single spaced.

I worry when there aren’t things to write about. Stuff goes on in the periphery, in the lives of people close to me, and as tempting as it is to write about that stuff, it isn’t my place. But not so much going on in my own world. Work is work-ish. Baby is baby-ish, though becoming increasingly toddler-ish. Love is love-ish, even when it’s sometimes angry-ish. I guess that’s it. I’m happy, though not particularly excited. And it’s kind of frustrating.

The job transition was the first big, exciting thing to happen since Baby was born. Having a expiry date on my old job gave me something to look forward to. And now that I’ve more or less settled into my new job, things are at an even keel. I’m definitely thankful for the even keel — it’s a lot better than dreading going to work every morning. It’s just… there could be more going on. Or at least more time to enjoy what I’ve got going on.

While quitting my last job, I was in a creative upswing, coming up with all these great ideas for projects I wanted to take up. I guess I’d assumed that being at a job where I was happy would magically afford me more time to do stuff, like my new cheery disposition would create more hours in the day. But the new regular flow of things still won’t allow me any time to even think. I’m lucky I even have time to blog or write in a journal (though admittedly, it’s happening on time that’s already sold to somebody else).

This morning in the shower, I actually caught myself fantasizing about sleeping in a bed all by myself. Not huddled up between Baby and Boyfriend in one position for the entire night, not worrying about Baby falling off the bed or Boyfriend elbowing me in the neck, but stretched out, on my back, with the entire bed to roll around on. Don’t get it twisted, I love my daughter and my boyfriend very much, but this is how starved I’ve become for my own attention. What I wouldn’t give for a single, worry-free night to myself, a single night where I can just concentrate on me.

I know there’s some unspoken list of topics out there that a mother should never talk about, but I’m hoping this isn’t one of them. Even CNN.com has a special feature on my very predicament.

Babygirl is just a couple days shy of being half a year old. I truly cannot believe how grown she is and how quickly time flew. She has already become expert at rolling over onto her belly. She can also scuttle sideways and crawl backward without much effort. Everyone warned me that my life would be over once she became mobile, and they were right; my life is now entirely devoted to making sure she doesn’t fall off the bed. Still, it’s a delight to watch her teach herself new things, catch small glimpses of her true personality, and try to guess what she’ll be like as a real, grown kid.

I’m not sure I’d mentioned this amidst all my posts on the job transition, but we started her on rice cereal at about five months. But aside from that, she’s been exclusively breastfed since she was born. We’re halfway to our goal, and given the pump room set-up at my new gig, it doesn’t look like I’ll have any problem keeping up my supply to that full year!

I feel like a piece of shit because I haven’t had much time to upload new pictures of her in the past month. But there were also a million other things I was hoping to get started over the past few weeks. And it wasn’t for a lack of time. Between unloading my old job and getting hazed by HR at my new one, I’ve been out of commission at work for the past two weeks. And since Baby is getting bigger, she should be getting a little more independent, right?

Well, I believe I have finally reached the next frontier of parenting challenges.

In many ways, I think I’ve made peace with the Working-Mom Guilt Monster. The whole family is experiencing pains with adjusting to my new schedule, as I’m now starting an hour later than I used to with this new job. Not to mention, both Babygirl and I have been sick with a cold and have been crabby and generally unlike our normal selves. So the Working-Mom Guilt Monster has reared its ugly head once again — but I realize it’s only temporary. We’ll get back into a groove with the schedule, and Baby and I will have to get over this cold eventually. So no, the new trouble I’ve been having is far more complex than guilt.

I was reading an article in the pump room the other day on “Ways to Raise a Happy Baby.” Step one: be responsive to your baby’s cries and don’t let her “cry it out.” Step two: stop trying to constantly appease your baby and teach her how to self-soothe.

So… um… which one is it?

Babygirl follows a routine when she’s being cared for by my mom and aunt during the week: she’s put down for a long nap in the morning, wakes up to eat lunch and play for a few hours, takes a bath, and is then put down for another long nap in the afternoon.

