When do working moms blog?

I went back to work and fell off the face of the earth. Not just on this blog. Not just on Twitter. Not just in the many areas that have filled my time since BABY was born. Everywhere. To everyone. I went back to work and don't know how I am able to write this message. I am tired.

I returned to work after a wonderful year of maternity leave. I had an amazing, rewarding, special, unforgettable year off when BABY was born. I feel so luck to have been able to take that time for the little one. Given the current state of my bank account and credit rating, I knew that the fun was coming to an end. All things considered, I was excited about returning back to the working world.

To say that it is an adjustment is an understatement of severe portions. I am exhausted. I am stressed. I miss my daughter terribly. There's no better way to put it.

Knowing that my return was during a very busy time of year for my job, I was expecting some level of craziness. To be completely honest, I wasn't prepared for how different life would be as a working mom.

No one told me how crazy it would be! So, I compiled a list.

Top 10 things no one tells you about being a working mom:
1. "Priorities" and "Work-Life Balance" take on a new meaning and a regular place in your vocabulary.
2. You will feel guilty every minute that you are away from your kid.
3. Make-work and things that waste your time will be more frustrating than ever before.
4. You will do all that you can to get home in time to see the look of shear elation on your kid's face each night.
5. Your single coworkers will think you're a slacker for leaving work "early".
6. You will need to take many days off for doctor's appointments, sick days, tummy bugs, fevers - both you and the kid.
7. Your single coworkers will think you're a slacker for working at home.
8. Working at home is nearly impossible with a screaming one year old.
9. Between the high cost of daycare and other baby related expenses it will feel like you are working for free.
10. You will miss blogging.

Fellow moms at work now muse about the adjustments. All I can ask is where was this information before?

~ humps

Having A Child

"Making the decision to have a child -it's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body." -Elizabeth Stone

Happy Mother's Day. Hope that all of the mother's in your life had a great day.

And then she was ONE...

I woke up one morning and I had a one year old. I don't quite know how it all happened. I really didn't see it coming. I was still in the 8-month old stage. I was still in the baby cuddles, sleeping on my chest, holding my finger as tight as possible stage. I was still in the needing me for everything stage.

But now I have a one year old. I have a toddler. I have an independent, let me do it, try to catch me if you can, I need to figure it out one year old. My baby girl is not a baby anymore. She's a one year old...





~ humps

I Eat My Words

Despite what I said in this post, it is late at night on a Monday. And while BABY sleeps, I am putting together lootbags.... and paper flowers, and Martha Pom Poms, and centerpieces. I have more scrap paper and glue sticks and tissue paper and plastic coated wire and half inch wooden dowels on my kitchen table than I ever thought possible. If you would have told me that I would be doing all this for my daughter's first birthday, I would have shaken my head and said that was crazy talk.

But I'm sucker, with a need to please. The guilt of going back to work - next week! - just days before BABY turns one is conjuring up crafting skills that I didn't know existed.

More on my anxiety-ridden month - with second chances for her Dad, putting BABY in daycare, starting work and planning a first birthday - coming up soon.

And now, I must finish my crafts...

~ humps

Warm Front

When the weather in Toronto warms up a bit, there is a palpable excitement.

We are so used to hibernating during the months of Winter. Used to layering long johns and fleece and knit scarves and toques until we are covered from toe to head. Used to running to warm up the car, then running back to the house, then running back to a still cold car. Used to leaving for work when it's dark outside and coming back home when it's dark. When we see neighbors we commiserate about the shitty weather.

Then comes a warm front from the west. It seems to coincide with the longer days in Spring. We receive a combination of higher temperatures, and wait a minute, is that, sunshine!

People wake up out of the fog that is winter and step into the light. We flock to the light like moths. We are all hungry for it. We want the air to drift into our open car windows, to blow into our open jackets. Kids run outside with basketballs under their arms or sandboxes on their minds. Office workers take their lunches to park benches or cinder block planters. We congregate to the nearest patio, even if we have to still huddle together in this small tease of good weather. Mothers with strollers take long, leisurely walks.

BABY learned to crawl and walk over the winter. She perfected her abilities on the living room rug, the worn down pile of indoor playground carpet, on clinical tile and on hardwood.

Yesterday, after taking our own leisurely walk around the block, with our jackets open, I took her out of her stroller. We sat on the grass. The grass that was still cold and brown from last week's temperatures. She walked and stumbled. She reached for the grass and took baby sized handfuls out of the earth. She held it out to me. "Grass!" I said. "That is grass!" She nodded in understanding. She looked at me and wobbled in the other direction.

