Tag Archives: lawyer mommy

Day Care is a Cesspool of Germs and Viruses Part II

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The past two weeks have not been pretty.

First, Punkie got a cold from day care.  Then I got the cold.  Then my husband got the cold.  We were a collective mess.  Then Punkie and my husband got better, and I got so much worse.  Mine became a sinus infection and ear infection.  I was a singular disaster.

Three visits to the doctor later, I have started and stopped different antibiotics, my hearing has come and gone at regular intervals, and am just now starting to feel better.  I’m way behind on my work and my co-workers think I’m moonlighting as a germ incubator.

Also, we’ve blown through the entire stash of emergency frozen milk because I was on an antibiotic that was not safe for breastfeeding.  I have so much more room in the freezer and a billion extra bottles now, but no emergency cushion.  I wonder if we’ll need a cushion anymore – Punkie is 8 1/2 months old and I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be able to keep up with pumping and breastfeeding.  When we made it to 6 months, I told myself I would shoot for 9 months and then re-evaluate.

This is eerily similar to last month, when Punkie came home with a cold from day care and then I got a sinus infection.  If we keep this pattern going, we’re going to have a really tough rest of the year!

Finger Food

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Punkie is officially a finger food kind of guy now.  We had practiced at home over the past week and he was doing pretty well getting the food from his tray into his mouth, although the pincer grip is still a challenge.  Mainly, he puts a food item into his hand, grips it with his fist, and then mashes it into his mouth.  It’s insanely cute.  And he works very hard when he’s eating his finger food – his little forehead crinkles and he sucks in his bottom lip as he picks up the food.

I thought I would give him some more time to practice at home before sending finger food to day care.  He’s 8 months old and our pediatrician advised that, if we increase his solid food too much, he might not get as much milk and it’s too soon to cut down on the milk.  In fact, my husband and I disagreed about this for the past several days – he thought I should send finger food to day care and I wanted to wait a few more weeks.  Why rush him, I thought.

But Punkie had become a food scrounger.  He was waiting for the older babies at day care to start eating their solid food and then he’d crawl over and eat the food they dropped.  When the teacher in his room told me this yesterday, it broke my heart.  The poor little punk is so excited about eating solid food, he’s willing to sit under chairs and take what falls.  She said they had to put him in the exer-saucer to keep him from crawling over to scrounge for food, and he would cry.

So I sent some finger food to day care today – bananas.  I stopped by to visit him this morning (I was hoping to catch him napping – the teachers keep swaddling him and I don’t want him swaddled anymore) and found him in a high chair (next to a couple of other babies in high chairs), wiggling and grunting with happiness, and shoving chunks of banana into his mouth.  He was so happy.

I really didn’t expect the peer pressure to begin this early.  He can’t even talk yet, but he wants the same Cheerios or whatever else the other babies get.

My heart gushed when I saw him so happy.  And my brain reminded me that I now have to produce a care package of finger food every morning.

Helmet Head?

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redacted ouchiePunkie is going to need a helmet.  Now that he’s crawling and pulling himself up on tables and whatever else is nearby, he is banging his head continuously.  He’s top-heavy too, so it seems like a foregone conclusion that he’ll careen around the house head-first for a while.

As a child of the 70s and 80s, I’ve done my fair share of scoffing at the bike helmet law and what seems to be a general desire to wrap kids in bubble wrap.  I totally get it now.

Here’s a photo of his first injury.  It scared the stuffing out of my husband and me.  We think he was trying to reach up to grab the curtain to pull himself up and missed.  Instead, he slammed his forehead into the wall.

He let me put some ice on it for a while and there is just a small mark now.

I hate to break the news to him, but the wall might be the least of his worries.  I installed that curtain rod myself and I’m not entirely convinced it will survive Punkie’s toddlerhood.

