Mommy in Training

Back to Life Continued

Re-reading my Back to Life post from almost a year ago brought back so many memories, and made me appreciate even more how far I've come - since then, since a year before that especially. There are a lot of themes there, a lot of Beginnings, and promises to elaborate on them in future posts - many of those Beginnings have evolved into full stories of their own, and the stories have developed, arced, and concluded in the year that has gone by.

Touching first on My Hilarious Son - I am tempted to rename the story My Heroic Son, as he has embraced the changes in our lives and flourished without much intervention from me into the loveliest little gentlman. He is a Scientist, an Inventor and A Man of Romance (his words!). His school is his second home and his teacher last year became his second Nana - "there's so much of her to cuddle" said Son, and that described her all encompassing personality just as much as her all encompassing embrace, the softest of places for Son to land after a particularly tumultuous departure from his former school.

He has a Best Friend, several Girlfriends, and generally leads the pack of boys in his class. Now in Year One, having grown so close to another little boy in his previous class has turned out to be a huge blessing, which was clear as they embraced on their first day back together after a long summer holiday apart.

My New Optimism was at the time a bud, and sadly it did not flourish but wilted away over the months following its appearance. The Transition Period in my career proved to linger on for months, as the Deferral of my Law Firm Job turned into a Termination of my offer to join. I found myself again lunching with recruiters and trying to sell myself, a process I'd grown incredibly weary of. There were no prospects, the market was flagging, and I felt set adrift with no destination or end in sight.

The Lovely Man became my lifeline - he fished me out of the stormy sea and reminded me every single day how beautiful life could be. Despite viewing this beauty through an increasingly blurry lens I was tremendously grateful for this daily reminder of how lucky I was - how lucky we all were. Son and Lovely Man became the best of friends straightaway, and again Son demonstrated his resilience and maturity in his easy acceptance of the new member of our household.

And the food, the wonderful music, the strong arms to embrace me when the floor dropped out from under me again and again - Lovely Man painted our lives in vivid colour, strengthened the foundation under our feet and set our course toward Someplace Wonderful.

You may remember a post about Buddhism for Mothers - turns out living in the present moment was a skill I would need to perfect in order to truly appreciate the path my life had taken. The Transition in my career was actually the Destination. I left behind sole proprietorship and incorporated my own company, a step that was less a real life change than a psychological shift. I embraced the flexibility that my work life had given me, particularly compared with what life at a Law Firm was like.

These were Building Blocks of something beautiful, but I was still living life as if underwater, viewing beauty in blurred images, failing to feel the tremendous happiness that I could nonetheless perceive was all around me. My Heroic Son was settled and growing into a Strong Young Man, The Lovely Man was becoming even more a cornerstone holding up our arc of triumph over early doubt, my wonderful mother was darting from room to room, making house into home and providing the strong backbone in our family that I'd grown to rely on over the years.

But something was missing. I had Building Blocks, but they lay at my feet with no form or function. What I needed was to become my own architect, to pick them up and place them one on top of the other so that I could rebuild my life. I just didn't have the strength or the vision or the mental space to make it happen.

Following on an absolutely perfect holiday to France, I fell into a deep depression that left me emotionally crippled and overwhelmed. Finally I admitted that I needed help, and started taking antidepressants.

After a few weeks of intense physical side effects I woke up one morning to find that the cobwebs over my eyes had been wiped away - I saw colour in the world again, a vivid and varied range. I smiled, and felt happy. I was so grateful - and found the energy I needed to rebuild, finally.

What you'll find here from now is a narrative of The New Life - the new beginning, the wedding plans, the new home, the form and function of a life on the mend.

But before that, ladies and gentleman, we have a Supper Club to put on! Until next time...

 

 

 

Back to Life

As I am sure many of you could guess, the silence felt here speaks volumes about immense and overwhelming noise elsewhere in my life. Following on the last blog, Working From Home, enjoying Flexibility in my life, Exploring a bit of Freedom - all of these trends have happily continued, and as a result I've flourished. We've all flourished.