When I have her on the weekends, this routine goes straight out the window for a couple of reasons. I keep her awake longer to make up for the bonding we can’t do during the week, and she also refuses to be “put down” for any reason while I’m home. I mean, she is generally a very happy baby, and I’ve really lucked out with that. But she’s really only happy if I’m right in front of her face. When I try to get stuff done around the house, she cries to be held, and all the attachment parenting huggy garbage I’ve read during pregnancy has made me terribly reluctant to let her cry.

We had a particularly rough night on Sunday. Baby had four and a half days at home with Mommy, with very few naps lasting longer than an hour on any day. By Sunday night she was overtired; and as per usual when she’s overtired, she had an agonizing night terror episode — that lasted nearly an hour. She was absolutely inconsolable, wouldn’t even nurse, and I felt so helpless and already so beat down from my cold that I literally lost my shit and broke down crying.

I’ve come to the harsh realization this week that I have taken a lot of shortcuts in parenting, spoiling my daughter rotten either because I feel guilty or because I don’t want to give her the chance to fuss. When I was pregnant, I imagined this was the exact opposite I wanted to be as a parent. I imagined myself nurturing her development and encouraging her to be her most independent self at any age. And I have tried in the past not to beat myself up over what I can’t do as a mom, but even though she’s only six months old, I already see how my coddling (rather than cuddling) has been detrimental to her. I can’t even get her to nap independently.

I know that Babygirl, by virtue of being a baby, would rather spend all her waking (and sleeping) minutes wrapped up in my arms than in a crib or a swing or a play center, but as much as I love cuddling with her, this isn’t a good set-up for either one of us. And not just because of the backlog of dirty clothes in the laundry room. I just don’t want to do wrong by my daughter. It’s just hard to deal with the pain of doing things “the right way.”

We didn’t seem to have much of a spring here in New England, this year. We went from 50 degrees and raining to an agonizingly humid 95+ degrees in what seemed like a week. We didn’t have the mild, 75-degrees-and-sunny weather we were so used to on the west coast.

It’s definitely summer. Both outside and in my head. I started my new job on Monday, amidst the heatwave, and it felt like the last day of final exams. It’s one thing to be free from the clutches of a bad job, but to come to a place like this where so much of it seems so much easier? It’s like I forgot what life was like on the outside.

Being at this new spot showed me all the other things about work I worried about on a daily basis besides the actual work itself: how much time I actually spent at my desk, how much money I had to spend on lunch, pumping, parking, even the stupid ass exit I had to take just to get there.

The building I now work in is much smaller, which makes a huge difference in how much I’m actually able to live outside of my job. There’s no more leaving the house before sunrise just to get a decent parking spot, and no more fighting a thousand mothers for the lactation room sign-out sheet. The relatively small parking lot is never full here, and I think I share the mother’s room with only one other person in this company.

I can’t say much about the work yet cause I’ve just been buried in the obligatory HR hazing rituals, but I have a good feeling about this place. The corporate atmosphere and the nature of the job I’ll be doing tell me that I’ll at least be treated like an adult around here. I have a very specific function here, so I won’t be held responsible for “supporting the group,” and then held responsible for all the group’s projects by association. We’re also working with actual products, and it seems to me there’s enough work to do, so I doubt I’ll have to put together any marketing packages proving my department’s value-add. In fact, I’m pretty sure “value-add” isn’t even part of the lexicon around here. I also highly doubt I’ll have to deal with micromanaging bosses who spend entire days in meetings where nothing gets done, only to come back to our one-on-one and team meetings where nothing gets done and create meaningless work for the rest of us like we don’t have shit else to do.

The added super bonuses? I actually have a laptop and VPN access, and people in my department actually. have. children. This means work-from-home capability. This also means I no longer have to take days off for snowstorms or my daughter’s doctor’s appointments.

