baby, is like a series of small indignities.  None very awful, not any by itself degrading or demeaning.  But, over time, it adds up.  The security guy who doesn't know what my breast pump is.  Being absolutely unable to find dish soap in a 3 ounce or less container.  People having no idea at all why I might need dish soap.  The woman checking your luggage who asks what is in the cooler.  "Breastmilk," I reply, and she giggles, visibly embarrassed at having to ask her supervisor if it needs to be labeled as such. 

It's wearing, it really is.  I wouldn't say it makes traveling twice as much work.  But almost.

However, I did make a wonderful discovery.  I bought a (new, clean, unused of course) travel dog water dish, the kind that folds up nicely, and it was in that I washed my pump parts in my hotel room.  Perfect. 

Experience

There are certain things for which no amount of life experience can prepare you.  Like childbirth.  Parenting.  Marriage. 

I had one of these experiences yesterday at my conference.  Whenever I travel for business I always have a few of these "oh duh" moments when I get lost or make poor assumptions or whatever.  But yesterday, oh yesterday.

I came downstairs from my very lovely room to the breakfast sponsored by the very lovely conference.  And came face-to-face with a fish.  A whole salmon, head, eyes, spine and all, laid out on the buffet table as people snatched bits of flesh off with lovely silver tongs.  Hor-ri-fied.  Lord.

Now, I eat meat.  Believe me.  But I like to keep maintain, at all times, an illusion that the meat was never really an animal.  Never lived.  Never breathed.  But to have that reality to blatently shoved in my face.  Could. Not. Deal. 

It was about enough to make me rethink my stance on vegetarianism.  But, I tell you, if croissants were animals, I would totally hunt and shoot them.  Because, yum.

In bed by 10:30 p.m., up by 4:00 a.m. to be at the airport by 5.  Not perfect but, okay whatever.  Until the three-year-old wakes up at least five times to complain that her foot hurts.  Yarg.  This happens every couple of months or so, this foot thing, and for the life of me, I cannot find any cause at all.  Growing pains? Food reaction?  General naugtyness escaping through the foot?  I don't know.

It's right now 4:41 a.m. and it's aaaaaallllmost time to leave.  Wish us luck, because we are going to need it!

We leave tomorrow morning... very early.  For three entire waking days, I won't see my kids and my kids won't see either of their parents.  Freaking out would be the nice way to put where I'm at right now.

On one hand, I think it's probably good for the kids to spend enough time with their grandma that everyone stops being polite... and starts getting real.  (Hee, sorry.)  And it's definitely good for my husband to have some time off.  He's been a stay at home dad for more than three years and while it's the kind of job that doesn't so much offer a vacation package, he still more than deserves a break.

On the other hand, it's really hard to leave them, and there's no way to communicate those small things like exactly the right way to mix taco seasoning with plain yogurt to make dip for tortilla chips or just how to get two kids to bed in under thirty minutes.  But maybe what really scares me is how much of parenting isn't really about what I put into it, but is more about just putting a tiny damper on the chaos. 

And I sit here, hearing the new lullaby CD playing over the monitor in my son's room and think, who decided this creepy music was a lullaby???

North by Northwest Too

On Wednesday, I leave for my business trip.  As an after-hours event, we'll be touring the hotel in which The Shining was filmed.  Great movie.  Great hotel, or so it looks. 

On vacation a few years ago (before kids, so feels like a lifetime ago), we walked up (and down) the steps from The Exorcist.  Scary movie aside, those steps scared the crap out of me, as I am waaaay too clumsy for that kind of thing. 

I've also looked into the window at Tiffany's in New York, though I didn't have a donut at the time.

I used to really love movies (back when I had the time/patience/energy to watch something that lasts longer than 30 minutes), and when I'm in a place where a great movie was filmed, that excitement comes back to me all over again.

Ideal

The arrangement we have, as a family, is a pretty good one.  I work full time, my husband works part-time as a photographer, during the hours that I'm home.  But I still feel like maybe I am away from my kids a bit too much.  And being home all time time is hard on my husband too. 

My ideal situation would be if we could work for the same company, each 20 hours a week (opposite each other), sharing one set of benefits.  Wouldn't that be awesome?

What would your ideal work situation be?

Ahhhhh, massage day.  Today I'm finally going to be using the massage gift certificate my mother-in-law gave me for my birthday... a  year and a half ago.

During my first pregnancy, I got massages twice a month.  It was heavenly.

I've had maybe five massages since my first child was born.  It's amazing how there is absolutely NO TIME for this kind of thing now.  And of course, when you have no time, is when you really need them, because that's when you're stressed out.

Oh well.  Today, I will go and enjoy my *45 minute!* massage.  And try not to fall asleep.

Hair!

Hi, my name is Tenille and I grow hair.  I'm getting ready to cut my hair and donate it to Locks of Love.  For the second time.  It's a great thing to do, especially if you have nicer hair than I do.  I always worry that whoever gets my hair will curse its frizziness like I do, but maybe that's a good problem to have when you're coming from no hair at all.

It works out well this time, since I'm going to be a bridesmaid in my friend's 20's-style wedding, so I should be able to show up in a nice, new bob.  Yay!

Anyone else ever donated their hair?   

ANTMday

TV has become more important to me since I've become a mother.  Mostly, I think, because it's one of our few remaining forms of entertainment.  We certainly can't go anywhere.  Restaurants are a nightmare (Can we get a cheeseburger plain with no bun and can you grill that in a separate pan to make sure there isn't any gluten contamination?  Thanks ever so much.) and so much more work (Sit down. Take a bite.  Turn around.  Just try it.) than just cooking at home.  And going to the movies?  Forget it.  I do still make time to read, but that's to the detriment of laundry and vacuuming and the generally cleanliness of my house.  (Shame.) So, TV it is, though we only have 22 channels and we only watch four of those.

And so, Wednesday is no longer Wednesday.  I now offically declare it ANTMday, because today is the day that America's Next Top Model is on.  And I LOVES it.  I know, it's awful, junk reality TV, but still.  I can't help myself. It's just too good.