Ronan started at his new school, where fewer kids and more Adults in Charge have provided him a more manageable backdrop for his rambunctuous, creative, energetic and incredibly loving personality. I guarantee you that his experience of this new environment is enough to fill its own post - and I promise to deliver on that.

As for Mom - well, not long ago I found myself at another crossroads (one that I didn't recognise as such at the time, a feature that I have found to be endemic to these experiences) and again chose my personal life over my professional life (though luckily I didn't have to completely sacrifice one for the other, again a topic for a future post).

Here are the highlights - onthe Sunday before the Monday when I was meant to start The Law Firm Job at 9am sharp I had an epiphany, which had grown from a tiny seed of doubt planted just the day before at a Law Firm Event where I met Father, Mother, Children...Father, Mother Children, and engaged in conversation the gist of which involved "And what do you do?", "Oh, I look after little Oscar and Fifi" or "I'm an interior designer...of our home".

The epiphany was that my life hadn't yet reached the place in my mind and heart that I hoped it would, even with the expanse of space and time I'd had to think and repair and firm up my foundations. Don't get me wrong, I felt close - my relationship with Son was stronger than ever, I had started seeing the loveliest man I'd ever known, and I'd perfected the Art of Cooking Eggs (except for poaching...which proved a struggle harrowing enough to cause me to cast the cookery book across the kitchen floor).

But these were Beginnings - and please forive the continuing Capitalising For Emphasis - that had not yet become My Life. Each felt in its own nascent stage, strong in its foundations but not yet established, not yet able to tolerate the late nights at the office, the business trip absences, the periods of utter tumult that come with life in private practice.

Bottom line: I didn't want to begin a life that I knew would potentially trod upon my budding New Happiness. I didn't even want to take the chance.

So that night - the Sunday Night Before the 9am Monday Start - I sent two emails.

One to my current (almost former) boss to ask for my job back, and one to my current (almost new) boss to ask for (yet another) deferral.

I won't bore you with the details, but needless to say these messages lead to some awkward conversations and a very nerve-wracking lunch that eventually saw me back in my Home Office, back in The Transition Phase of my career - and feeling very much Back to Life.

I'll come back soon to explain more about My Hilarious Son, The Lovely Man, and My New Optimism, but in the meantime I wanted all of you to know that I'm still here, and I'm happier than ever (no additional emphasis needed).

The Two Sides of My Home Office

I’ve been working from home for three months now, and things have settled into something that slightly resembles a routine. It looks something like this:

Step one: Wake up. *Pain*

Step two: Play with Son. *Bliss*

Step three: Try to break away from playtime for shower. *Struggle*

Some days step four is shower, whilst on other days we return to step one.

Step five: Enter home office / Son’s room and begin working.

This step goes through many different phases. There’s the I’m-on-a-roll phase, then the I’m-hungry-and-need-a-snack phase, and, my personal favorite, the try-to-concentrate-whilst-Son-plays-nearby phase.

I love the last one and, lucky for me, years of multi-tasking have resulted in an ability to focus on tasks whilst the whole world continues on around me. So, often my home office (which doubles as such whilst also being the place I hope Son will soon want to call his very own room, and where his toys reside in the interim) often looks like this:

And this:

And sometimes even this:

Working at home from time to time has been a part of my life from the first evening after the first day back at work when my maternity leave came to an end. Being a finance lawyer means that I’m required to be available to clients at any time, day or night. It’s always been a balancing act, and this new phase of working from home is no different.

If I’m in the house, Son wants to be with me (and of course, I want to be with him too). But I also need to Get Things Done, which means trying to enforce some kind of boundary between Work and Home. It’s not easy, but the keys are establishing a routine, remaining flexible and remembering that both of these skills are far easier for me than for Son.

I make sure that I get at least four or five hours of uninterrupted time to work each day. This means arranging play dates and relying on my very reliable Mom to take Son to play centers, swimming pools, the playground, and other child-friendly places when he’s not in school during the afternoon.

The rest of the time, when Son is in the house and comes into The Office / His Room for a visit, I try to be patient and calm. This is clearly more difficult if I’ve got a pressing deadline, or I’m in the middle of a project or a thought. But most of the time it is a joy to see him and if there’s anyone in the world who deserves a few minutes of my attention, it’s him.

