It’s freezing outside. It’s nothing that I haven’t experienced before, i mean, I grew up in the Chicagoland area, so freezing weather & snow are nothing new to me. For Louisiana, however, it is a completely different experience. The only weather that sucks more than 40F & raining, is 3XF & raining where every night and into the morning, it dips into the 20’s.
Louisiana cannot handle this weather. We are not setup for it. We do not have salt trucks & snow plows, so the result is that the state shuts down. The schools, the stores, the offices; everything.
I mentioned that my husband, after 3-4 weeks of non-stop 12-16 hour workdays (weekends too), decided mid-last-week to take a week of vacation this week to work on the house & unpack & get it setup. This was going to be great & super helpful! Sunday night we got the text that school would be closed.
I felt for him immediately. He had an agenda for the week, and instead, he was going to have to help with the boys as well as take work calls—because, they are in crisis mode for sure. He is likely to not get nearly as much done as he’d hoped, and will probably be re-entering work with new chaos that will tie him down to yet another 3-4 weeks of non-stop (weekend included) 12-16 hour days. This sucks for him, and it sucks for me & Rex & Leo too.
Don’t take any of this the wrong way. We both adore our boys and love them so much—they are our world. I’ve realized in the past couple months that it’s because we don’t have family around, and probably because covid is still a thing, that we reach our limits earlier than we would otherwise. I was talking to my sister-in-law the other day, that on weekends, it would be nice to just be able to pop over to mom & dad’s house. Not with the expectation that they would babysit, but just as a place to go and someone to hang out with for both ourselves as well as the boys. Not having that outlet makes weekends long. Not having that outlet during severe weather & covid makes weeks when school is out, and thus no break for any of us, long.
I’ve noticed it even in Rex that he does a lot better when he gets small breaks from Leo. He, too and maybe especially, needs his “me-time” away from the all consuming baby/toddler who antagonizes and threatens to bite. Now that I’ve recognized this, i try to give it to him as needed, if not more. But come on! I thought that’s why people had more than one kid, so that they could entertain each other—ha! They need breaks too.
This week has been rough and I have been completely torn. Today, i finally got my first real-world assignment! My partner, Nick, wanted to get on a call right away, but i was in the midst of giving Keith a break as he too needed to make some work calls (and he needed a break—he is on vacation after all and needs to be able to relax or break at least a little). I tried to explain it, and he was understanding.
I was able to get on the call about thirty minutes later for about an hour—when i could hear the kids trying to kill each other again. My first real task came during a severe winter storm, and so while all i really wanted to do was stay on the call and make a plan and even watch Nick develop some of the components for this task, i had to end it short to break everyone up again.
I took it from there—the kids I mean—but it wasn’t without—i can’t say resentment, because i in no way resent my children—just…frustration. That same unanticipated frustration of life, except that these days, it has become anticipated because it is recurring, and when you need to work, it is stressful. I remember this feeling from shortly after this time last year-when i was up north for the init of covid.
On calls with babies scream—-no not screaming even just—singing the abc’s at the top of their lungs and then transitioning to the wheels on the bus. They are doing truly amazing things, and we find ourselves trying to block it all out so that we can focus on the task at hand. I’m not saying we should be focused on them, I mean we can only listen to the abc’s so many times, and the truth is that we do need to focus on work at times, but sometimes that balance gets really hard to handle.
I think it was about two years ago and while Keith & I still worked together when Baby Rex got a fever and had to be picked up from school early. Not a big deal. I had one more meeting for the day that I (*ahem, got approval to) do on skype. I called in and kept myself muted the majority of the time except when I needed to speak.
In one of those moments, Rex wanted to tell me something in his non-English-yet language of speaking. It without a doubt went over the speaker, and so acting embarrassed but not really actually embarrassed, I apologized to the group for the distraction and may have excused myself from the meeting. Keith came home later that afternoon (he’d been in person for this meeting), and told me that after the call, the highest level in that meeting approached him, and told him that it was so refreshing to hear a baby ‘speaking’ on that call.
In those days, it was uncommon. I bet no one is claiming that today.
Shortly after that when I’d first gotten up to my parents house for the init of covid, my dad was giving lectures everyday at 10am. My mom & I would keep the boys occupied during this time—and sometimes just her if I had a meeting too. One day though, Rex snuck away. Just after I’d noticed and asked where he was, i heard him say “hi Bobby” and in a panic, springing down the stairs to hear my dad introduce him to the several hundreds of people socketed into his call. Still, I guiltily ran in to grab him out of there, but my dad handled it well, and I could actually pretty quickly recognize some value in that mishap.
That was the beginning of the stay-at-home request. I’m sure any parent on that call may have felt some relief or at least relation to “Bobby” in that moment in that “Oh, Bobby has these ‘real-life’ things going on too”. It was the value of—relativity?
Anyway, this post hasn’t really been very organized as I kind of changed its path about midway, but today I’m writing once again that I’m frustrated. I just want to be a good mother & do my work—why can’t I do both?!
I love my kids. They are my world, and I would suffocate without them in it, so how is it possible to feel the level of frustration and angst that I sometimes have? I expect too much from them at times, and they do an amazing job to meet these expectations to their capability. They really do, and i sometimes fear that they will be mad at me one day for not spending more time with them during these major weather events or for showing my frustration at all—i try so hard to hide it from them and to give them only good.
Ironically, what I’ve found to be the only way through it is to give into them—your kids i mean. Give them your 100% and put the rest on hold. Amazing things & moments happen when you can give this to them—and to yourself. But if you can’t, and trust me, I realize that it’s not always possible to stop working, then accept the added stress and even if it takes everything you’ve got left, try to give them the best of you.
When I was pregnant with Leo, my husband said something that has stuck with me: “this is the most important thing you will ever do with your life”. I believe that ‘s true. While i hated being pregnant, raising my children is *the most productive & important thing that I will do in my life. It’s so easy to get frustrated with all that they take, but in the end, my children will be my biggest footprint on the world—and that footprint is compounding.