Hanging out

This past week Ben has been at a curriculum training at the University of Illinois. So it's been just Eliza and me at home. I was changing her diaper shortly after Ben left, and telling her that "Daddy is on a trip, so right now it's just Mommy and Eliza hanging out at home." She picked up on "hang out" and so all this week she has been saying, "Mommy, Yi-ya [Eliza] hang out."

That's what it feels like we're doing right now, too. Marking time, not getting anything accomplished in the way of house upkeep... just reading books, watching Elmo, going to the park even though it's raining. I have had no energy for anything besides the care and feeding of Eliza. Luckily, Ben was able to come home for the weekend -- he has about 40 hours here before he returns for another week of training -- so right now I am able to devote some time to writing here while he and Eliza are at the park.

I am almost 9 weeks along, and I am tired. I have slept decently for the past few nights, but I think that has mostly been because I was denied a nap during the day. I am tired but can't sleep, and I am hungry but struggling to find some food that sounds good. I was not this food-averse with Eliza, and it is frustrating. The idea of cooking is repulsive, so I have been eating things like frozen waffles and Cheerios. But the little juxtaposition inside me is growing and measuring right where he/she is supposed to, per an ultrasound on Tuesday. My pants are getting tight, too, but I hope I can squeeze another few weeks out of them. I was hoping to make it through the summer without needing to buy maternity shorts, but now I'm just hoping to make it to the end of the first trimester (which is a VERY optimistic wish).

This Thursday I am flying to Tucson for my cousin's wedding. I'm going to tell my family the big news there, and I am excited about that. It will be just me (and Ball of Cells) going to the wedding, as Ben is still going to be gone, and I didn't want to drag Eliza to an evening wedding on Pacific time. I am going to miss her like crazy, but I am also getting a hotel room to myself for four nights. And after a week of solo parenting and two, yes, two bouts of cleaning up my daughter's vomit, I am really looking forward to some time to myself and some grown-up conversations with my family.

Home alone

Ben and Eliza are out at the park down the street, leaving me a rare empty house. I crave the space and silence, but it's strange how I can never think of anything to do anymore. It's supposed to be Meghan Time, but whenever I'm afforded the peace and quiet I don't do much in the way of my soul. Today I haven't read or sung showtunes (guilty pleasure and so uplifting for me!) or even painted my nails. I straightened up the front room, always a toddler crime scene, and started making dinner. Maybe it's not so much what I do with the space than the simple fact that I have it.

Escape

I am dreaming of flying to Rome and spending a few days there doing nothing but eating and drinking. Screw the Coliseum, bring me another chianti.

When I have escapist fantasies like this, I know something in me needs attention, care, and nourishment. I have tried to discern what this ache is for a while now and still feel very in the dark. It's been very hard to retreat from the obligations of family life this past week, and even though Ben does his best to give me breaks, I need Rome. How do I disconnect when staying at home is more than just my job, it is my whole life? And if I need something else new and exotic to feed me, well, what the hell is it?

Searching for the soulful

I feel like every spring something cracks open within me. I am yearning for spiritual conversation and connection this afternoon. I want to be a part of a group of women, a group of mothers, who have those Big Conversations with each other over laughter and wine. Being home all day with Eliza, I don't usually feel lonely, but I definitely recognize how isolated our days are and I am yearning to have a conversation with someone who understands this afternoon. Maybe after the hibernation of winter, I feel like connecting and creating again. I don't know. I feel this longing every year around this time, and then life gets in the way again and I don't do anything about it.

I am brainstorming about how to start a real group like the one I dream about, because I'm fairly certain no one in this area has something like this going on. Maybe that's how to connect my creativity, my search for work, and this overpowering afternoon yearning.

What Mothers Do Especially When It Looks Like Nothing

I am in the middle of What Mothers Do Especially When It Looks Like Nothing by Naomi Stadlen, and it is the most validating piece I have read about motherhood since becoming a mother. Since making the decision to stay at home with Eliza, I have been plagued with the idea that I am not "doing enough," and this book addresses how my house may be a disaster and I never got to the laundry today, but I am most certainly doing enough when I am mothering a baby. It also talks how there are no words to describe the types of work that mothers do with babies -- that multifocused attention, the multitasking of shopping with a toddler (you're not just shopping, you're socializing a toddler to the world by communicating with them about their surroundings and enforcing social norms), the communication with a pre-verbal child. She names plenty of work that mothers do, and certainly is validating to hear why I can still be so tired after a day at home with Eliza.

What I also really appreciate about this book is the naming of the identity shift that mothers go through after having a child. I remember going over to watch the 2010 Rose Bowl at a friends' house. They have a little boy a few months older than Eliza. Not that I care about football, but the whole time I was there I did nothing but care for Eliza, making bottles, feeding her, changing her diaper, making sure she was entertained. If I talked, it was about my child. We drove home that night and I just couldn't believe what my life had become. No longer would I be carefree or travel lightly. I didn't want to go back to who I was pre-baby, but I also realized that there wasn't a way back. That door slammed shut when my child was born.