So I stop what I’m doing, share some kisses and cuddles, help him get to the next level of Spiderman on the iPad or build something with his Legos, then calmly remind him that Mommy is working and in order to finish so that I can join him and Nana for dinner I need to get back to what I’m doing.

It’s a tiny moment of heartbreak, but stacked up against all of the extra, lovely hours I get with Son now that I am working from home, it’s manageable.

And when you’re a working mom, manageable is as good as it gets.

R.I.P. The Dating Phase...

...but not because I am lost in a haze of loving bliss, ready to sail off into the sunset. Quite the opposite in fact - I'm in a speed boat heading back to the shore.

It's been over a year since the End of the Marriage. During that time I've gone through several phases - there was the bury-my-head-in-the-sand phase, the all-I-can-manage-is-mothering phase and the hang-on-a-minute-I-feel-nearly-normal phase, which was followed closely by the what-the-heck-let's-give-this-dating-malarkey-a-shot phase.

And it's been fun - I've met some lovely guys, and had a loads of fun experiences. I've also dealt with heartache and loss, and after several months and a handful of men only one of them is still a regular part of my life as a friend. When I do the sums it's clear to me that what I'm getting out of the time invested in romance is not yielding results positive enough to justify it.

Why? Well,I don't have a lot of time strictly to myself (I moan about this a lot, I know), so I'm already starting with a paltry figure. Dividing that up among a lot of ambitions - to learn to cook (another thing I keep going on about), to get through an entire New Yorker before the next one arrives, to move my body around in some fashion designed to make it stronger, to nurture old friendships and to enjoy new ones - and the result is too little time spent on things that truly matter to me.

Dating is just...well. It's time intensive, for one thing. More importantly, it's risky in the context of the still-nascent-process of repairing my self-esteem. And, worst of all, it's disingenuous - because while I am putting myself "out there" as someone who could, if the stars aligned, sustain a healthy relationship, in fact (as hard as this is to admit) this is unlikely to be the case.

It's just taken me some time to figure out that "nearly normal" is nowhere near "totally recovered" - that is, if "totally recovered" is even a location that exists on the map of post-marriage life.

It is confusing to me that other elements of post-marriage life have been infinitely easier to develop and manage - co-parenting, for example, is a breeze. The goal is simple - make sure Son is okay, and gets to see Mom and Dad in nearly equal measure - and it is a goal that is shared with equal dedication by both Mom and Dad. Son is not a pawn in some endless game of revenge, or a conduit to be used in waging a war carried over from the failure of a marriage. Son is a growing person and he needs stability, love and two parents - even if those parents don't live in the same house.

And it's difficult on some level to justify my struggles with re-partnering up when my Ex has seemed to have such an easy time of it, swiftly finding and comfortably melding with a lovely woman who is completely smitten with Son. We went through a similar experience when the Marriage came to an End - so why am I having more trouble Moving On?

The answer is - of course, and quite frustratingly - that there is no answer. No two people experience the same trauma in the same way, and the effects cause some to react to the idea of intimacy with terror, while for others it galvanises their resolve to move ahead. Add a bit of luck (or its opposite) to the mix and two people who have gone through the same life event can end up in completely different places a year or so down the road.

So where does this leave me? Well, clearly, still single but most certainly not alone. This blog has become a map for me of the road I am travelling - a map drawn with one eye on the road ahead and the other in the rear-view mirror. I look back to understand the best way to move forward. And, in taking stock of my Dating Phase, I am left with a sense that, for now, my efforts are better invested in continuing to heal.

Which means, gentlemen, that this lady is off of the market. For now.

Stay tuned as I report on my attempts to learn to cook (and try not to burn the house down), my efforts at managing the balance of work and motherhood, my determination to raise an educated gentleman whose use of the word poop diminishes slightly, and my musings on how I'm keeping my compass pointed toward what I hope is somewhere near Total Recovery. I can promise a pretty wild ride!

No easy answers, but we manage just the same

The parents among you will understand immediately, and most of the rest of you will as well - what any parent wants more than anything is to take care of their child in the best possible way, and to make them happy, two aims that do not always converge.