I already see myself being much happier here.

Yesterday I wrote a lengthy post lamenting corporate work, and how I couldn’t properly celebrate my new job because my current one still has me so tightly by the balls. But you know what? I’m done. I would much rather focus on the positives than let this place suck any more happiness away from me.

I’ve got it good otherwise, and thinking positive seems to work very well for me — I asked for a new job and got one. I’ve been blessed with an amazing kid, a loving boyfriend, and a very supportive family. And like my mom said, money is just money. What’s lost can be re-earned. If you wanna be something in life, you ain’t gonna get it unless you give a little bit of sacrifice.

It just got me thinking, since I’ve graduated college, it seems like I’ve made some colosally bad choices in work. I’ve excelled in everything I’ve tried, but after a few months, not only did things get boring but they went sour. My happiness in any position never lasted more than six months, if that. It even shows on my resume — I’ve had to lie through my teeth countless times over when potential employers have asked me to explain gaps in work or why I’ve never stayed in one place for very long. I’ve never even gotten fired from a job in my life, but my habit of leaving seems to be just as sinful.

I’m beginning to wonder if there’s something fundamentally wrong with me for not being able to settle in a cubicle and just grind like so many other people do. I’ve always worked my ass off until I burned out, but I’ve I never lasted long at jobs I really hated. And, to be honest, I end up hating every job I have after some period of time. Is this bad? Does it say something about my work ethic? Am I a bad person for not being happy working under the supervision of somebody else?

I guess what I really want to get at is whether or not there’s really any value to working under all the old corporate rules if it’s only driving me to do something more for myself. When I think about all the hoops I had to jump through just to find a job when I was pregnant, a lot of it seemed like practice in beating myself down — which I guess is a necessary skill to keep working in corporate. I first had to hide my pregnancy, the happiest moment of my life, just to get anyone to consider me. Then I had to lie about why I’ve hopped so many jobs and basically puff up all of my managers in the process, even if they were incompetent and abusive. So many interview guides discourage making any mention of having a life outside of work, to make it seem like nothing will ever stand between you and getting the job done.

And what’s really the point of it all? Why should I have to act like being holed up in a cubicle is the only thing that can fulfill me? Is there anything solidly virtuous about staying at one job over a period of years (especially in our current economy, where corporations will gladly drop you without a bat of an eyelash)? It’s not like any of this corporate etiquette truly equates to hard work anyway, and everybody knows that.

I’ve been reading a really interesting book called Grindhopping. I could do without all the “Grindhopper” branding, and some of the advice doesn’t always seem practical when you’ve got another mouth to feed besides your own, but it is a very encouraging read about successful one-person-shows. And a lot of what Vanderkam has to say about the ridiculousness of corporate culture is spot on. The accrual of rewards is completely arbitrary: the hardest working people don’t always get rewarded, tenure won’t save you from downsizing, and just because somebody puts in sixty hours a week in their cubicle doesn’t mean they’re actually doing any work.

I picked up this book to set me on the right path, and it’s been a pretty inspiring read so far. I’m looking forward to my new job and I’m definitely going to give it its proper celebration this weekend, but I’m also looking forward to starting other projects and not being so dependent on the grind.

So, my daughter is nearly half a year old, I’m a week away from my last day at this job, and my maternity leave still continues to haunt me financially.

Unbeknownst to me, our HR department (which is sourced to a vendor outside of the company I work for) had my benefits terminated for unpaid invoices, thus dropping my daughter from my insurance, despite the fact that they were still deducting the amount from my paycheck — something that can easily be proven with just a few mouse clicks. Another thing to add to the long list of grievances. I seem to put a new call in every single day. It feels like I spent half my job and half my nights on the phone with our benefits department trying to get them to fix colossal mistakes.