This is going to be a great summer.
~ humps

A Photo Retrospective

Tomorrow my little baby will be 11 months old. I can’t believe that time has flown so fast. Very soon she will be a 1 year. Very soon she won’t be my little baby. And, if you have read a few of my posts you will know that I am very sentimental about my little muffin, monkey, pumpkin, sugar face growing so quickly.

Words can’t do it justice.

So instead, here are some never blogged before pictures of the little one over the last 11 months. It's rare for me to post pictures so this is a special treat. And tell me, wouldn't you want her to stay little like I do?!

~ humps

I Cheered

I wasn't paying attention. My head was down washing dishes while Baby played with her toys in the living room. I looked up periodically to make sure that she was ok. That she wasn't climbing furniture, or eating books, or getting into trouble. That she was safe.

When I rounded the corner she was standing up, holding onto the couch and facing me. She's been cruising for months so it wasn't too unusual. Finding interesting ways to make it across the room, holding on to various edges at varying heights. But this time she let go. And took two confident and exaggerated steps to the side. Without holding on.

I froze. "Am I seeing what I think I'm seeing? Is she? Is she walking?!!"

It took some time for the wires that connect my eyes with my brain to signal that I was in fact watching a fairly significant milestone. I was watching her take her very first steps at 10 months. It took even more time for my brain to tell the rest of my body exactly what I needed to do about it. Should I get the camera?

And like that my knees gave out. I feel to the floor and did what any excited-first-time-mother watching-her-little-baby-take-a-first-step would do. I cheered. I hollered. I waved my hands. I'm not sure if I was actually saying anything in particular, like "Go! Go! Go!" or if it was random jibberish. But whatever it was scared the crap out of her. She fell down on her butt. She looked at me.

In hindsight, the cheering maybe wasn't the best way to handle the situation. I can put myself in her shoes and appreciate that learning how to walk is hard enough without someone screaming in your face. But I was so excited.

The next day, I wasn't sure if I really saw her first steps or if I imagined it. Then she did it again. I didn't say anything. The day after that she took more steps. She can now make it from the couch to the TV. She is demonstrating her walk abilities a lot. She is mastering this walking thing.

And in order to help her, I don't say anything. I don't fall to my knees. And I only cheer a tiny, tiny bit.

~ humps

Going, Going, Grey

It was a busy day. Waking up late after a night of crying baby. Rushing through breakfast, and that weird dance of getting self and child ready. Showers and toothpaste and onesies and baby lotion. Did I put on deodorant? We were already behind schedule. I was trying to calculate if I had enough gas to make it to the destination, or if I should stop. How much time would that add on? Did I have cash? Am I going to find parking? Snacks! I should make sure to pack some snack in the diaper bag. And more diapers. And refill the wipes container. Don't forget an extra change of clothes. I bundled BABY up in her snowsuit, then her stroller. She looked up at me, barely able to move, with her pink and brown winter hat falling over her eyes. Why did I bundle her up so much? We were only going to the elevator and underground parking garage. Naah, leave her. I should bring the stroller with me.

We got home hours later, after many miles, spilled pear slices, circles around the block for parking, and gas station fumes. I put off meeting a friend for dinner to buy some time for an afternoon nap - BABY not me - and a snack - me not BABY.

I went into the washroom convinced that I should just put on some lipgloss - because surely shiny lips will distract from my exhaustion. As I bent over the sink, I saw it. The light danced over it and like a mirror reflecting rays of sun it caught my eye. As plain as day. A grey hair.

What? Huh? Is that a...

It was a grey hair staring at me on the other end of the mirror. I wiped the top of my head at first, because I really didn't want to overreact about some fluff. Then I leaned into the mirror and isolated the curly strand that sat on top of my head. It was attached alright. It was just like the other hairs that lay around it. But this one was white. Very white. My first grey hair.

My mind immediately re-traced my steps today. Recognizing that (1) I was walking around with a grey hair all day today. When did this happen exactly? And (2) my daughter is giving me grey hairs.

My not one to blame others, but really, how else could this have happened. Clearly my mom lifestyle is sending a message to my body that says, "Pack it in! She's a mom. Game over!". I'm too freaking young to have grey hairs.

After a few emergency phone calls - gotta reach out to the life line on things like this - I pulled the grey hair out by the root. And so it begins....

~ humps

(Single) Mother

I could hardly form the words, when I first wrote about being a single mom on this blog. My fingers didn't want to type them. My mind didn't want to go there. I didn't want to say the words out loud. I felt defeated. I felt outed. I felt like a failure. I felt like a bad mother.