So sometimes this means making them eat their vegetables ("Because it will make me see in the dark?" "Yes, just like a superhero. Now eat your carrots.").  Sometimes it means forcing them to keep going to karate lessons because otherwise there is nowhere for all of that aggressive, testosterone-fueled energy to go ("So I only have to go until I get a black belt, right?" "Yup, just until then." "What's a black belt?").

A lot of the time it's super easy - kids are simple creatures, uncorrupted by most of the faff that the rest of us worry about.  Most of the time my son just wants to play with me.  Sometimes he simply wants company whilst he's watching telly.  Other times he's angling for a new toy, or some candy ("I promise Mom, I'll eat all of my carrots if you give me just one." "Stop negotiating with me and just eat the carrots." "Okay, I promise I'll stop negotiating if you let me eat just half, just a little taste." *Ergh*)

But sometimes it's impossible.  Since The Split, there are heart-breakingly difficult moments when there are just too many people to look after - Dad wants to spend time with Son, Son wants to watch telly at Mom's, Mom wants to make Son and Dad happy so wishes she could clone Son and send one off with Dad and keep one at home for a cuddle on the couch.

Until we sort out quantum physics, clearly this is not possible.  So instead we all have to buck up and try to make the best of things.  This is easier for Mom and Dad than for Son, because Mom and Dad are (most of the time) adults.  We suppress emotions, we adjust expectations, we convince Son of the merits of his next steps.  Son just expresses - he cries.  Neighbours come out to see what all the fuss is about, then quickly duck back inside because the drama is familiar and private, even if it is played out on the street.  Mom's heart breaks and lower lip quivers.  Dad - well, I can only imagine how difficult this one is for Dad.

In the end, Son goes off with Dad, and Mom goes back inside, feeling like she's failed.  Not at one particular task, just generally in the quest to Take Care Of Child / Make Child Happy.  A few hours go by, and the doorbell rings, right on time.  Dad and Son stand before Mom, all smiles and sweaty from Son trying to pull leaves down from high branches on the way home, riding on Dad's shoulders.  There are kisses goodbye and baths to be had, routine works wonders to bring things back to normal.

During a rare quiet moment just after Storytime and Son turns to Mom.  "Mom, I didn't want to go to Dad's house."  "I know Son, but it makes Dad really happy that you did."  "I know Mom.  I like it when Dad is happy."

Mom's heart breaks.  When all's said and done, sometimes it's Son that's looking after us both.

My Social Life...and this time I mean it!

I posted a while back about how my son's social life had nearly fully eclipsed my own - what started out as a life in London made up of string of nights going to clubs to dance, bars to drink, and gigs to groove, devolved into breastfeeding clinics (I met my best mom-friend at one of those), post-natal yoga classes and, after a while, toddler birthday parties.

I have been very lucky - most of the parents to my son's little friends are very cool people with very real and vibrant lives.  They're film-makers and writers, lawyers and consultants, social workers and urban thinkers.  They're working hard to raise their kids, and working hard to build their lives in a meaningful way.  They inspire me.

I went through a difficult time - there was no room for a social life, even with my tried and true parent-friends that I respect and adore.  Some time passed and I rebuilt from the inside out. Then I began to crave company - a chat with someone who's favourite word wasn't "poop".

It started with baby steps - coffee with my mom-friends, drinks with pre-motherhood friends, an actual date here and there (*gasp*).

Then, on my birthday this year, my desire to unleash myself on the world reignited.  I felt the old light inside of me start to flicker and burn.  There around the table were 12 of my closest friends and I felt gratitude beyond imagining for their presence in my life.  There was food on the table that tasted better than anything I could remember eating in a long, long time.  Wine was flowing, conversation was lively, the room was filled with joy and a love of new experiences, flavours and ideas.

That night planted the seed.  Since then I've started casting my social net as wide as I can imagine.  I went to a supper club in someone's home for the first time, and relished their hospitality and the delectable cuisine.  I tried a new bar that has since become my local (even though it's not so local).  I went to comedy clubs, burlesque shows, opening nights at the theatre, gigs of new bands.  I re-opened the cornucopia of London culture, and I have not been left wanting.