I still remember how urgent the need for a job was when I landed here; after all, it was only a year ago. Healthcare was really the only reason why I was in such a mad dash to find a job. I wasn’t looking to get paid for my leave — I just wanted to be sure that my daughter could see the doctor when she needed to. I start a new position in a couple of weeks, but for the first few months, half my paycheck will be going to my current job to pay back what I shouldn’t have owed in the first place. What I owe back to the company probably isn’t much less than what I would’ve had to pay if I just didn’t have insurance coverage throughout my pregnancy anyway.

For as much stress my leave from work has put me through, I’m beginning to think it might have been easier to just not work until I gave birth to my daughter. I’m trying so very hard not to stress it, but my maternity leave has been such a bureaucratic nightmare that it has ruined some of my happiest moments of this past year — my baby’s birth and my new job included.

It’s painful to even admit that. All this stress aside, I feel incredibly blessed and I really am happy with my life. Under normal circumstances, like if I knew this could be straightened out with a single phone call, then I wouldn’t even be sweating it right now. The problem is that I’ve been trying to fix this myself since November. I have been drowning in bills and I have been endlessly navigating phone mazes. I can’t get anyone to give me a straight answer because it’s always some other department that handles everything — or I have to ask five different people and I end up with five different answers. Every time I’ve tried to resolve issues, they made it so hard it’s almost like they’ve refused to give me a chance. I’ve wanted so bad to celebrate all the new changes going on in my life, especially this new job, but some new bill shows up in the mail from them every day. They’ve become an inescapable dark cloud.

I don’t want to feel sorry for myself over something so stupid, but this is just so unfair. I worked my ass off at this job, dealt tirelessly with an idiot boss, all I’ve been trying to do be honest and just take care of my baby, and this company has done little more than screw me up and down.

If anyone has any kind of advice to help me deal with this, please let me know.

So I quit my job yesterday.

It probably isn’t what you think — especially after my last post. It wasn’t out of any brazen attempt to stick my middle finger at the corporate grind or anything.

A few months ago, I made a personal goal to be at a new job by mid-summer. The day after my latest post, I was offered another position — a really great position in another company, with better money and better perks. I will be a “Technical Writer,” and even though I’ll mainly be in charge of writing manuals, I’ll finally be making a legitimate living as a “writer.” I am completely over the moon about this. It was the #1 goal on my 43things.com list and I can now cross it off.

Also, over the weekend Princess Meatball turned five months old, and we are inching ever closer to our goal of exclusively breastfeeding for her first six months. I’m determined to make it to one year, but given my new job situation, I’m a little unsure of how I’ll be able to pump, so I’ve promised not to beat myself up if I don’t make it to December 17th.

Since giving birth to The Meatball, I’ve begun to realize the importance of verbalizing my own goals. I’ve been very fortunate to spend my entire young adulthood in a constant state of adventure — I never allowed myself to get stuck in one place and I never allowed myself to be bored. But being in a new mom-role requires stability. I can’t traipse around the country like I used to and I can’t spend my days doing glamorous magazine work for free anymore. I need a steady source of income; and a 9-5 is the best way for me to do that right now. As I’ve probably already exhibited through my endless complaining about my job on this blog, it has the potential to get really boring and really miserable really quickly.

Verbalizing my goals has given me what I needed to get by: a sense of direction, something to work towards and look forward to. I’m not really about the “law of attraction,” but it can’t hurt to say out loud that you want something good for yourself and get it out there.

So don’t think that getting this new job has already made me forget my real goal of being in business for myself. I’ve still got my eye on the prize and I still plan to work for it — I’ll just be much more happy in the meanwhile. =)

I know that I’ve been making a good case for working moms on this blog, but I guess I haven’t been entirely truthful with you guys. In all honesty, I fucking hate my job and if I won “Set For Life” I’d be out right now.