Diaper Changing in Public

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redacted pubMy husband and I took Punkie to a restaurant yesterday.  It’s a pub with a restaurant area.  I changed Punkie’s diaper in the restaurant because there was no changing table in either restroom and neither had a place to put a child for a diaper change except for the floor.  I wasn’t feeling great about changing a diaper in a restaurant because I know diapers are gross, but my husband and I felt like we didn’t have another option.

Today, I viewed this video from CNN.com about a woman who brought her three young children to a pizza joint and was promptly kicked out for changing a diaper in the restaurant.  She took her baby into the ladies’ room and there was no changing table or any other place where one could put a child down to change a diaper.  So, rather than putting her kid on the floor or packing her three kids back up and dragging them out to the car, she changed the diaper quietly and quickly on a chair in the restaurant.  The restaurant kicked her out.

http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/bestoftv/2014/08/11/dnt-tx-restaurant-kicks-out-mom-for-diaper-change.khou&hpt=hp_t2&from_homepage=yes&video_referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnn.com%2F

Wow.  I’ve only had a kid for 8 months and maybe I just never noticed before, but I watch the news and society seems pretty intolerant of moms in public.  I don’t accept a world where we expect moms to sit at home until their kids are 18.

If the dumpy little pizza place does not clearly and conspicuously notify customers that children are not welcome and it does not offer any place to change a diaper, then diapers will be changed in the restaurant.

Also, it seemed like they kicked her out just to punish her – the diaper was already changed at that point.  Here’s an idea: maybe the employees could have had some compassion and suggested some other place for her to change a diaper, like in the office or another area not used for food prep.

To kick a woman and her three small children out for a discreet diaper change is a whole level of assholedom that I can’t believe we all tolerate.

Don’t tolerate how these people treated this mom.  Don’t tolerate malls who proudly display signage of women baring their breasts for commercialism, but who treat breastfeeding mothers like felons (worse than felons, actually, since neither the pizza joint nor a mall would kick someone out for being a felon).

I started to type “Moms should be tolerated in public,” but that’s so absurd to me.  Don’t you dare “tolerate” me.  I belong in public, same as you.

 

Spilled Milk

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Whomever coined the phrase about not crying over spilled* milk was an idiot.

And he obviously never pumped breast milk 3 to 4 times per day for 7 1/2 months.  I say “he” because I have to assume this particular idiot was a man.

I just spilled a lot of milk – all over my pants, all over my desk, all over the carpeting in my office.

Setting aside the fact that it stains so I’ll be branded with it all day and my floor will never look quite the same, that’s several ounces of milk that Punkie doesn’t get . . . even though I took 20 minutes of my work day to attach a milking machine to myself to get it.

DAMMIT.

*I’m too annoyed to look up whether “spilt” or “spilled” is correct.

Impressive

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pull upI’m impressed by how hard Punkie works to develop new skills.  This week, he learned how to pull himself up onto his knees.

The week before, he figured out how to put himself into a sitting position AND how to hold his own bottle

Only a short time before that, he taught himself to crawl.

I feel like he changes every day – that his progress is out of control fast.  We are just now putting up some baby gates around the house and lowering his crib mattress in case he figures out how to pull himself into a stand when I’m not there (he’s still pretty top-heavy).

I’m worried about how I’m going to keep him safe now that he can pull things off the coffee table (onto his head) . . . and I’m extremely proud of him.  He’s such an adorable work-a-holic.

Sandwich Generation?

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This week, my mother had surgery.  The surgery itself went well, but the hospital stay has been difficult all around.  I also had a deadline over this weekend and had to work at the office quite a bit.

The most disappointing thing from my standpoint is that I saw Punkie very little this weekend.  On Saturday and Sunday both, I woke up early, went to work, went to the hospital, and ran home to nurse Punkie and put him immediately to bed.  My long-suffering husband had 99% of the responsibility this weekend for caring for the kid.  And he did a wonderful job, but I felt sad, disappointed, and guilty for not spending time with Punkie this weekend – weekends are our quality time.