The most exciting part of this rediscovery - this re-building of a social life - are the people I've met along the way, people I now get to call my friends.  These aren't parent friends or pre-motherhood friends.  These are new friends.  These are MY friends, affiliated with a new life that I am building for myself.  They are a gift.

You know who you are - thank you for opening up to me, sharing your life with me and becoming a part of this vibrant tapestry I am so grateful to call...my social life. 

(Re)adjustments

Life as a single mother working from home...that's what this blog will cover for the next few months.  I've covered the mother bit and the working from home bit, but I haven't really delved into the single bit.  Maybe you're relieved, and if that's the case stop reading now...

There are really great things about having a personal life again, time that belongs only to me.  I am learning to cook.  I am making great friends.  And I am trying to date.

It's weird.  I wasn't ready to date for several months after the split, as you can probably imagine.  Then suddenly I felt ready, but that wasn't it really - I was desperate to share my personal time with someone else.  I'd grown - *gasp* - lonely.  So I joined an internet dating site.

What a disaster that was.

Most of the guys who saw my profile were probably scared off by the "children living at home: one" statistic that I shared with the subscribing opposite sex.  Or who knows, maybe I've lost touch with which photos of me are attractive and which are atrocious.  In any event, the guy I did go out with (the ONE guy I saw as a result of joining this site) turned out to want exactly what I put myself out there as - a mother, or a potential mother to his kids.

By the fourth date he was already asking me if I wanted more kids.

By the sixth date he was asking me whether I wanted his kids!

There was no seventh date.

Next I met someone at a party.  I wasn't expecting to meet anyone as I was still in the process of getting rid of the Aspiring Daddy.  Party Guy was lovely, charming, handsome, and a single dad.  In a word - he was perfect.  We hit it off immediately and became that disgusting couple that couldn't keep our hands off of one another in a restaurant, or on a commuter train, or pretty much anywhere we were together.

Except that after a couple of months of near-heavenly-bliss the depth of his scars became clear.  The pain of his experience of a shattered marriage and punishing divorce had left him unable to accept that true commitment, a real lasting and loving relationship, could exist at all.

He became withdrawn, separating from me almost as quickly as he'd melded to me in the beginning.  It took a few weeks to end it completely because the bliss was so hard to let go of.  But eventually I did end it, and I know it was the right decision.  I haven't looked back.

The third man I took an interest in raised the bar for any future partner in terms of ambition and a true passion for a trade.  He is a cook - a Phenomenal Chef - and he wants to open his own restaurant soon.  I have no doubt that he will - and it will most certainly be a massive hit.  The problem is that he has no room in his life for anything but his ambition, ruling out any kind of romantic involvement.

I just wish he'd told me that before I kissed him - it turned out that Phenomenal Cook is also a Phenomenal Kisser (dare I admit that he's raised the bar in that category as well) - though admittedly he didn't get a chance to tell me because I kissed him in the kitchen on the first night I met him.  Cheeky girl.

I know I'll regret posting this one day when my son tracks down this blog, but one of the things I miss the most is sex.  Hot, wet, long, hard, intense, dirty, complete and total abandon sex.  On the plus side, though, I am definitely exercising more now...

In a word, dating is complicated as a single mom - so far I've dealt with the guy who's looking for a rent-a-womb, the scarred single dad, and the unavailable genius.  Each of them dealt with my having a son in slightly different ways, and it certainly affected the time we spent together - I'm only available when my son is with his dad, and I don't bring men back to my house even when my son isn't there because it feels too intimate, like opening a door too wide.

I've been chatted up at bars (now that's an adjustment - until recently I was still searching for my wedding ring with my pinky finger in some kind of weird exercise of muscle memory), and I can never tell if there's a right moment to drop the bomb.  

It's quite likely that the right moment doesn't exist because no matter when I do it, his reaction is probably already set in stone.  The guy will either be cool with it - which is great - or he won't, and that's the end of the conversation - which is fine.  But it's a hurdle, and much more of an agenda-setter (even if I don't mean it to be) than the age-old, relationship-defining "do you want kids one day" question.