When I say things that sound like, “I want to work” or “I like to work,” what I really mean is, “I want to feel useful and make my own money.” I could never, in good conscience, quit working and not get paid unless it actually made more financial sense to do this than to work. And that would only be likely if we actually paid for child care, and if my boyfriend became my husband and made more than I do — none of which are the case at this time. Even if the latter were true, I could never feel comfortable letting somebody else make all the money. Call me a cynic, but I’d rather hedge my bets than trust that my boyfriend will always be around to feed us. I mean, what it really comes down to is that I just feel good about myself knowing that I don’t need to depend on anyone to take care of my daughter and me.

But I still hate my job. I’ve had it up to my eyeballs with corporate culture.

My family has told me to just suck it up for the sake of my daughter, to just show up to work and do the damn thing and don’t take anything too personally. And over the past month I’ve been blasting my resume out there to other corporations in the area, trying to find something with better management, or something a little more aligned with “what I really want to do.” But I can’t plan my whole future on chasing paper from cube to cube anymore.

While I definitely want to instill in my daughter many of the values my mom raised me with (independence, education, intellect, etc.), I want to confidently let go of the notion that going corporate is the only way I’ll have enough money to raise my kid. As much as I love my extended family, they have a special talent for rhetorically killing dreams, so I kind of have to unlearn to discount my own happiness for the almighty dollar.

It’s not even like my goals are all that lofty — at this point, I just want an enjoyable side gig (preferably one I can do while hanging out with my daughter) that makes me enough money so I can afford to just work part time or something. I want to do “what I really want to do” — set my own hours, work from home, be creative, interact with people I actually like.

My daughter grows by the day, and I don’t expect I’ll be able to watch her pack on every little ounce. Like I said, I value work and being independent, but I’ll be damned if I miss any part of her childhood cause I’m too busy working a job I loathe. I’m ready to transition — to hustle in the here and now, do the damn thing at my stupid desk for the paycheck so I can come up with my plan and be my own boss later.

So let’s hope I don’t embarrass myself by actually admitting what I want.

Happy Mother’s Day mommies!

Me and Boyfriend talking dirty via text messaging:

Him: I got Super Smash Bros so we should play it tonight… NAKED.
Me: I will let you smash me naked tonight. LMAO.
Him: LOL.
Me: Honeybee crapped on me.
Him: Details?

I know I’ve probably bitched about this a thousand times here, but between this and this, why does it feel like everything I read about parenting comes off as an assault on individual choices and values? It’s so rare to find someone who can say “This is how I raise my child,” without really saying, “This is how everyone should raise their children.”

I think one thing all parents can agree on is that you can never anticipate how hard the job is until you become a parent. So, as predicted, I’ve never seen a group of people more yearning and needy for validation than parents — myself included. It’s a tough job and, to be honest, nobody knows what the hell they’re doing, and all we really want is to know we’re doing the right thing for our kids. What I find curious is that the need for validation always seems to be translated into self-righteousness. I’ve never known another group to be harsher judges of each other than parents.

In all my years online and getting caught up in weird and useless drama, my blog philosophy has finally settled on, “Don’t hate. Collaborate!” I believe that words can be extremely powerful in bringing people together or alienating them, and I’ve always been against just writing for attack. I’m not out to judge people or make them feel bad about themselves. But as a mom, I’ve become very careful about what I say here for fear of what could be perceived. I read what other parents might have to say about my lifestyle or my work as a parent, and I immediately take it personally and get on the defensive. And to be honest, I’m tired of it.

I tend to blog myself into circles here, but I spend eight hours a day at my job and the rest of my time trying to entertain a person who can’t even wipe her own butt. I don’t have any more energy to fight for and defend every decision I have to make. So I’m making one more defense and then moratorium on these kinds of posts.

• Regarding that whole debate behind “The Secret Life of Soccer Moms,” I didn’t actually think people were still that ignorant, and it actually kind of scares me that these kinds of folks still exist. I wouldn’t expect any woman to find fulfillment just by raising children alone. This is not to be read as a judgment on Stay-At-Home moms, but it is to be read as a huge “Fuck You” to people who think women raising children shouldn’t be entitled to their own identity. For chrissakes, dream diversity is an okay thing! I know tons of SAHMs with dreams and hobbies and goals that don’t necessarily involve the raising of their children, and I respect them for that. It just kills me that women can be this judgmental towards each other. We all had our own interests and experiences and lives before we had kids and, more than likely, they’re what shaped the values we now hold as parents. It doesn’t even make sense to me that any parent should be expected to negate that.