But the hospital stay has been difficult.  Considering that I didn’t have Punkie until I was 40, his grandparents are older.  The stress of watching out for my mother at the hospital is wearing on my father.  I can see that he’s at his limit for stress and worry, and he’s hard on the hospital staff.  My mother is in pain – she’s not at her best and she’s also been difficult for the hospital staff.  During my visits to the hospital, I saw my sister for the first time since very shortly after Punkie was born and seeing her rekindled a lot of emotions I have around our relationship and the fact that she has shown zero interest in her only nephew, my son.

This experience has me wondering how things will evolve as my parents continue to age.  They’re not easy to help or care for to begin with, and last year they made the decision to move farther away from me and my husband (knowing that we were trying very hard to have Punkie).*

*They’ve said they want to be more involved with Punkie and watch him all day instead of sending him to daycare and, as a result, I’ve put a lot of thought into what it means to commute to their house each day.  Setting aside the fact that they won’t be able to keep up with him physically, I know I just can’t keep the schedule that would be needed to make that happen.  I would have to wake up early, care for Punkie, leave the house by 7:00, drive 40 minutes to their house, leave Punkie, drive 50 minutes to work, work a full day, leave work at 5:30-6, drive 50 minutes to their house, drive 40 minutes home.  The earliest I’d be home at night is 7:20 – I’d never have time to spend with Punkie and I would be even more exhausted.  If I had a deadline or a long day at work, I wouldn’t get home until even later.

If they needed care, we would have to care for them ourselves – I don’t think they can afford a nurse or caretaker (I know I cannot).  And that means I would have almost zero time with Punkie during the week.  If I were to go there after work, I’d leave work at 5:30 (if it’s a slow day, but I often have to leave work later), drive to their house and arrive at 6ish, and then I’d have to leave at 6:30 to be home in time to nurse Punkie.  I know they’ll expect me to keep this schedule at some point in the foreseeable future — this makes me feel (1) angry that they chose to move farther away from me, knowing they were aging and that they would have a grandchild soon, and (2) worried that I won’t be able to physically keep this schedule over time.

I would have to move them closer to me.  And that is a nightmare.  They wouldn’t do it willingly and they named my sister in their power of attorney, so I have no actual control or influence over them.  All I have is a pocket full of their expectations.

The alternative is that I disappoint them.  When push comes to shove, I wonder if I would choose Punkie over my parents.  And I wonder if I can do it all . . . I’m already exhausted.

 

First Swim

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SwimmingWe’re on vacation this week and Punky went swimming for the first time.  He liked it!

There was a small pool specifically designated for babies, but it was cold and very shallow with sharp points on the bottom.  He didn’t care too much for this pool because, apparently, sitting in my lap was boring 🙂

Punky preferred the indoor, heated pool where he could float in his baby floatie device.  I liked it because the indoor pool gave us a break from the sun.

He splashed and puzzled at his wrinkled fingers – he was so adorable as he processed this new experience.

Sibling Bias

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Punky is 7 months old and it is too early to start thinking about whether or not he’ll get a sibling.  I’m a sane person – I know this.  But it took us 2 years to get pregnant with Punky and I’m older now. It seems like  we have to think about this now, or, if we take our time and then decide we want another child, it just won’t be possible.

Would I be WILLING to do the early morning fertility doctor appointments and inject daily drugs for a year, while trying to work full time and take care of Punky?  The fertility doctor machine is a big commitment of time and mental focus, and I feel like I already don’t give enough of either to Punky.  I’m on vacation this week with family and I see the other examples – moms who stay at home and focus on their kids’ development and happiness.  Moms who work, but who are able to leave their kids with grandparents who focus on the kids’ development and happiness.  My kid, Punky, doesn’t have either of those things – he has day care and a mom who is exhausted.  At 7 months old, he’s started crying when I walk away from him.  I feel so much guilt for not devoting enough time to being with him because I feel like he needs more.

