Out For a Swim in the Sea of Responsibility

As I am drowning in stress I find myself wondering how I ended up with all of the parenting responsibilities. I am bipolar and require more sleep than most people and yet I am the one waking up twice a night to feed our 4 month old and the one waking up to get both kids ready, bottles made, teeth brushed, gear packed, and driving them to daycare before 9. My job comes with deadlines and launch calendars but I'm on full-time mommy duty when one of the kids gets sick (which is ALL the time this winter). And at the end of the day when the stress is piled the highest, when I am rushing to get to a stopping point, when 3:30 turns to 6 within a blink of an eye, that's when I get a gentle nudge "You're still here?". Then there's dinner to plan which has been fast and frozen food for as long as I can remember. As soon as I sit down the youngest is hungry or the oldest is finished and wants more. It is a rare evening I get to eat a hot meal. No time to rest because then it's bath, brush, and story time. After all is said and done I have accomplished little and slept less. Do I go straight to bed? What about "me" time? All day I've been a business owner, a programmer, and a mommy, when do I squeeze in being a wife?

I usually get the advice to "ask for help". Tell me, when you ask for help from someone does it ever actually help? In my case I get a "I guess" response which means he is willing to help but he isn't happy about it. Then, I spend the remainder of the time feeling guilt which isn't helpful at all. Just once I would like a little help without having to ask for it.

I know one day my husband will come across this blog and he will like 1) be angry that I am sharing this with the world and 2) be a little mystified why I didn't communicate this with him first. A few months ago when my youngest was born he would wake up after my morning feeding and watch both of them while I slept another 3 hours. I can't tell you how much rest you can get when you know both of your children are being taken care of and you don't have to watch the baby monitor or wonder when your oldest is going to come wake you up. I got more sleep in those 3 hours then any other time. I miss that. I miss the peace of mind. I miss the help. I need a life line.

A 2-Hour-Mom in Vegas

Two weeks ago I took a 6 day trip to Las Vegas on business. 6 days where my 3-year-old was left alone with his father. An awesome father, mind you, but a father. Which meant that I still had to do kid laundry before I left, lay out what lunches would be for the week, and make a list of breakfast and dinner foods the child would eat. And the very second that I returned, I was handed the child and told that I should consider myself lucky that they hadn't both gone feral. So 6 straight days of working sometimes 14-hour days, and I come home to a husband and kid who love me, but don't allow me any chance to recuperate!

The one fabulous thing about that trip was that, even though I still went to bed too late and had to get up too early, there was no chance of being awakened in the middle of the night with the sweet-but-still-middle-of-the-night sound of "Mommy!" coming from the other room.

So I got home at just about midnight on Thursday night, got up at 6:30 Friday morning to get the kid ready, make his lunch, and get him to daycare (thankfully, hubby took him to school)... and I must admit I went back to bed. And didn't wake up until 2pm!

Ah, working mother.

Baby Blues

Hello world, it's been awhile. It seems like everything gets put on hold while you have a baby. Actually, it feels like the world passes you by when you have a baby. It's even scarier when you work for yourself. There isn't a law that says I get my job back after maternity leave. I have to tell you that it was incredibly difficult going from a entrepreneur/programmer to a new full time mom in a week. All of the sudden I am needed 24/7 and am called to action at least every 3 hours. At first, babies don't do much and mothering is more about troubleshooting. Now that she is almost 4 months we are into the entertainment portion of development. This is where my patience runs out. This is where I cry for help and am thankful for daycare. Unfortunately, with daycare comes illness. She has already come home with a cold and now RSV and how on earth can you breastfeed and NOT get all of their illnesses? I have been sick more in the last two months than I have in the last two years. So much for going back to work. I can't get anything done!

Exhaustion: Now it's gone too far

Have you ever fallen asleep WHILE TELLING A STORY? Twice now, I have done this. Both times my story just took a weird turn and I started using weird words that didn't mesh with the theme.

It was dark and I was rocking the kiddo before bed. We had already read a book, so the next step is to turn out the lights and either sing a song or tell a story.

I was telling a story about Winnie the Pooh having friends over for dinner and they discovered they were out of honey. They decided that Tigger should go to the beehive to get more because Winnie the Pooh made the bees very mad last time. Somehow my story morphed into Tigger needing to be the CEO of the industrial operation in order to lead the team to greater efficiencies... and that is when I heard, "Mommy, WHAT are you TALKING about??" Jolted back awake, I asked him what I said and he said, "I don't know, but Tigger just needs to get the honey, okay, Mommy?"

Yes, moms are tired people. I admit it.

Here's to a great new year, and a full 2 hours of "momming"!

I found that as the year wore on and things got more hectic at work, I began to let work creep into my 2 hours with my son each evening. I had the laptop with me in the bathroom while he took a bath. I sometimes chatted on the phone with a colleague while making dinner. I hoped that he would let my husband put him to bed so I could get that extra 30 minutes to sit in front of the computer.

My New Year's Resolution is to stay strong during my 6-8pm time with my son. I will PLAY with him while he takes a bath. I will cherish the bedtime routine. I will let him help me cook dinner (when possible... he is only 3, after all). I will decline any work conversations during those two hours.

Now to tackle that weight loss resolution....

The 2-Hour-Mom Third Birthday

My child turned THREE today! I cannot believe that we have survived each other for three whole years. Lately, my work life has crept ever more into my 2 hours of mom-time and I desperately want it to stop. I find myself cooking dinner with my laptop in the kitchen so I can respond to the urgent requests - and even so I can respond to the not urgent requests just to keep up with all of the emails in general.

But my amusing 2-hour-mom story from last night was that my parents bought my son a Black and Decker toddler workbench with light up and noisemaking power tools. I had conference calls with Asia last night from 9 to 10:30, so I spent my evening with my trusty headset putting together my child's birthday present while conversing about metrics and post-mortem reports.

On the birthday morning, I had a 7:30am conference call and the birthday boy was just eating breakfast when the call started. Ever-disrespectful of my morning conference calls, he continued to beg me to play with him and talk to him throughout my call. Luckily the conference call participants were friendly and tolerant of my situation, but it was still not ideal.

To the folks who advocate that the World is Flat and globalization is upon us, I ask: at what cost?

Early morning and late night conference calls with large groups are generally ineffective. We are forced to multitask to keep up with the pace of our lives. But are global corporations too far gone to break the cycle? How can we adapt our lives so we actually see our families while maintaining the speed (and time zones) of business?

2-Hour Moms all working together

So myself and two other 2-Hour Moms are sitting in the workroom during an event chillin', relaxin', and working... and wining. Yes, wine-ing. A couple of us Skyped the kiddos today to tell them goodnight (we're on Pacific time and they're on Central time), so we got about 2 minutes of mom time today, but at least we got to share it with our friends in the workroom!

All of our bloggers have been so insanely busy since September that we haven't even had time to check in and blog about how crazy life has been!

Just want to end with a nice shout-out to my wonderful kid for being so awesome on 4 plane rides this past weekend and a wedding!!