It has taken me a while to really incorporate this mama piece of myself. For a while I felt like I couldn't connect all the pieces of my personality together, that they were all separate and disjointed and impossible to integrate... perhaps to make room for this mama piece; I don't know. But I remember thinking that it was impossible for Carefree, Silly Meghan to co-exist with Mama Meghan. And I didn't know which of those pieces I was when I was all alone, doing whatever it was I wanted. I wasn't all of them, and I wasn't none of them, either. While I'm still not sure how I'd primarily define myself, my psyche is capable of owning and integrating that mama piece these days. I recognize that I wear many hats and have many personalities, and it feels less like chaos and more like I have a well-equipped toolbox at my disposal. I am so happy to see a book actually naming, or at least describing, this struggle -- my only wish is that I had read it when I was going through this identity shift.

Eliza is napping; the house is quiet. I have been feeling the need for some spiritual centering in my life lately, and I think I'm going to attempt to right myself in the cosmic realm while I have a few blessed quiet moments alone.

Naptime

Eliza's new mattress was just delivered, and she is upstairs soundly asleep... in her crib. She had a freakout the day after I wrote the last post, complete with vomiting, so we moved her back to the crib and she's done okay in there again. This is, of course, after I ordered the $450 mattress. Oh well.

The weather has been amazing here the past few days, and it feels glorious to be able to run and play outside again. I think we are both acclimating our energy levels to this newfound freedom -- Eliza slept in this morning and went down for a nap with little fuss. I am succeeding in wearing her out by taking her outside, but it also wears me out, too. Still, it's fun to be in the fresh air moving around, and I hope to be able to fit in my jeans again. I tried on a pair this morning that I haven't worn all winter, and I'm like, how the hell did my jeans shrink from sitting in my dresser all winter? You know what I'm talking about.

I have a job interview on Sunday. The job is a position that I am extremely qualified for, a step up from a similar previous position and a big leap for me professionally. It's been a very soul-searching journey for me to consider going back to work. I have basically been hemming and hawing over it since I quit my previous position when Eliza was 3 months old. Financially, we are doing okay. Not great, but we get by and don't have any real money worries. So it's always been my choice if I want to return to work or not. I've had the luxury of waiting for the "perfect" job, and in many ways, this job is perfect for me... and I'm now 95% sure I don't want it.

I like staying at home. I always wanted to stay home when I had children, and I'm grateful that I am in a place where I am able to "live the dream," even on the shittiest of days. It has taken me a long time to get over the idea that I need to be going somewhere professionally, that my value is in a paycheck. I am extremely valuable to my family, to my daughter -- though of course on those shitty days it is hard to realize that, and on those days I am perusing the ads on CareerBuilder and assuming that my problems will be solved when I go back to work. But I am much more me, authentically, when I am home. Now, this may just be my propensity towards underemployment, but work has never challenged me in the way that staying home and raising a child has. That's not a knock on working moms at all; for me, there is a tremendous challenge in staying in the moment that being a mother has provided, and that is something that has always proven a struggle. I don't miss office banter or adult interaction (see previous post regarding introverted tendencies). I like being able to be there for all of my daughter's moments. Maybe that's me being a control freak. I don't really care. I'm so happy with my life.

Anyway, don't expect this to turn into a rant on working mothers, because I can completely understand why mothers work, both out of necessity and choice. At this time in my life, and in Eliza's life, it is just not the thing for me. I am grateful I have a choice. I am grateful for asking God for some illumination around my career situation and God gives me this great gift of a "perfect" job. Here is this beautiful cake, Meghan, would you like a bite? Umm, no... think I'll just go back to my salad. But I am going to the interview anyway. I feel I owe it to myself to really explore this and feel completely certain this is not something I want right now. There are a lot of cards stacked against me taking this particular position (loooooong commute, for one), but I am also open to hearing more about the positive potentials of returning to work.

Who knows, I may not be offered the job in the end, anyway. I am one of three finalists for the position, which is a nice wanking for me professionally (and as someone who doesn't get wanked professionally very often, I take my jollies where I can get them), and I just don't feel ready to throw in the towel quite yet. Just saying that I probably will.

Random lulz:

Know Thyself

Now that Eliza is older, I've been venturing out with her more and more into our suburban community, taking classes at the park district, attending a program at our library -- basically trying to get her exposed to being around other kids, since she's not in daycare and not yet old enough to attend preschool. As a white, middle-class, suburban, stay-at-home mother, I did what many other white, middle-class, suburban, stay-at-home mothers do and joined a moms' group. In part for the above, but also for my own sanity. We attended a few activities with the group before I realized that being a part of the group wasn't helping my sanity at all.

It was nothing against the friendly people I met. I just realized that even though I fit into a very stereotyped SAHM role, one facet of that lifestyle (the mommy groups) really didn't jibe with who I am. I'm an introverted person. I certainly enjoy hanging out with other people, but I prefer more intimate settings than the stress of trying to talk to a bunch of new people while trying to keep an out-of-control toddler from running into the road. It just wasn't the right situation for me in which to make new friends. Then I realized that, in many ways, I was also attempting to force myself into that stereotyped role. There was no reason to conform because other people claimed it would make me happy.

Eliza and I survived the winter, which initially intimidated me, having to keep my active girl more confined to our house. We had swimming classes and library storytime and many visits to the train table at Barnes & Noble to keep us busy, and with spring beginning to peep through our windows, a much wider world of activity opens up to us. (I should mention that I am always looking for free/super cheap activities for us to do -- there's plenty of indoor opportunities available if you're willing to cough up the dough.) And I'm happy. I know how I make friends and will allow those opportunities to unfold organically, rather than force them. I'm listening to my heart about this, and if there is one thing God wants to keeping beating over my head, it's that there are a million ways to live a life. Listen to your heart and live yours.