It's just another adjustment in this new life I'm living.  On the bright side, dating still feels like the potential for fun - even if it's brought me mostly abject disappointment, heartache and annoyance so far - I'm an optimist and a social woman, and at times it's enough just to have an interesting conversation with someone new.

And who knows...I might even get laid.

(Remind me to delete this when my son sorts out the Internet...).

 

Sometimes we ask and the universe listens

Apologies for the long wait from my last post to this one.  Stay at home mums will understand immediately - it is an incredibly demanding job, and even with my mother in a state of constant motion, keeping the house tidy, playing a quick game of wrestling with Ronan, doing (yet another) load of laundry or cleaning the ever-filling sinkful of dishes, I've found it impossible to sit still long enough to write anything worth sending out into the world without nodding off.

But tonight, after several incredible strokes of luck and good fortune fell into my lap and finally became my new reality, I decided that the risk of nodding off is worth the reward of sharing my news with you.

You see, I've enjoyed every moment I've spent since I walked out of my law firm office job two weeks ago.  Time with Ronan - whether at bouncy castle...

 

...or on the swings...

 

...or playing angry pirates (and yes, the photo is blurry, but angry pirates DO NOT sit still)...

 
 
- has been incredibly precious.  This is at least in part because I get to correct some of the lenient mommy tendencies that had grown over time when all the time I had was not enough and all I really wanted was to make my son happy.  It didn't take many all-days spent together for me to realise that I had some work to do before Ronan would understand exactly where my boundaries are, and we all know (or at least those of us who have ever had toddlers know) that kids really need boundaries.  But that process is a topic for another day.

I've also been able to drop him at school, and pick him up (which was nearly a disaster on the first day because his teacher didn't know who I was and wouldn't have let me leave with him if he didn't act so convincingly like I was his heretofore absent mother).  I've arranged playdates, chatted with and managed to get to know some of his friends' mothers, worked on crafts projects (you should see our collection of pet rocks, which I highly recommend as they don't crap everywhere and don't require walking or feeding), played hide and seek, watched cartoons and made scones with my son. 

We've both been spending most of our time with our favourite person in the world, and it's felt incredible.

I've also had time to spend with my mother, going with her to the cinema, or out to dinner, or just staying home and chatting over wine after Ronan is in bed...moments that I know we've both cherished.

I've connected with old friends, made some new ones and even managed to read an entire New Yorker cover to cover in a single afternoon (rather than just glancing regretfully at the stack of still-wrapped-in-plastic copies stacked on the bookshelf).  The one thing I haven't managed to do?  Go to the gym.  And I don't give a damn.

The whole time there has been a single negative thought nagging at me in the back of my mind.

It will end.  Just a couple of weeks and then it's back to work, back to sometimes mom, back to no time for anything else but trying to be a working mother.  I realised that I didn't want to go back so soon, but I didn't know how NOT to go back to the life I've known ever since I left law school almost ten years ago.

And then it happened - and everything changed.

Sometime during my first full weekend after leaving my job the phone rang.  And I realised the potential in trusting my heart and following it, even into something that might be risky and offer less financial stability than what I had planned.

On the other end of the line was an opportunity - the ability to work from home on flexible hours doing work that I find intellectually stimulating and personally rewarding.  It would mean moving out of the fast lane for a while, maybe six months, maybe longer.  But I wasn't afraid, and I knew I what had to do.

I arranged to meet with the partner at my new law firm that hired me.  I dreaded the meeting, as he's been very supportive and encouraging throughout the process of interviewing and hiring me and I deeply regretted disappointing him with the news that I wouldn't be joining the firm at the end of my month off.  At the same time, I knew I was doing the right thing, and that knowledge gave me incredible strength and courage.

Anything could have happened - but what actually did transpire during that meeting gave me an even deeper belief in following my heart.  The partner said he supported my decision, and thought it was a very good idea.  He has three daughters at home, and he knows how time flies.  He would explain to the firm that I had decided to delay my start date with them, and encouraged me to keep in touch while away.

I can't describe the depth of my happiness upon leaving that meeting, nor can I explain just how high my heart soared the next morning when Ronan asked, "Mommy, are you going to work today?"