When I finally admitted to myself that I wasn't going to keep trying to make my relationship work, it took a while to fully accept what that meant to the other areas of my life… and yes how I was going to parent my daughter was one of them. Still getting used my new role as a “mother”, I wasn’t ready to take on the 100 pound weight of the “single mother” label. As weird as that may seem, I felt that “single mother” had so many connotations that I wasn’t ready to accept.

Last weekend, I went out for dinner and drinks with a group of eight women. All of us were virtually strangers. Few had met at previous events, some had exchanged emails and phone calls prior to that night. But none of us knew much more of one another than the few details that we posted on the Meetup.com group that we are part of. We are all single mothers.

As soon as I sat down at the table, my nervousness about meeting a group of new women disappeared. The conversation was easy. The laughter contagious. The sense of community palpable.

To the right of me was a mother still healing from the breakup of her marriage, just 6 months ago. Across the table was a mother of four – ages 8,7,6,5!! – who proclaimed that she would rather be single and happy, than married and miserable. Beside her, a mother who divorced her husband while pregnant with their first child. Sneaking in last, a mother of seven-month old twins, who at nearly 50 decided not to give up her dream of being a mother merely because she was single.

It made me realize that the tapestry of single motherhood, really is that, a tapestry. Made up of so many incredible women who are solo parenting, whether by choice or not, whether they were ready, or not. All of us incredible, powerful, and wonderful mothers.

It was just what I needed to experience. I feel like I am coming into my own as a new person, a new mother and a single mother. And it feels ok.

~ humps

Point of No Return

I call it the Point of No Return. The exact moment when a mother realizes that her boobs will never be the same again. And that moment for me was Friday, February 12th at 11:55 am.

After nursing BABY on Friday, I held her up. When I looked down to adjust my shirt, put the boob back to it's secure holding place, I noticed that there just wasn't as much there as before. Not the typically kind of post-nursing deflation. No. It was something else. I knew then and there - holding my daughter to one side and looking down at the boob at the other - that it was over.

There will be no more humps in "Humps and Baby Bumps". My precious lady lumps are no more. It was a sad, sad day.

With BABY now nine months old, I should have expected so much. I've been benefiting from extra delicious cleavage as a result of breastfeeding and hormones. Those kind of gifts, when not appreciated, don't last. The closest thing I received to someone noticing my boobs, was showing a slight rash to my single young doctor. And that just sucks.

I don't blame breastfeeding. In fact, I recently heard that it's not breastfeeding that causes "limp lumps" but hormones related to pregnancy. So whether you nurse or not, having a baby is enough to "impact your rack".

Even still, I would nurse all over again. It's better BABY uses them, because I'm certainly not.

~ humps

Valentine's Day

I'm a romantic. I love love. Although I don't have a romantic love in my life right now, I have a different, deep, I didn't know it was coming and would feel this way type of love. For my little baby girl. That's more than I need.

A couple of years ago, I stumbled across a poet named Shihan. I fell in love with these two videos of his pieces, performed on Def Poetry Jam. Years have passed. I have grown. I found these videos again. It means more now that it ever has. I wanted to share.

Enjoy:

Bugs Bunny

Somewhere between Christmas and now I lost the gummy smile of my little girl. I became used to looking at her one way. Eight months of her yawns, laughs, babbles, kisses, smiles that were soft and wet. Toothless. Her round plump lips. Her pink mouth.

But like all babies, her teeth were conspiring below the surface. They were building courage. They were getting ready.

She was showing all of the signs of a baby preparing for her first tooth - putting everything in her mouth, drooling. I waited for the more unpleasant signs of teething, like the crying, fever, redness on the checks. I monitored the pink tissue of her lower gums for indication that it might be coming. For swelling. I waited. I took pictures of her gummy smile, knowing that those days were limited.

Almost overnight, she sprouted her first tooth.

She woke up, smiled like she usually does, and there it was. Right in front of me. Instead of coming in on the bottom like I expected it would, like the parenting books said, it came in on top. The second, beside it to the right, was peaking out also. Her two front teeth. She looked like Bugs Bunny.

Is it silly to dedicate a post to a first tooth? Maybe. But for some reason, when she smiles at me, it's almost like a different baby. She doesn't look like a baby. She's growing up.

I know that somewhere between now and next Christmas we will go through a number of small milestones. Too small to blog about, or to write in her baby book. But all will add up to the incredible transformation of a little baby, to a little girl.

It's all conspiring below the surface.