CurrentMom

The Blessing of a Carpool

Truth Thursday

I remember the very first carpool I was in. My oldest son, two years old, was entering half-day pre-school.  We were very pleased with our choice of pre-school, but we were stumped as to how we were going to get him there and back. Our wonderful nanny at the time did not yet have her driver’s license, and we both worked full-time in the opposite direction. 

Somehow we learned about people in our neighborhood whose children were also attending this pre-school, and we figured out a carpool. I remember crying as I was trying to sketch out how this was all going to work – it just felt overwhelming and new and undoable.

Of course, it eventually all worked out, and except for one day when one of the fathers in the carpool forgot to pick the kids up (yes, I still remember that) it all ran pretty smoothly for the year. After that year, things start to blur a bit as to how we got our son to pre-school, but I think our nanny finally learned how to drive, and eventually, when my younger kids were going, I was also working at home as a consultant and could drive them as well. 

So that oldest son is now at college and no longer in need of a carpool. In fact, I haven’t driven him anywhere for years. He was never involved in team sports, and so the clubs and activities he chose were all at school and accessible. And because he is so independent, he chose to find his own way all these years – via metro, bus, car and foot.

But, as they so often do in parenthood, the tides are once again changing, and I am about to enter my next phase of parenting. Call it the Sports Carpool phase. And I am already starting to feel those tears of overwhelmed-ness well up again. 

Departure

Truth Thursday

It was about 8:00 in the evening, and my contractions had really started to holler. My husband and I got in the car and he drove me through the park to the hospital, with the windows open. I remember screaming into the soft, summer trees as we drove past, the pain was so extraordinary. 

At 6:44 the next morning, after a night of contractions and challenges, our son was born by c-section. Because his heart rate had dropped during my labor, he was whisked away to the NICU before I could hold him. My mother arrived while I was still in recovery and came barreling into the room and held me tight. All I wanted to know was that my baby was ok (he was) and that we would be reunited soon (we were.) He went home on the hottest day of the year half swaddled in the bunting she had lovingly chosen for him.

He was a challenging baby.  Didn’t nurse easily, didn’t reach any of his milestones on time. We worried a lot. But eventually, he reached them all. Including the doozy of all milestones - his departure for college.

We just dropped that baby off at his freshman college dorm.

It really does go by in the blink of an eye. I can remember – viscerally – the torture of being up with my newborn every night for two months, as he found the hours of 1:00 – 5:00 am to be the best for playtime. Sitting on our porch swing, waiting for the newspaper to be delivered. He would finally go back to sleep for a couple of hours and I would doze until he woke.  The memory of the physical pain from getting through those two months with no sleep and taking care of a newborn will never leave me.

I ran into the wonderful director of his wonderful pre-school the day before we hit the road for college. It was an omen of grace and goodness, as I would have kept all three of my kids in her charge for their entire school careers if I could. She wished me luck, and we reminisced about how she used to go into the classrooms with a Polaroid camera on the first day of school to bring a snapshot to the parents who were waiting upstairs in the “Tea and Sympathy” room.  She told me she never took a picture of a child crying. My child was merely curled up in a fetal position in the corner. We still have that picture.

Nobody's Perfect ... But This Is Ridiculous

Truth Thursday

I made not one, not two, not three but four doozy mistakes this week – at both work and home. I am self flagellating. I am eating crow with those affected. Although some of my errors have worked themselves out, I am still fairly miserable about others.

That’s a lot of distress to manage in a very short period of time.

In my worst moments, I am also thinking like a giant child. I can walk off the job. I can run away from home. Who hasn’t had those liberating thoughts when faced with an unpleasant mess to clean up?

I don’t have excuses. I take responsibility for what I’ve done. None of them were hanging offenses … at least I don’t think so. But I am sobered by the fact that even after all these years, I am not perfect – either at my job, or in my personal life.

I’m still more sobered by the fact that I have a friend who, earlier this spring, lost her job, quite unceremoniously, after a mistake that I also would characterize as not being a hanging offense. And yet others disagreed, and overnight she was out of work. 

She also self flagellated, but it didn’t matter. She still had to recalibrate her entire life. So I am aware that it’s not always up to me to determine what is bad and what is really bad. 

Not the Corner Office

Truth Thursday

Halleluyah.  An article about mothers who work outside of the home that doesn’t focus in on the so-called “mommy wars” about SAHMs and WOHMs.  One that doesn’t force our hand in the “lean-in” debate. One that doesn’t say that you can’t have a rewarding career without giving up a lot at home, and vice versa.

Instead, the New York Times article last week, entitled, “Coveting Not A Corner Office, But Time At Home” describes my ambition to a tee.  I want a rewarding career, one in which my work is valued and I enjoy my organization’s mission and think my colleagues are interesting, dynamic, complex people with whom to work. I want some modicum of recognition for a job well done, and for a career with a long trajectory of relative success. 

But I don’t want any of it to come at the expense of my family life. My home, with my spouse and children within its four walls, is the sanctuary of my world. I love those four people more than anything else, and their happiness, well-being and success is one of my key objectives. I want to be there as much as I can to enjoy their company, make them dinner, accompany them to their various activities, and cheer them on when they play soccer or field hockey, or win an award, or need a shoulder to cry on, or fail a test, or take a big step in their own ongoing life stories.

I am one of the most fortunate people I know, because I have found a way to have both. Between my more than a decade of consulting work, and now, with a flexible and family friendly office and an understanding supervisor and staff, I have been able to carve out a work life that gives me what I need in the office, as well as supports my need to take care of my family. It almost never asks me to choose between the two.

Liminality

Truth Thursday

We gazed at the moon, and heralded the end of Shabbat, the day of rest. We blessed the wine, the candlelight, the scents of the earth, put our arms around each other’s waists and welcomed a new week with a song I used to sing in a whisper to my children when they were young:  "shavua tov, shavua tov -- a good week, a week of peace, may gladness reign and joy increase."

It was a beautiful bar mitzvah ceremony and party, on the night of the fullest, brightest moon of the year, and, coincidentally, on the summer solstice, so it was also the longest day of the year, and the one with the most light.

For me, it harkened back to the darkest, shortest day and night of the year, just six months ago, when I was sitting on the precipice of change.

I’m still not sure what has been the hardest transition for me, in this season of many transitions. Moving back into full-time work, with office and managerial responsibilities? Turning 50? Lying in wait for my oldest child to graduate from high school and begin his college career?

These big three seem to have all collided … and colluded to make me feel very unsteady over these past six months.