  It seems to me this is mainly a “rich suburban mom” dialogue that I wouldn’t fit into. My mom — of course being a woman, a person of color, and an immigrant — could not afford to build her hopes and dreams on raising children and being a wife alone. Still, I hate having to say that I “don’t have a choice” when it comes to work just to deflect the accusation that I would choose a career or a lifestyle over my child. Saying that I “don’t have a choice” implies a) that I believe my daughter is worse off than the children of those who do have a choice, b) that I believe I am less effective as a parent because I work, and/or c) that I am unhappy with my life, none of which could be further from the truth.

  First of all, I’m doing my best to set an example for my daughter by living my life according to what I believe is valuable. I value my intellect and my independence and my power to take care of myself, and I want my daughter to hold those same values. She also has two parents who love her very much and are working hard to raise her in a nurturing environment. We are very lucky in that she is cared for during the day by people who love her as much as we do. I really believe that it takes a village to raise a child — while the responsibility of caring for her ultimately falls on my boyfriend and me, I am definitely proud that she gets to spend a lot of time with her grandmothers and aunts and uncles as well. And the whole point in moving back to the east coast was so that she could be surrounded by people who love her. In that way, she’s as well off — probably better off — as a kid could be.

  Secondly, my temperament just wouldn’t allow me to be a SAHM. I would get irritable and short tempered if I didn’t have the interaction with adults that I get at work. As much as I hate answering to my devil boss, the time I spend at work makes the time I spend with my daughter all the more precious. Sure, I could be at a job I enjoy more, and I’m currently trying to rectify this, but I truly do love my life and have no qualms about the decisions I’ve made in my 25 years.

  I mean, ultimately, I choose to work to keep up a comfortable home — both financially and mentally — for my family. If I came into a windfall of money Powerball-style, I’d quit my job in a second and take my daughter around the world, but as it stands, I’m happy with the way my boyfriend and I (and my mom and aunt and extended family) are raising my daughter, and I no longer feel the need to defend that to a bunch of ignorant people who think my place is in the kitchen.

• Yes, I have, on occasion, left my house without makeup on, and I’ve admittedly let some of my girlish routines fall by the wayside. Before having a baby, looking sharp was probably one of the most important things to me, but now that I’m a parent, I find myself more concerned with making sure my daughter is fed and clothed comfortably before we leave the house, leaving me a very tiny window of time before she gets hungry and uncomfortable again. She is extremely vocal and will let the whole neighborhood know if I’ve slacked on any of my motherly duties.

  I will not try to front: I don’t have enough free time to get myself ready to impress people outside of the workplace. My boyfriend usually works on the weekends, so I don’t have anybody around to watch my daughter while I try to get ready for a trip to the mall or something. I always manage to shower, brush my teeth, and get clean clothes on, but I consider if a bonus if I can actually get my contact lenses in. In fact, I had to chop off all my hair because I couldn’t even find time in the day to comb through all the tangles. Plucking my eyebrows has become a necessary evil once a month, and I haven’t even had polish on my toes since before I gave birth. I’ll get myself pedicured up for sandal season, but trust me, if it wasn’t summertime, I could go another few months with bare toes, completely unfazed.

  Being that I actually have free child care while I’m at work and I still can barely find the time to keep my head attached to my body, I am continually amazed by moms of small children who can actually make it to the gym several times a week and to the salon or spa a few times a month, in addition to being able to stay on top of work, family, and their friendships. I won’t hate; I’ll congratulate!

That’s it. I’ve spoken my peace. Now back to your regularly scheduled program.