No sweetie.  Mommy's not going to work.

We get some time for us now.  And I'm looking forward to every moment.

Control

There are things we can control, and there are things we cannot.  It is such a basic idea, but figuring out what belongs in which category is tricky. 

I can't control the weather - that's an easy one - but I can control whether or not I bring an umbrella (which more often than not I completely forget to do, so I just get wet if it rains).  I can't control whether Ronan picks up the latest bug at nursery - which is incredibly frustrating and, when bouts of scarlet fever and chicken pox make a run through the place, very worrying - but I can control how I deal with it when he does (keep the Calpol to hand, along with extra doses of kisses and cuddles, plus the DVD remote control).

I will be the first to admit that I am a bit of a control freak - I like to plan things in advance so I can rest assured that they will actually happen, and I am a diligent list-maker.  It's funny, then, how little control I exert over my own self-worth and well-being compared to how much I put into the hands of other people - that is, how much it matters to me what other people think and do.

For example, I'll feel confident at work until I hear a critical word from my boss, at which point I'll feel completely deflated despite strong evidence that I am still very good at my job.  Or I'll let the fact that a certain someone hasn't called become a commentary on whether I am worth picking up the phone for, regardless of how many other lovely and wonderful people I have banging down my door.

I get so defensive on Ronan's behalf whenever he's in the midst of some playground squabble - if I could, I'd programme the rest of his life so that doors only opened and heads nodded 'yes' - but when it comes to standing in my own corner, to getting my own back, more often than not I think I let myself down.

So I've decided to make a promise to myself - I'm going to work harder at being protective of my well-being, a commitment I have no trouble living up to when it comes to my son.  I will exert more control over my self-worth by relying less on indications that I am a worthwhile person from people whose opinions and actions I have no control over.  Instead, I will rely on things I do have control over - working hard at my job, appreciating the friends I have rather than focusing on the one that got away - and let the rest slide off of me like water off a duck's back.

And while I may still end up wet when it rains, and I'll never be able to keep the nursery bugs at bay, hopefully I'll have more energy, and more confidence, to deal with the things I can control by letting go of the things I can't.

 

The Next Chapter in the Life of a Working Mother

I promised a couple of months ago to describe the "major changes" that will unfold in my working life this year, and now that the powers that be have been notified and my offer letter has been signed, I am happy to report that I'm changing firms - moving onward and upward and, hopefully, to a place where I can fulfill my potential in the world of private practice.

All of these grand statements amount to little more than a pile of boxes and a massive bag of recycling - for now.  (The proof below.)  There are only days remaining to complete this task - once I close my last deal on Monday, I'll be leaving this building where I've spent the last four and a half years for the last time.

 
  

This move is the culmination of months of interviews and discussions over cups of coffee and glasses of wine, during which period I negotiated the terms of this new position, trying to balance expressions of enthusiasm and commitment to hard work with requests for undertakings from "the firm" that I would be given some flexibility to manage my personal life (which is code for being a mom, since between working and motherhood there isn't really much life left for anything else!).

I was told that yes, this flexibility would be forthcoming, and of course the firm is committed to a work-life balance, which was the best I could hope for at that stage of the process.  It won't be until the rubber meets the road that either me or the firm management will have an opportunity to negotiate the elusive and ever-changing boundaries of "work-life balance."  A willingness on their part to try - without calling it "part-time" and giving me a percentage of a full salary and bonus for their trouble - gives them high marks in my view.

So I'll leave this topic for now and pick it back up in a month when I start my new job. 

That's right - I'm taking an entire month off of work between my old job and the new one.  A month to focus on being mom - to take advantage of the luxury of dropping my son off at school and being there to pick him up, to battle with the creeping boredom that comes after the upteenth game of "superheroes," to flex my creative muscles by coming up with ever more varied (and likely very messy) craft activities for us to explore...a month to experience a taste of the world of the stay-at-home mom before I jump back on the merry-go-round of working motherhood.

That said, something tells me that a certain almost-four-year-old little boy isn't going to let me get off of the merry-go-round this month!