Would I be ABLE to raise two kids?  I know my limits and this might be one.  Let’s say I get past the daily early morning appointments and we are, by some miracle, able to have a second child – that’s less time devoted to Punky by a parent who is concerned for his development and happiness.  I know enough to be aware that daycare just isn’t the same.  The women at daycare are caring and conscientious, but they are not the same caregiver that a parent or grandparent would be.

Sometimes I’m angry at the universe, or God, or whomever decides the circumstances around our lives.  I wish Punky could stay with someone who loves him all day.  I see the bonds among the family where parent and grandparent caregivers are possible and I’m jealous.  My son deserves the best that life can offer.  He is smart and handsome and quick to smile, and he comes home from day care with sinus congestion, hand foot mouth disease, thrush, mystery scrapes, etc. and, sometimes, bleach stains on his clothes (day cares clean with bleach because they are cesspools of germs and disease).

A second kid would probably take away from what he has, which already doesn’t seem like enough.

And what if his sibling hates him?  My sister hates me – I don’t know why and it has been an enormous source of anxiety, pain, and frustration for me for the past 30 years.  I wouldn’t wish that on Punky, or anyone.  What if I take some of the time and focus I’ve reserved for Punky and devote it to another child, and then that other child replaces that time and focus with anger and bitterness?  I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.

A decision needs to be made.  Maybe next month.

Saying No

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I began my career at a conservative “biglaw” law firm.  The partners in our group were all older white men.  After working there for a while, it was clear that the partners did not want to invest training or any other resources into young female associates who might have kids and leave the firm, or who would go on maternity leave and, due to the gap in work, never make partner.

I felt a strong pressure to never say the word “baby” or say hello  to a staff member’s visiting baby, lest the partners conclude that I was a baby lover and not worth their time.

No, really.  I saw it happen.

Now, I work in-house for a company where most of my colleagues have families, and where I’ve never seen anyone criticized for having a family.

But my experience at the biglaw firm has stuck with me through the years.  In every way possible, I try to keep people at work from noticing or being reminded of my new mom status (aside from my physique, sadly).  That includes the days following a rough night with little sleep, or when I was a total stress monster because Punkie started day care.  I don’t even do this intentionally.

When I started getting pressure to go to the JP Morgan Corporate Challenge, I knew I didn’t want to participate because it starts at 7PM.  7PM is when I nurse Punkie in advance of his 8PM bedtime.

If I needed to be at a work function at 7PM for an important reason, like a customer meeting or something like that, I’d make it work.  But for the Corporate Challenge, I don’t feel it’s worth the sacrifice.  Besides, there will be plenty of opportunities to participate in mandatory fun.

The Corporate Challenge is a 3-mile run or walk and many businesses in town will form teams and participate.

I am not athletic.  I’ve never been athletic.  In fact, I am a plus sized girl who does not run, unless chased by a grizzly bear.  And let’s be honest – I’d probably be eaten pretty quickly if a grizzly bear were introduced into my ecosystem.  If, instead of a grizzly bear, it was one of those smaller black bears, I might weigh the risks against the unpleasantness of running and decide to just walk normal speed.

And if I were to walk or run a 3-mile course, I’d choose to huff and puff in private, without my co-workers watching.

So, again today, I was pressured to go to the Corporate Challenge.  Every biglaw lawyer instinct in my brain was yelling:

Don’t tell them you have to take care of a baby instead of going to mandatory fun!

I said the Corporate Challenge just isn’t my cup of tea.  The parry quickly came – you can walk instead of running.  I said I might be able to help set up or prepare, but I can’t participate in the run/walk.  The response was, aw, come on, it’s no fun unless you do the walk.

I really didn’t want to say out loud that I need to go home to breast feed my baby . . . although I knew it is 100% the choice I would make.

So . . . choking on my sense of horror, I said “I have to go home and take care of the baby.”  My heart sank – I’d probably go home tonight and update my resume.

And the response came:

Okay, but definitely next year.

Okay.